PSA no longer accepting submissions until July 1

I like it and please catch up. Got a value modern in the mail today. Assuming will be honored. Cannot even start a card or pack sub now. Errors out....

And I believe they extended my PSA Silver Subscription for 90 or 100 Days which was about to expire in 20-30 days.

YeeHaw!

Neil

@mrburns443 said:

@Copyboy1 said:
Soooo... they're going to extend the time I can use my CC vouchers then, right? RIGHT?

Yes they are, https://psacard.com/articles/articleview/10367/psa-customer-update-april-2021

Collectors Club members will have their memberships automatically extended to match the duration of the Value suspension. This extension will ensure existing members have 12 full months to utilize their annual Collectors Club benefits.

Well then I guess no class action

Outstanding news. Golden opportunity for other TPGs to jump in.

@swish54 said:
PSA/DNA affected at all? I'd assume not since they are not backed up...

Super express is the cheapest option for PSA/DNA.

Smart move. Better to suspend service then disappoint thousands of customers.

Smart move and sound long term thinking.

@blurryface said:

@bobbybradyjr said:
Smart move and sound long term thinking.

And, as blurry said, great timing with NBA Prizm releasing tomorrow. Those cards alone would probably cause another huge backup.

in turn all those prizm base cards will be sent to csg, hga, sgc and absolutely drown them by catching them off guard. all while psa clears backlogs, ramps up facilities and faculties while opening new locations. then by reopening the floodgates slowly but surely and raising the prices again, they'll be able to help control the pet population. brilliant business move if you ask me.

Yeah. My money is on Nat and his team. Business is business and he has a very proven track record.

Something they should have at least partially done 6 months ago.

I would not expect any real value tier to come back for a long time. It will come back but be even higher priced than today. And then If things ever get under control they would start back a bulk tier for certain eras. Or just run specials. Expecting to pay less than 100 a card anytime this year is a pipe dream

@brad31 said:
Wow the lines at the National will be insane. Those could very well be their next submissions.

I hope to be there but not so sure I will submit there now. Could be a very unpleasant experience.

If the jobs are silo'd at PSA, as has been talked about, then how does this improve throughput time with what is already an avalanche/tsunami/whatever in the queue? It doesn't. The number of new employee graders were going to get spun up the same way as before, on the backlog, which is clearly a couple or few quarters of the year deep. It's not like this pause will turn receiving guys into graders. At one point the receiving guys will get caught up, but the March Madness bulge of cards that happened(and the backup before it) moving through the snake will be on the research dept. Is that where via scan and tech improvements they catch up? Maybe. Without more graders, it bottlenecks there....then QA, then shipping etc.

Could even be that they were running out of cases, as has been mentioned and their current in house case load> available cases now and in the near future.

It will solve issues that would have arisen with stuff that would have come in in the future, but this isn't a backlog solver.

Sign on or poaching bonuses for graders are what's going to skyrocket....that's the big bottleneck, grading. Unless you really jump up your AI grading, which hasn't seemed to be the solution, at least publicly.

Happy, and not happy at the same time. Which I guess is an improvement over mostly not happy for the last couple months. So yay? Meh.

@blurryface said:

@thedutymon11 said:
He!! Yeah!

And No Quarterly Specials of Course as well!

YeeHaw!

Neil

collectors club specials will still be in play i hear.

I am confused I thought these had been suspended too.

@beachbumcollecting said:

@UlyssesExtravaganza said:
I couldn't approve of this decision more. I think it's my favorite move they have ever made. The idea of a solution to their problem where the customer loses big and they win big does not feel right. I think that leaves people with a bad taste in their mouth. Take some time to get things closer to right. You know what is coming in 2 months so prepare. A tsunami ten times larger. They are aware of what they need to do. Keep interviewing and expand. I can wait. But if Value is still $20, I will like the move a little less.

do you think the Value is going up or down?

Well, I was hoping < $20 and closer to $10 or $12 or hey, I like the old bulk price of $8 for a 100 card submission which I never used but was building up enough cards to one day try. It feels hard to justify $20 when they very recently felt $10 or $12 was the appropriate price. Its not like it was this price for ages so we adjust for inflation. Feels like the point of $20 was to put the brakes on submissions.

