Grading Fees New Era?
phelda
Posts: 207 ✭✭✭
PSA has experienced tremendous growth and is grading cards at a record pace, perhaps not record speed, but that's another discussion. Much talk has revolved around the lack of specials, the prospect of new bulk pricing and what that means to all interested parties. I have submitted a decent amount of cards, although none in the past year. My volume has gone down from thousands of cards per year to only the 15 on the annual membership. Now, I don't grade big-ticket items, most are under $100 value per card, occasionally some in the $100-$500 range. I have always believed that the days of $5-$6 specials wouldn't last, but it was a nice occasional treat. My curiosity leads me to consider the following: If the new bulk pricing is around $10 per card, will the set registry take a beating for modern and lower value cards not worth submitting at the new price levels? Second, will this niche of player-collectors and modern bulk be dominated exclusively by those big submitter that get massive bulk deals. Third: Will the type and value of graded cards in the future be reserved to cards that are "worth" grading, in other words will it be increasingly difficult to find low dollar, cheap or modern cards. Fourth: will the spread between raw and graded change due to the cost of grading for low dollar "junk". For example a 2018 Topps Heritage base card of Mike Trout is 99cents raw, but sells for $28 in a PSA 10. At $6 it was completely worth it to submit thousands of 50cent-99cent cards and flip for $20-$50, this is what I did for years. But at $10ish a card, and getting some 9's and 8's, the model doesn't seem profitable.
For the submitter(s) of over 300,000 Pokemon cards late last year and early this year, I speculate that he/she/they got a very nice bulk discount. The submission form itself indicates that PSA will offer "special pricing" for substantial orders. I have not inquired what quantity is required for this special pricing. Is it case-by-case for each customer. Is it 500 cards, 1000, 10,000?
Comments
To get special pricing as low as 500 cards requires a monthly commitment at that level. I'm not sure what the cutoff is for a one-off 'substantial' order.
They use to offer a decent discount if you sent in 1000 or more. The last few times i have tried to get a discount for sending in over 2000 cards i was told the bulk rate was the best they could do. I do think there will be people that slow or stop adding to registry sets. I have slowed myself ever since they won't provide any better discounts to normal customers. as you said, $7 a card for a card under $1 makes one start to ask would i rather have 7 more $1 cards for my player set or not? i may go back to what i did when i first joined, that was to mainly submit high valued cards only. but for me now most of those have been graded from the personal collection. my Favre master set is my main collecting focus. the set registry doesn't show much love to those large player master sets anyway so why should i keep giving them my cash at the same level for less plastic slabbed cards?
Collecting:
Brett Favre Master Set
Favre Ticket Stubs
Favre TD Reciever Autos
Football HOF Player/etc. Auto Set
Football HOF Rc's
I understand that right now, they are struggling to keep up with demand, so it makes sense from a business perspective for them to keep fees at or higher. If they dropped down to previous specials (I even remember a $4.50 special) it would only cause additional lag. They don't need to drop prices, if at $7 and higher they are swamped, at $5.50-$6.50 they would be crushed. So perhaps the sweet spot is $8 or higher for them? I didn't exclusively grade "cheap" stuff, but it was helpful for set building and player collections. Someone in another thread had a tremendous idea for a bulk price for same set. PSA should consider this. For example 1984 Topps is one of my all-time favorite sets, its cheap, some PSA 10's go for decent money, but most are not worth the grading fees. If I gave them 200-300 1984 Topps Baseball cards, I have to think it would be an easy order to process. Obviously PSA standpoint is that all cards receive the same time and attention and scrutiny when graded (perhaps?), but as far as labeling, efficiency, and the grader being "in the zone" when grading all the same set, there must be some cost-savings that can be passed on. But then I guess they would need to decide what years, sports etc. would qualify for this set discount.
+1, loved that idea too. Not sure how something similar could work for player sets though, most of those are all over the map covering every different release over 2 decades (or way more for the Misc Sports).
Since 1956-present has not been included on a monthly special since September 2016, I'm certain a lot of us have a heck of a backlog pile of cards to submit, waiting for a lower price. Not too long ago, I had sent an inquiry requesting how many it would take in a single sub to get it down to at or near 4SC pricing. I offered a sub size of 10,000 as an example, feeling pretty confident we could find enough people on the boards here to contribute with a minimum of 500 cards each (or more) and put together a hefty group sub without any difficulty, if the price were good enough. They still haven't replied to that inquiry.
It only makes sense to me that if they have the potential business volume to be absolutely swamped with a price of $5.50, they should be jumping at the chance to hit that price point and at the same time hire a couple more graders and whatever other support they needed to keep processing going at a reasonable turnaround time rate. I am definitely willing to bet that the large increase in service volume would much much more than cover any overhead costs of operation for PSA. Shouldn't be too hard to hire graders; maybe start by trying to poach some from SGC & BGS.
At my job when we are busy we run 3 shifts 24 hours a day. I don't see why PSA can't do the same.
Not only all the issues you guys have written about but $7 to simply reholder a card???? You are not paying a grader to look at the card, critique the card, or nitpick the card. That is simply excessive IMHO. There are a lot of people who do not take good enough care of the slabs they have in their possession which inevitably seem to end up in my collection
and all the others that accidentally get dropped, nicked, chipped, etc.....
