New submission turnaround times
smallstocks
Posts: 1,722 ✭✭✭✭
The Estimated Turnaround Times for the following service levels are increasing:
• TCG Bulk: 65 business days → 95 business days
• Value Bulk: 65 business days → 95 business days
• Value: 45 business days → 75 business days
• Value Plus: 25 business days → 40 business days
• Value Max: 20 business days → 30 business days
• Regular: 15 business days → 20 business days
• Express: 10 business days → 15 business days
• Super Express: 5 business days → 7 business days
• Walkthrough: 5 business days → 7 business days
• Premium: 5 business days → 7 business days
What to Expect for Packs
The Estimated Turnaround Times for the following service levels are increasing:
• Value: 90 business days → 125 business days
• Economy: 65 business days → 85 business days
• Express: 45 business days → 45 business days
• Premium: 30 business days → 30 business days
These new turnaround times will be from the date a package is received. I was told that they are currently entering submissions received on September 29, so they are almost two months behind.
Late 60's and early to mid 70's non-sports
Comments
• Modern Family Value Bulk Plus Max: You dropped off your order on your 21st birthday → You just reached retirement age
Yeah, no thanks.
At least I don't have to wait longer for my 1986-87 Fleer bkb packs to get graded, provided they don't crush them into the shell.
Let me guess all graders are now over seas? Up up and away. Forget 100.00 silver . 100.00 grading starboard side!!!
95 business days. Can you imagine running a business like this
Accounting Firm - I will have your tax return in 95 business daya
Car Service - I will have your car fixed in 95 business days
Macy's - Your Polo shirt order will be sent in 95 business days
Ohama steaks - your steaks will be sent to you in 95 business days
Yard mowing - i will come mow your yard every 95 business days
There are very few if any businesses that would stay afloat with this ridiculousness. PSA might as well just say -- we don't really want to grade your cards any longer. Here is the long and short of it. There are several big players (250- 500) sending in vast numbers of cards to be graded. as long as theirs get graded, mine and your do not. and theirs get to go to ebay, heritage, facebook, card shows...
I.E. there are 4 companies who make baby food in the united states. Why so few? I think there is one plant that makes microchips in the US, why so few? cereal makers - kelloggs, post and then who? why so few? and it goes on and on. Competition, and in this case we the public are the competition, for the big players is unwelcomed. I let you discern who the big players are.
There are 4 large corporations in the infant formula business... Nestle, Abbott and two others that elude me right now. There are probably hundreds which make and distribute "baby food" in the United States.
"microchips"... this is usually referred to as "semiconductors". There is a rather large semiconductor industry in the United States. Quite robust. Last I heard there are close to 1000 independent semiconductor manufacturers in the US.
The news you are getting your news from is obviously not smart news. It's dumb news with false information. They're using your inability to discern truth from fiction to control you. Your brain is not your own. Disconnect it from the internet at once!
Like many people on this board, I've greatly reduced the volume of cards I submit for grading over the past year or two, compared to how much I had been sending in before that. I have a pending order that was sent to PSA during the June vintage (1960-1989) special offer, and it is still in the Research & ID stage. The estimated completion date says December 11, 2025, but it seems more likely to be December 11, 2026 than 2025 at this rate. Are others seeing approximately the same time for their June subs?
More comparable to the thought of thousands of people attempting to purchase tickets to a high profile sports event and being told to wait 95 business days to receive them for a game which ended months ago.
I find this truly pathetic. I read the article and they make it sound like they are doing their customers a favor. Hey historically we would receive your package and just sit on it and the clock would not start until we opened it. But hey boys and girls, we have this great new advancement. We will still just let your package sit in a room unopened for a month but now we will start the clock when it gets there. And all we are going to do is add 30 days to the turnaround time. Isnt that absolutely grand?
Its just weird that its an update on their web site. Look at this news. You used to have to pay $4 for a quarter pounder but now you will pay $2 twice for two eighth pounders. Which will be in the same wrapper and look exactly the same as an old quarter pounder. Yeah, I mean, wow, okay.
The part that just kind of leaves me going wow really? is this type of "thing" has been going on for like 15 to 20 years. Is there any learning happening? Because it feels like they have trained a parrot or AI (very possible) to say the same thing over and over and over again. Also over and over.
We are experiencing higher than usual demand. No you are absolutely not. This is how your business works. This is the demand you have. Its like calling a # and getting a message that says we are experiencing higher than usual call volume and you may have to wait x minutes. If I call 12 times and get that message 11 times, its probably false that its higher than usual. This is your business and you just have not hired enough people to answer phones.
I get that they have to answer to nobody except their customers about what they do and they are at peace with customers going away, maybe hoping for it so their turnaround times can improve with less staff, but if their Operations had to answer to someone I would think those above them would say, why cant you get this? Why cant you figure this out? Something About Mary "Step into my office yer fired." They have the same problems consistently for years, going on decades.
It just feels like one of those football teams that is horrible but folks say well we have an early draft pick. Once we get Tom Phomblootz at the Edge we will be unstoppable. But no, you always get an early draft pick for being terrible. You say this every year. The team never improves.