What do I think? I think it's 20 or more because I am used to being disappointed with changes. But with a new owner who knows what to expect? Maybe we see moves aimed at customer retention and satisfaction instead of moves aimed at decreasing demand.

If the price continues to move up with the justification being that card prices are going up, I think we get into some weird space like we saw with momentum growth stocks with no earnings and the price just kept going up because people said that company does something neat and it keeps going up so I will buy it whatever the price is. Then that moment comes when somebody says Whoa Nelly. This price does not look appropriate and it moves down quick and heavy.

@UlyssesExtravaganza said:

@beachbumcollecting said:

@UlyssesExtravaganza said:
I couldn't approve of this decision more. I think it's my favorite move they have ever made. The idea of a solution to their problem where the customer loses big and they win big does not feel right. I think that leaves people with a bad taste in their mouth. Take some time to get things closer to right. You know what is coming in 2 months so prepare. A tsunami ten times larger. They are aware of what they need to do. Keep interviewing and expand. I can wait. But if Value is still $20, I will like the move a little less.

do you think the Value is going up or down?

Well, I was hoping < $20 and closer to $10 or $12 or hey, I like the old bulk price of $8 for a 100 card submission which I never used but was building up enough cards to one day try. It feels hard to justify $20 when they very recently felt $10 or $12 was the appropriate price. Its not like it was this price for ages so we adjust for inflation. Feels like the point of $20 was to put the brakes on submissions.

What do I think? I think it's 20 or more because I am used to being disappointed with changes. But with a new owner who knows what to expect? Maybe we see moves aimed at customer retention and satisfaction instead of moves aimed at decreasing demand.

If the price continues to move up with the justification being that card prices are going up, I think we get into some weird space like we saw with momentum growth stocks with no earnings and the price just kept going up because people said that company does something neat and it keeps going up so I will buy it whatever the price is. Then that moment comes when somebody says Whoa Nelly. This price does not look appropriate and it moves down quick and heavy.

I tend to agree, as a collector/seller of vintage prices have to go down to justify subbing a lot of items but I doubt we will ever see prices anywhere close to the levels we were at ($8 bucks bulk) just 6 months ago which were doable.

as long as modern breakers can submit almost all the cards immediately and have a market for them , there is no way the classic collectors will get cheaper grading fees because there will always be more business that PSA can handle. What I am curious about is all the sweetheart deals they have in place. PSA used to need guys like 4sharp to submit 10K cards a month at a low rate but to have the guaranteed revenue and to facilitate a secondary market, that does not seem to be the case anymore so will they just dump all these players as well. interesting times that just keep getting more interesting ......

About to crash the value of Prizm basketball. Gonna be interesting to see what this does to wax prices. Many will say nothing but the value of many of these cards are in the anticipated PSA 10 values. A raw Lamelo Ball is $250 but a psa 10 is $750. No one will pay $300(ok some will but most won’t) to grade it during this pause period. This makes the best base card from a box worth about 15% of the box price. I can see wax prices coming down drastically that with the increased production in prizm basketball this year could burst some bubbles.

I hope they'll announce the new rates (if there are changes) in advance. With submissions closed, I don't really see what harm it could do. Then dealers and collectors can decide which cards they'll send to PSA when everything's back up and which cards they'll sell raw or send elsewhere.

@Vagabond said:
I'm already cringing just thinking of what The National will look like this year overall. It's going to be like New York on New Years Eve as everyone stands and waits for 14 hours for the ball to drop. Everyone packed in like sardines.

That sounds like ZERO fun to me. None whatsoever.

PS - SGC was bragging that they "fixed" their problem and they will never get backed up again. It will be interesting to see if that is indeed true, as they will no doubt get flooded now.

also from Steve Sloan:

"...Please also know that PSA is working on physical office expansion to new international markets, and for the first time, new grading locations in the United States. This will help diffuse submissions across multiple locations and allow PSA to tap into new grading talent across the hobby."

Please expand to Canada, or at least closer to the border and/or in the East coast.

@Vagabond said:
I'm already cringing just thinking of what The National will look like this year overall. It's going to be like New York on New Years Eve as everyone stands and waits for 14 hours for the ball to drop. Everyone packed in like sardines.

I bet PSA does not set up.. for subs at least