CGC Home Video, a division of the Certified Guaranty Company, announced in 2023 that it would begin grading Betamax and VHS tapes.
Early last year, John Cox, had his factory sealed VHS copy graded by CGC:
Which led me to bring my ungraded factory sealed Beta copy over to John’s place to see if it was worth getting graded. Suffice it to say, this Houdini nut rolled the dice and sent it in to be graded.
After waiting 5 months, a box arrived at the house, and to my surprise, it received a 9.8 grade, which far exceeded my expectations.
CGC uses a 10 point-scale for home video, with 9.8 signifying “Near Mint/Mint” a virtually perfect copy.
Betamax tapes were produced in smaller quantities than VHS. And the 1991 home video release of Houdini came near the very end of the Betamax formats life, making factory-sealed Betamax copies, an extremely rare item, let alone one graded at 9.8.
Nice! One day everyone will envy our graded Houdini (1953) tapes!