I think where it works for PSA is you have the new generation just starting to use them, influencing on social media and posting on Reddit boards and the story feels new. But anybody with a few gray hairs is just shaking their head.
A couple years ago I was annoyed at how the time to get cards back seemed to just get longer and longer. Since I'm not a dealer who sells I could wait and it didn't bother me too much.
Then they started just wrecking my vintage subs by sending most back with some reason they couldn't be graded (miscut seemed to be their favorite) and that was the last straw.
No way in this timeline will I wait 6 months to get cards back that end up not being slabbed and I still get charged for. Absolutely, 100% no chance.
The opportunity is there for another grading company. They've opened the lane, parted the seas, etc... All you have to do is step up.
CGC seems to be grabbing a decent bit of the Pokemon market share. TAG is getting more of it than I thought they would, not huge but you see them pop up. Just checked CGC turnaround times and its still 8 weeks. I think the younger crowds with TCG really like that idea of the Pristine card. Like Gem Mint is nice but they want to win huge like a stock with a multiplier or a call or put with a huge payoff. The CGC gold label pristine label does look pretty nice. I dont own any but I appreciate the label. Beckett has two versions of Pristine. Over time I could see both CGC and Beckett taking more of a percentage of the TCG business. Think that is one angle of PSA that is currently less appealing for some young collectors. Its not enough to just do well, they need to hit it out of the park a couple blocks away from the ballpark. That combined with other issues, may turn a lot of them away.
Think we are entering an interesting period now too with the Pokemon cards. With the AI bubble fears hitting parts of the market hard, it hit Pokemon a bit as well. And who knows with either if its just a little correction on something that got frothy or a full-on immense crash. But a lot of younger folks playing the game haven't experienced enough of this and they are thinking this must be what 1929 was like. With less experience and an all-in mentality, this may feel like the end of the world. Sell your stocks and crypto. Hoard the cash. Dont buy, dont open, dont grade. So think for a while that part of the business will see a dip in submissions and think that had become the largest space for submissions.
In the U.S., four main companies dominate the baby formula market, producing about 97% of the formula: Abbott, Mead Johnson, Nestlé, and Perrigo. These companies have historically controlled a significant share of the market, leading to concerns about competition and supply stability.
Nvidia's Blackwell chips are currently being manufactured at one U.S. plant, which is TSMC's facility in Phoenix, Arizona. However, the chips still need to be sent to Taiwan for final packaging before they can be completed.
bgr where do you get your news from? apparently not the right one huh
Call girl.... Yes, pay me now and I'll see you in 95 days.
I sent in under that same June vintage special. It was received on June 16 and completed on Sept 8. Not to add insult to injury, but I also must've gotten an actual vintage grader because my grades where right in line with where I thought they should be. I almost went and bought a lottery ticket but figured I'd already used all my luck on that sub.
I had to chuckle when a "Walkthrough" service is 5 - 7 days. So.....I'm going to hand the card to someone and sit in the lobby for a week? I guess I'll have to bring my sleeping bag and my CPAP!
Shane
They were called SGC and were right there and starting to do just that. PSA seeing this said, no thanks, I'll just purchase you and poof opportunity gone.
are you drinking? yeesh.
It's getting out of hand at this point. I am no longer sending cards in to PSA for grading. It is a waste of time unless you have a big card to get graded. I used to send in 50-200 cards a year, but the price hikes and extended wait times are ridiculous. I used to sit certain cards aside on a "grade pile" throughout the year. At this point, I'll just sell them raw.
PSA HOF Baseball Postwar Rookies Set Registry- (Currently 80.51% Complete)
PSA Pro Football HOF Rookie Players Set Registry- (Currently 19.80% Complete)
PSA Basketball HOF Players Rookies Set Registry- (Currently 6.02% Complete)
I love that raw card commerce is being forced upon us. It takes me back to the 80s when that was the basis for negotiations. I agree that extremely high value cards deserve consideration for grading with intentions of increasing value. If you can afford it and have the patience of a day care mom.
I'm done giving PSA any business. I enjoy putting together raw mint vintage sets one card at a time far more than throwing my money at a company that couldn't care less about 99% of their customers.
Brian
I stop sending in cards the minute Stevie and Nat jacked up the grading fees. That and coupled with the wait time, thanks...but no thanks.
It’s starting to feel like a viscous cycle of supply and demand.
Charge more to grade, fewer will grade and the value of the ones slabbed will be higher. Until the hobby hits another period like it did in the 80s/90s and demand hits the floor…
I hope there’s not another bubble anytime soon
What takes longer....
65 days after Order Prep, which is about 30 days after Order received?
Or 95 days after Order received?
All they did was change when the clock starts.
Real world, turnaround times are virtually the same.
Plus it's estimated, which doesn't mean a whole lot anyway as some finish early while others finish later, even much later.
This is a nothingburger.
I THINK it's more like pay to play...it used to be $3 per card when we paid $6, 4 some graders. plus guess who came first. now there are lots more of the 4's playing. nickel and dimers like us come last. not saying anything is illegal or wrong with it, just the way it is.