Is there a plastic tariff I don't know about ?
The vast majority of submissions now are modern cards and non sports. I would guess that vintage cards comprise a small percentage of incoming submissions at this point.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
Maybe it's time to move the cut off line from 1956 to something like 1970. Or maybe 1979 if most submissions are modern?
The Doomsday Collection
Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor | All-Time Dallas Cowboys | Bob Lilly Master | Pro Football HOF Dallas Cowboys
IMHO modern cards should have a higher rate as this is what is clogging up the system. People who submit thousands of 50 cent cards at a time. Personally I have not submitted any cards this year due to poor customer service not so much cost as I have a 15 card renewal I haven't used.
You fully believe his price isn't increasing? He is the reason for the backlog most likely as he ramped up the production of raw cards from box opens due to the registry for low pops. I would find it sickening if we have to pay for his capitalizing of the market. I hope this means he has to slow down his production also, but who knows.
They absolutely look at the cards sent in for reholder. I've had them find compromised slabs and cards that they wanted to regrade on my reholder subs so they're not just popping and reholdering blindly. In fact, I've used the reholder process just for those reasons when I've received a card from a seller that I think might have had some funny business done to it.
Arthur
Perhaps a different slab and service for Gaming cards like Pokemon, Magic the Gathering, Yu-Gi-O? Almost a separate company division? Who knows? If they can get the higher price point without any slow down in submissions, I guess its good for them, bad for us. I certainly don't think 4SC or any of the heavy hitters have slowed the level of submissions. PSA has addressed this in SMR and they say it is mostly due to the huge submission of Pokemon cards, over 300,000+ in the last 12 calendar months alone. The last several issues have had a major feature of this stuff. Magic the Gathering has also been heavily submitted. I think its cool that are hobbyists/ collectors / sellers of this stuff are using the service. As many of these game cards are in the thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars, they should be authenticated. Maybe they already have separate graders working on these and not the regular sports issues, I have no idea. My only concern is the slow turn around times and the price point. I can't/won't tell them how to run the operation, I just hope for improvement.
So let me ask everyone this question. Let's say I want to submit some cards for review or crossover. With the new pricing, does that mean I'll have to come up with 50 cards to get to the first tier level of bulk discount pricing at $8 dollars a card? I'm going to have a hard time finding that many to send in. I am certainly not going to pay $20 dollars a card for a review order.
I'm OK with the current pricing structure with reaching the first tier of $10 dollars each for 10 cards or higher. I assume this is going away?
Patrick
Regardless of pricing tier, you can always combine crossover cards and raw cards for grading when totaling up to a minimum quantity threshold. However, you'll have to pay for separate return shipping fees for each respective category portion of that single order.
Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate it.
Patrick
I got the email today from PSA and the bulk service pricing is rising to 50 card minimum $10 and 100 card minimum $8 with no 10 card minimum offered.
I don’t see this as a big deal. Maybe already-graded cards will now see a bump in price and it’ll end up making the same economic sense to submit cards. Or maybe people will stop submitting so many cards and they’ll do more specials. It’s not the first price increase. The hobby/business will figure it out.
Say goodbye to the little guys.
Spreading out 10 card submitions throughout the year is more economical than a one time $500 minimum sub.
The little guys will just band together with piggybacks and group subs as they always have. I'd be more concerned as PSA what it will do to membership renewals from the little guys.
Someone posted this elsewhere;
This is, in part, the email I got back from the new PSA VP last week, after I inquired about a few things...
"Beginning September 1, we will no longer offer the $10 per card, 10 card minimum/50 day service. The 50 card minimum will move from $8 to $10 and the 100 card will move from $7 to $8.
With these adjustments, we will mix in modern specials on the monthly Collectors Club front.
Pricing increases are never well received by customers, as expected. But this is a move we need to make given our current, in-house backlog.
Additionally, with bulk rates that are better adjusted to our retail rates, we’ll have more flexibility on our specials, which I do think will be well received by members of our community."_
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It’s all over for the little guy
well i hope that means they will go back to helping the little guy with better bulk rate pricing. the last few years that i have asked for a quote for grading 2500 cards they keep insisting they cant do better than a modern special or the bulk rate. i understand that those that are dealing the cards are making money. but those of us that would like a nice rate for personal collections are looking to make the quick flip of card. the registry and resale drive their sales...the question is which side makes them more money...probably resale...hence the new rates.
Collecting:
Brett Favre Master Set
Favre Ticket Stubs
Favre TD Reciever Autos
Football HOF Player/etc. Auto Set
Football HOF Rc's
not sure i agree with the supply/demand logic. its just that they can get more cash per card graded. most companies wouldn't raise prices to stop customers from coming to do business...which is what is implied by the cost increase...i.e. if we increase rates per card people will send less cards in leading to improved turn arounds. if they get what they say they want from increased rates...less submissions...does that mean when the backlog is over they will decrease rates? what they should be doing is finding the price point that will allow them hire more workers to meet the current demand.
Collecting:
Brett Favre Master Set
Favre Ticket Stubs
Favre TD Reciever Autos
Football HOF Player/etc. Auto Set
Football HOF Rc's