I just read over across the street that apparently PSA has received 2.5MM submissions in just the week since they announced the closure. that would bring their backlog up to around 13MM!! I am guessing they will be closed for at least 3, maybe 4 months.
@craig44 said:
I just read over across the street that apparently PSA has received 2.5MM submissions in just the week since they announced the closure. that would bring their backlog up to around 13MM!! I am guessing they will be closed for at least 3, maybe 4 months.
Add more to that. Today is the deadline. I imagine many more millions on the way before midnight.
If I'm running a grading company out there not owned by Collectors then I'm tripling my advertising budget. This could be where these folks gain a huge amount of ground.
Promise fast turnarounds and see who you can pull in to test you.
@BBBrkrr said:
If I'm running a grading company out there not owned by Collectors then I'm tripling my advertising budget. This could be where these folks gain a huge amount of ground.
Promise fast turnarounds and see who you can pull in to test you.
Peter at SGC tried that strategy for SGC back in Covid when PSA shut down, as he proclaimed "send your cards to us, we aren't shutting down" -- and it wasn't a week later and Peter's tail was between his legs as SGC had to also proclaim they couldn't handle the number of cards they were getting...quite hilarious
@BBBrkrr said:
If I'm running a grading company out there not owned by Collectors then I'm tripling my advertising budget. This could be where these folks gain a huge amount of ground.
Promise fast turnarounds and see who you can pull in to test you.
it makes me wonder at the longevity of folks grading TCG cards. is it sustainable to be grading over a million tcg every month? I dont know how deep the collector base runs there vs "investors"
are we looking at POGS or Beanie Babies down the road?
@craig44 said:
it makes me wonder at the longevity of folks grading TCG cards. is it sustainable to be grading over a million tcg every month? I dont know how deep the collector base runs there vs "investors"
are we looking at POGS or Beanie Babies down the road?
I like to think so but i feel it has legs and that we aint seen nothing yet.
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972) Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
Pokemon will have a 90s sports cards style crash. Absolute metric tons of this and this boom reminds me of every dad in our neighborhoods getting into sportscards in 1990.
@80sOPC said:
Pokemon will have a 90s sports cards style crash. Absolute metric tons of this and this boom reminds me of every dad in our neighborhoods getting into sportscards in 1990.
I'm not sure about this. There are more and more dealers selling Pokémon at shows. The mall shows that I go to the Pokémon tables outnumber the sports tables.
@80sOPC said:
Pokemon will have a 90s sports cards style crash. Absolute metric tons of this and this boom reminds me of every dad in our neighborhoods getting into sportscards in 1990.
I wonder when PSA is going to start grading Beanie Babies.
Around 2012 Pokemon was completely dead. The old cards getting hyped now were dollar cards. This is a game that nobody really played when it came out. It was too complex for the kids who were watching the Pokemon cartoon. The Pokemon Go app is what made the cards come back to life. I think even now most people collecting Pokemon cards don't know how to play the game.
So does they mean they're pausing the processing of orders that have already been receive as well? My order was marked as received 4/20 and is still in the "order arrived" status.
I am not sure what the answer is for PSA and the backlog. it is a little scary for them, i would imagine, to try and scale too fast for fear of the bottom falling out of TCG grading at some point. I was listening to a podcaster a week or so ago and he was wondering why PSA has not started using dynamic pricing like most hotels do. they could literally change the price daily according to how the backlog looks that day.
I am a target shooter and this feels like the ammo shortages we have been dealing with since 2008 or so. there are some times when .22 lr ammo is just non existant. the cost to start a new plant is somewhere in the $40MM range, so ammo manufacturers are hesitant to do that for fear of lack of demand at some point. So people hoard and the shortages worsen. like this PSA shutdown where now we have an additional 3 or 4 MM subs in just the last week since the shutdown was announced.
@craig44 said:
I am not sure what the answer is for PSA and the backlog. it is a little scary for them, i would imagine, to try and scale too fast for fear of the bottom falling out of TCG grading at some point. I was listening to a podcaster a week or so ago and he was wondering why PSA has not started using dynamic pricing like most hotels do. they could literally change the price daily according to how the backlog looks that day.
I am a target shooter and this feels like the ammo shortages we have been dealing with since 2008 or so. there are some times when .22 lr ammo is just non existant. the cost to start a new plant is somewhere in the $40MM range, so ammo manufacturers are hesitant to do that for fear of lack of demand at some point. So people hoard and the shortages worsen. like this PSA shutdown where now we have an additional 3 or 4 MM subs in just the last week since the shutdown was announced.
