In the vibrant world of sports cards and collectibles, patience is about to become a new badge of honor—or perhaps a necessary survival skill. Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), the reigning heavyweight in the grading arena, has pulled out its proverbial red pen once again. In a move that merges the seriousness of the continuity of high demand with the peppy insistence on thoroughness, PSA has extended its card grading turnaround times and modestly hiked prices, specifically targeting the Trading Card Game (TCG) Bulk tier.
Come April 7, collectors and hobbyists who were previously breathing a sigh of relief at the sight of shorter grading windows will need to reassess. If you’re planning to have your cards graded by PSA’s Value, Value Bulk, or TCG Bulk services, anticipate a wait of 65 business days—a generous offer of your patience for two extra weeks, on average. If you decide to go with the Value + Bulk Dual Service, your patience will be nudged even more, with a stretchy estimate of 75 business days looming large over your hopes and dreams.
In tandem with these timeline adjustments, PSA is giving a little nudge to its pricing structure too. Starting April 8, the price per card for TCG Bulk submissions will transit gently upwards from $16.99 to $18.99. A cautious breadcrumb trail for collectors who haven’t yet marked these pricing transitions on their calendar, teetering on the edge of anticipation for the PSA’s less-than whimsical decisions that are to come.
This isn’t PSA’s first foray into the wildfare of adjusting prices and wait times this year; the grading pilot has been on a helter-skelter flight path since January when the turnarounds were previously adjusted to 45 business days. Now, the new 65-day mark suggests that whatever catch-up had been intended has indeed opted to extend its staycation.
For those who have grown used to swift service, or perhaps even calculated an estimated time of arrival for their cards already in PSA’s hands, this update arrives like an unwelcome sequel to a story about thrilling collector plotlines. Submissions from the earlier part of the year, particularly January and February, remain in processing purgatory as collectors vocalize their concerns across digital die-cut forums.
Despite grumbles and groans within the hobby circles, the spotlight isn’t reserved for PSA alone. Their principal competitor, SGC, is similarly embroiled in the doldrums of demand, highlighting just how sumo-sized the interest in card grading has ballooned.
Introduced into this thicket of card grading expectations is another element that further stirs the pot—standards. PSA’s heightened criteria, particularly around centering, means that achieving a Gem Mint 10 is now akin to pulling a legendary card in a booster pack—a somewhat rare occurrence. As collectors navigate this new norm, some are faced with the heartbreaking aftermath where mint-condition dreams are chalked off for a die-cut nine.
For the card collecting community, this era of scrutiny mixed with extended waits and ever-escalating costs calls for strategic recalibration. While some collectors might decide to batten down the hatches, anticipating relief in years to come, others might roll their sleeves up and continue to engage in the grading dance, albeit with a newfound appreciation of patience and precision in choosing which cards get their candidacy tickets.
Should the community as a whole decide to scale back speculative submissions, they could inadvertently enter into a backlog purgatory—the very bottleneck that sparked these changes potentially easing over time.
Across the grading landscape, PSA’s domination persists. Despite the hiccups and head-scratching moments, the allure of having PSA-grade your cards has yet to diminish in shine or prestige. For those considering making their submission, it’s certainly a time to be circumspect about which cards to commit to PSA’s meticulous grading journey.
In a world where collectors must decide between waiting with bated breath for their graded cards or briskly seeking alternatives, it seems some tough choices are at hand. Be they patient submissions, strategic holds, or navigating the choices of competitors, the current state of PSA grading services casts an evocative reflection on the very pastimes people cherish, illustrating the significance of collecting, patience, and ladder climbing the PSA grading game.
