PSA’s card grading prices have been quite volatile thoughout the past several years. PSA shut down all card grading services at its most affordable price points to offset an onslaught in demand during the pandemic. The acquisition of Collector’s Universe (PSA’s parent company) brought about many operational changes to improve PSA’s grading service. PSA’s recent…
In a move that I knew was only a matter of time, PSA announced recently that it would tiptoe back into grading 1980’s Star Basketball cards. PSA used to grade Star cards and after getting burned multiple times on Type II counterfeits decided that it would put a halt to any Star Basketball card grading. …
I was shocked when I heard that Collectors Holdings (the parent company of PSA) had acquired SGC. I felt the same when Collectors acquired Goldin Auctions (the hobby’s most prominent sports card auction house). ”Our portfolio focuses on service providers that bring expertise, quality and value to hobbyists, and SGC has built a strong reputation…
PSA gets all the fanfare, but SGC is the second-oldest grading company in the hobby. Launched in 1998, about seven years after PSA started, SGC has built a reputation as one of the most trustworthy card graders in the business. Unfortunately, PSA-graded cards still sell to both SGC and Beckett-graded cards at a sizeable premium. …
PSA recently announced that its Standard grading service would reopen to collectors, at a new price point of $100 per card. Recall that PSA shut down everything aside from its premium grading services in early 2021. They have not been able to keep up with the steep increase in grading demand. The latest changes come…
PSA announced that it was suspending all Value, Economy, Regular, and Express grading service levels in what can only be described as inevitable. In a letter to collectors, PSA President Steve Sloan outlines the massive influx of grading requests and the move to slow down submissions ultimately. Sloan reiterates in his letter that PSA continues…
In what was only inevitable, SGC and PSA, two of the hobby’s largest third-party grading companies, have hiked prices. The deluge of cards submitted to the grading companies has resulted in nearly unfathomable wait times, and the grading companies are trying to halt submissions….well, by raising prices. The story at PSA is two-fold. First, if…
The widespread price increases throughout the hobby have led to a surge in demand for sports card grading. This has led to significantly increased wait times across all of the third-party grading companies. PSA, SGC, and Beckett just can’t keep up. With forced closures during the peak of COVID leading to a backlog, the excess…
In a perfect world the third party grading companies should be evaluating cards objectively, and not letting any sort of biases creep into their final decision for a card. But, we all know that we’ve seen some questionable grading decisions in the past, based on the numerous trimmed cards that have ended up getting…
The card grading industry reached unprecedented levels in February 2025, with overall grading activity increasing by 5% compared to January and 20% year-over-year. According to GemRate, 1.93 million cards were graded in February, surpassing the previous record of 1.87 million set in October 2024. I thought the economic slowdown might take a bit of a…
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