I think what your friend and you suggest regarding surge pricing is kind of what they're doing, but their gears are just a little slower because of the duration of their queue.
When they announced their large infrastructure investment in May, submissions spiked. PSA made a statement that their submissions increased 20% immediately following that announcement.
A $200M investment in infrastructure, technology, and expertise, which will turn into $400M and be worth $100M the way they operate. I think the problem isn't the numerator here. I can't see how this much slabbed hotness can be sustainable - are they making houses with slabs or something in Asia?
Yup, and in 1990 hockey dads were getting in fights at Cosco over 1990 UD French. This Pokemon fever, a flood a new collectors stacking cards for future riches, feels like that.
@80sOPC said:
Pokemon will have a 90s sports cards style crash. Absolute metric tons of this and this boom reminds me of every dad in our neighborhoods getting into sportscards in 1990.
I'm not sure about this. There are more and more dealers selling Pokémon at shows. The mall shows that I go to the Pokémon tables outnumber the sports tables.
@80sOPC said:
Pokemon will have a 90s sports cards style crash. Absolute metric tons of this and this boom reminds me of every dad in our neighborhoods getting into sportscards in 1990.
That may be but it will then recover. Look at how the junk wax stuff is starting to sell well in high grades.
Successful coin BST transactions with Gerard and segoja.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
Yes, 25 years later we are almost back to 1990s prices on that stuff. For the guy that has dedicated a full closet to this crap, redemption day is near (unfortunately retirement day still 2037)
Game stop subs, feebay related stuff, supply chain issues, employee hiring / retention problems, infrastructure build out headaches, lack of big picture thinking - take your pick - all are closure causes. All are why PSA had to close subs. Blind man could have seen it coming 👀 🤨
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>
>
Think back to when we were young = for many of us now in our 60's thru 80's = about how society and our parents looked down on collecting sports and non-sports cards as a passing fad. Well these "kids" we then had in the mid 80's-00's grew up in the magic the gathering / pokeman / online gaming eras. Marvel / Disney movies . Its their version of what we experienced as kids/teens. It isn't a passing fad. But it is cyclical.
>
>
>
Think Game stops growth and explosion on to the scene are some type of accident ? Its not. Its the 2026 version of the sports card store boom of the 80-90's. Except instead of individuals opening stores, it's being financed by not just one- but 3 different billionaires. PSA's owners are part of the Game stop board- hello. PSA being overrun by Game stop submissions isn't some "unexpected" success. Its a highly desired result of advance planning that blew up in their faces.
>
> @bgr -notice how the GM they placed at BGS & SGC are M/A guys ? Great for the numbers side, bad for the operating side. Also = 200K to me is 1/5 of what they'll really need. Me thinking out loud.
@80sOPC said:
Pokemon will have a 90s sports cards style crash. Absolute metric tons of this and this boom reminds me of every dad in our neighborhoods getting into sportscards in 1990.
That may be but it will then recover. Look at how the junk wax stuff is starting to sell well in high grades.
@80sOPC said:
Yes, 25 years later we are almost back to 1990s prices on that stuff. For the guy that has dedicated a full closet to this crap, redemption day is near (unfortunately retirement day still 2037)
For most stuff only in PSA 10, get a 9 and your in the red, and we know to whom most if the 10s are allocated.
Factor inflation to the 90s prices and the stuff is very much under water. To move the needle ever so slightly into the green it must be a minimum multiple of 2.2-2.9x the 90s prices.
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972) Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
@80sOPC said:
Pokemon will have a 90s sports cards style crash. Absolute metric tons of this and this boom reminds me of every dad in our neighborhoods getting into sportscards in 1990.
That may be but it will then recover. Look at how the junk wax stuff is starting to sell well in high grades.
@80sOPC said:
Yes, 25 years later we are almost back to 1990s prices on that stuff. For the guy that has dedicated a full closet to this crap, redemption day is near (unfortunately retirement day still 2037)
For most stuff only in PSA 10, get a 9 and your in the red, and we know to whom most if the 10s are allocated.
Factor inflation to the 90s prices and the stuff is very much under water. To move the needle ever so slightly into the green it must be a minimum multiple of 2.2-2.9x the 90s prices.
I agree. Luckily a large part of my junk wax is MJ and Griffey Junior. I probably have 200 Griffey Junior rookies: Bowman, UD, Topps Traded, Donruss RR, etc.
Successful coin BST transactions with Gerard and segoja.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
PSA had 4 million submissions in the 5 days between announcing shutdown and shutting down bringing the backlog to 14 million cards. If we price these at $30 a card that is a $420MM backlog. Probably closer to $500MM with higher tiers and future upcharges maybe more. To think Nat and Investors acquired PSA for $75MM - what a brilliant acquisition. Wonder what his collection has added with all the money he has made. Haven’t seen him share his cards in a while.
