Editor’s Note: As part of a paid partnership with Certified Collectibles Group, cllct is publishing a series of stories highlighting the company’s growth and future initiatives.
The goals and timeline for CGC Cards have been clear from the beginning.
The company planned to start fast with TCG, such as Pokémon, then use that as a foundation to layer on sports cards.
So far, that has gone according to plan.
CGC graded more than 2 million cards through the first six months of 2025, including more than 1.8 million TCG and non-sports cards, and has already eclipsed its total graded in all of 2024, according to GemRate.
There’s plenty more to accomplish, however, and CGC and its parent company, Certified Collectibles Group, believe the next step likely starts with international expansion.
CCG currently has offices in London, Munich, Dubai, Hong Kong and Shanghai that offer either limited onsite grading or can facilitate submissions to its headquarters in Sarasota, Florida. In some cases, CCG also conducts onsite grading.
CCG’s Munich office, which already grades banknotes full-time, stands to become arguably the company’s most important international hub in the coming weeks when it adds comic grading and full-time onsite card grading later this year.
“You just do the math … obviously the economic conditions and demographics are different, but I firmly believe that someday, within my career here at CCG, the international market will be bigger than the U.S. market for us in all cases,” CCG president Max Spiegel told cllct.
“Now, we have a long way to go before international passes the U.S. card market, but it’s going to happen someday. So we need to be present there and help facilitate that growth as well as participate in that growth.”
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The card market’s surge has been undeniable in 2025, with much of it driven by interest in Pokémon. In addition to rising prices on the secondary market for singles and sealed products, Pokémon, other TCGs and non-sports cards outpaced grading submissions in the first half of 2025, according to GemRate.
Card Ladder’s Pokémon Index, which attempts to capture the overall health of that market, is up nearly 92% year-over-year and nearly 77% in 2025.
Soccer has also seen a resurgence in 2025 after playing a massive role in the card market’s boom during the COVID-19 pandemic. Card Ladder’s Soccer Index is up 200% year-over-year and 204% in 2025.
Both soccer and Pokémon have been key categories for European collectors, and Spiegel believes it’s critical for CGC Cards to serve those communities from their own backyard.
“That’s really how CCG has grown from a small coin company doing 1,000 coins a week in 1987 to doing almost 15 million collectibles this year,” Spiegel said. “It’s really just making it easier for customers by being in more places, serving more categories. It sounds simple, but there’s obviously a lot of heavy lifting that goes on behind the scenes.”
Expanding any business is never easy, but CCG has learned many of the tactics by growing its other international offices. Because CCG already has a presence in Germany, the financial investment won’t be as large as what the company might require when entering an entirely new market.
Remaining in lockstep with international offices can be challenging, however, with Spiegel and other members of the leadership team working closely on issues both large and small on a daily basis.
“I think running a grading service is a series of fire drills,” CCG CEO Steve Eichenbaum said. “Every day there’s a different fire you have to put out, somewhere in the world or within any of the verticals. There’s not just one thing. These are very complicated businesses with landmines everywhere, and we have just gotten pretty adept at navigating them.”
For CCG, hiring locally has been a key to international success, and having a strong pool of potential employees plays a major part in where offices are eventually opened. A growing number of submissions or local trade shows in a specific region not only indicate the required infrastructure might be present, but there’s also potentially a strong foundation for the category expertise required for grading.
To get Munich started with trading card grading, CGC Cards has incentivized employees from the United States to move and train local hires. To keep grading standards uniform, CCG regularly shares resources between offices and even has graders visit other locations to ensure they are aligned.
“Like in anything that we do, talent is the most important thing,” Spiegel said. “The person or people, whether it’s launching a new category, expanding to a new region, or expanding our service within the region, it’s all predicated on having the right person or people to lead that initiative.”
The hope for CCG is that expanding trading card grading in Munich, and every other category in any region in the future, will accelerate the velocity of submissions. Grading locally creates faster turnaround times for those customers, which in turn potentially creates more interest and more submissions to scale the market.
CCG is careful about setting goals — especially unrealistic ones — but Spiegel and the leadership team do have high-level hopes globally. The company would like to expand into Canada and Japan and potentially add full-time card grading to its Hong Kong office soon.
There are financial goals, too. Spiegel hopes CGC Cards can be the top authenticator for TCG and Pokémon cards within five years and sports cards in 10 years. Turning a profit sooner rather than later is always good, but CCG believes that will come if the company chases improving the customer experience first.
“I want to see us signing up customers, I want to see us getting more submissions month after month, and I’m not going to hold anybody to a specific number,” Spiegel said.
“If we can have a presence there that makes it a better customer experience, we know we’re doing the right thing.”
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture. He was previously the Collectibles Editor at Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on X and Instagram @benmburrows.