The price they paid to take it private was around $850M. After that they have followed page 1 through 200 of the PE M&A playbook and bought everything close.
It is a healthy backlog and a good problem to have, but it's also a liability on the books so there's a also a valuation reason they don't want more card volume.
@bgr said:
The price they paid to take it private was around $850M. After that they have followed page 1 through 200 of the PE M&A playbook and bought everything close.
You are correct. I trusted AI on the sales price instead of seeking out an article. Thanks for correcting my error.
After the pause, processing does continue to be very slow. I subbed an order of just 4 cards on Jan 22, and it is still in the Research phase on June 13.
@miwlvrn said:
After the pause, processing does continue to be very slow. I subbed an order of just 4 cards on Jan 22, and it is still in the Research phase on June 13.
Sadly your cards are now part of the 14 million card backlog. Meanwhile, people submitting in the remaining open tiers (Regular, Express, Super Express, and Walk-Through) will submit and probably get their cards back before you do. Kind of like letting people cut in line if they have more cash.
@bgr said:
The price they paid to take it private was around $850M. After that they have followed page 1 through 200 of the PE M&A playbook and bought everything close.
It is a healthy backlog and a good problem to have, but it's also a liability on the books so there's a also a valuation reason they don't want more card volume.
PSA - Please spend more on training and hiring professional graders.
Successful coin BST transactions with Gerard and segoja.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
Comments
I just read over across the street that apparently PSA has received 2.5MM submissions in just the week since they announced the closure. that would bring their backlog up to around 13MM!! I am guessing they will be closed for at least 3, maybe 4 months.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
Add more to that. Today is the deadline. I imagine many more millions on the way before midnight.
If I'm running a grading company out there not owned by Collectors then I'm tripling my advertising budget. This could be where these folks gain a huge amount of ground.
Promise fast turnarounds and see who you can pull in to test you.
Peter at SGC tried that strategy for SGC back in Covid when PSA shut down, as he proclaimed "send your cards to us, we aren't shutting down" -- and it wasn't a week later and Peter's tail was between his legs as SGC had to also proclaim they couldn't handle the number of cards they were getting...quite hilarious
They could call themselves ASAP.
So what kind of cards are PSA getting swamped with that caused this shutdown? Modern garbage?
2025 SEC bowl record 4-10
SEC bowl record vs BIG TEN last two years 2-8
I think I read somewhere Gaming and Pokémon cards.
Pokemon, Pokemon, Pokemon.
Late 60's and early to mid 70's non-sports
they grade more pokemon cards every month than all sports cards combined. last month they graded more one piece cards than baseball cards!
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
it makes me wonder at the longevity of folks grading TCG cards. is it sustainable to be grading over a million tcg every month? I dont know how deep the collector base runs there vs "investors"
are we looking at POGS or Beanie Babies down the road?
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I just got my submission in before the shutdown. I won't see them again until 2027.
I like to think so but i feel it has legs and that we aint seen nothing yet.
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
Ive a load of stuff at SGC since late Feb. I hoping i have them back before end of the decade
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
Pokemon will have a 90s sports cards style crash. Absolute metric tons of this and this boom reminds me of every dad in our neighborhoods getting into sportscards in 1990.
I'm not sure about this. There are more and more dealers selling Pokémon at shows. The mall shows that I go to the Pokémon tables outnumber the sports tables.
I wonder when PSA is going to start grading Beanie Babies.
Around 2012 Pokemon was completely dead. The old cards getting hyped now were dollar cards. This is a game that nobody really played when it came out. It was too complex for the kids who were watching the Pokemon cartoon. The Pokemon Go app is what made the cards come back to life. I think even now most people collecting Pokemon cards don't know how to play the game.
Worldwide phenomenon with an entirely new generation of followers bring past generations in for the money.
If they were modern cards they will be considered vintage by the time you get them back.😀
Lol wouldn't surprise me.
2025 SEC bowl record 4-10
SEC bowl record vs BIG TEN last two years 2-8
So does they mean they're pausing the processing of orders that have already been receive as well? My order was marked as received 4/20 and is still in the "order arrived" status.
My registry sets
I am not sure what the answer is for PSA and the backlog. it is a little scary for them, i would imagine, to try and scale too fast for fear of the bottom falling out of TCG grading at some point. I was listening to a podcaster a week or so ago and he was wondering why PSA has not started using dynamic pricing like most hotels do. they could literally change the price daily according to how the backlog looks that day.
I am a target shooter and this feels like the ammo shortages we have been dealing with since 2008 or so. there are some times when .22 lr ammo is just non existant. the cost to start a new plant is somewhere in the $40MM range, so ammo manufacturers are hesitant to do that for fear of lack of demand at some point. So people hoard and the shortages worsen. like this PSA shutdown where now we have an additional 3 or 4 MM subs in just the last week since the shutdown was announced.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
I think what your friend and you suggest regarding surge pricing is kind of what they're doing, but their gears are just a little slower because of the duration of their queue.
When they announced their large infrastructure investment in May, submissions spiked. PSA made a statement that their submissions increased 20% immediately following that announcement.
A $200M investment in infrastructure, technology, and expertise, which will turn into $400M and be worth $100M the way they operate. I think the problem isn't the numerator here. I can't see how this much slabbed hotness can be sustainable - are they making houses with slabs or something in Asia?
Yup, and in 1990 hockey dads were getting in fights at Cosco over 1990 UD French. This Pokemon fever, a flood a new collectors stacking cards for future riches, feels like that.
That may be but it will then recover. Look at how the junk wax stuff is starting to sell well in high grades.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
Yes, 25 years later we are almost back to 1990s prices on that stuff. For the guy that has dedicated a full closet to this crap, redemption day is near (unfortunately retirement day still 2037)
Personal opinion about to be expressed here
Game stop subs, feebay related stuff, supply chain issues, employee hiring / retention problems, infrastructure build out headaches, lack of big picture thinking - take your pick - all are closure causes. All are why PSA had to close subs. Blind man could have seen it coming 👀 🤨
>
>
>
Think back to when we were young = for many of us now in our 60's thru 80's = about how society and our parents looked down on collecting sports and non-sports cards as a passing fad. Well these "kids" we then had in the mid 80's-00's grew up in the magic the gathering / pokeman / online gaming eras. Marvel / Disney movies . Its their version of what we experienced as kids/teens. It isn't a passing fad. But it is cyclical.
>
>
>
Think Game stops growth and explosion on to the scene are some type of accident ? Its not. Its the 2026 version of the sports card store boom of the 80-90's. Except instead of individuals opening stores, it's being financed by not just one- but 3 different billionaires. PSA's owners are part of the Game stop board- hello. PSA being overrun by Game stop submissions isn't some "unexpected" success. Its a highly desired result of advance planning that blew up in their faces.
>
>
@bgr -notice how the GM they placed at BGS & SGC are M/A guys ? Great for the numbers side, bad for the operating side. Also = 200K to me is 1/5 of what they'll really need. Me thinking out loud.
For most stuff only in PSA 10, get a 9 and your in the red, and we know to whom most if the 10s are allocated.
Factor inflation to the 90s prices and the stuff is very much under water. To move the needle ever so slightly into the green it must be a minimum multiple of 2.2-2.9x the 90s prices.
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Not even a minute do I buy the whole buh buh buh I'm a man-child japery - Me (2025)
I agree. Luckily a large part of my junk wax is MJ and Griffey Junior. I probably have 200 Griffey Junior rookies: Bowman, UD, Topps Traded, Donruss RR, etc.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.
PSA had 4 million submissions in the 5 days between announcing shutdown and shutting down bringing the backlog to 14 million cards. If we price these at $30 a card that is a $420MM backlog. Probably closer to $500MM with higher tiers and future upcharges maybe more. To think Nat and Investors acquired PSA for $75MM - what a brilliant acquisition. Wonder what his collection has added with all the money he has made. Haven’t seen him share his cards in a while.
The price they paid to take it private was around $850M. After that they have followed page 1 through 200 of the PE M&A playbook and bought everything close.
It is a healthy backlog and a good problem to have, but it's also a liability on the books so there's a also a valuation reason they don't want more card volume.
You are correct. I trusted AI on the sales price instead of seeking out an article. Thanks for correcting my error.
Been fooled by AI is my middle name. For real.
After the pause, processing does continue to be very slow. I subbed an order of just 4 cards on Jan 22, and it is still in the Research phase on June 13.
How about submitting your cards to TAG?
Sadly your cards are now part of the 14 million card backlog. Meanwhile, people submitting in the remaining open tiers (Regular, Express, Super Express, and Walk-Through) will submit and probably get their cards back before you do. Kind of like letting people cut in line if they have more cash.
Pretty soon the slabs will have value themselves!
PSA - Please spend more on training and hiring professional graders.
Successful card BST transactions with cbcnow, brogurt, gstarling, Bravesfan 007, and rajah 424.