PSA grading has suspended their most popular grading services in an effort to get on top of their backlog, posting to the blog on their website yesterday.
The amount of cards already waiting to be graded at PSA was apparently multiplied in early March as collectors tried to beat the price increases PSA announced. They received more cards in 3 days than they had in the previous 3 months 😳.
Collectors are not without any options though as the Super Express option at $300 per card is still available so if you REALLY need to get something slabbed you'll need to pay up.
What does this do to the card market?
With PSA not taking new cards for 3 months does this give smaller and newer companies like SGC and HG a chance to grab some market share?
If there was ever an opportunity for another grader it is now - having a different approach or a different look to your slab right now could be an advantage so look for more slabs from previously overlooked companies to appear on eBay and Facebook marketplaces.
Many collectors will stay with the PSA brand however which could mean that once the 3 month lag filters through we might see PSA slabbed cards become more rare and increase in value as a result.
What do you think? Let us know below.
Want to read more? Read about the recent PSA sale or "true" rookie cards. Will UFC cards boom next? UFC Prizm is coming SOON.
Read more from the blog below:
Given our growing backlog, it would be disingenuous for us to continue to accept submissions for cards that we will be unable to process in the foreseeable future. It’s an unpleasant conclusion, especially after the March 1 price increase, but it is necessary to properly serve the customers who have already submitted to PSA.
Effective immediately, PSA is temporarily suspending our Value, Regular and Express service levels. This will allow us to fully unbox and receive the recent surge of orders and focus on our most impacted service lines.
We will take a tiered approach to reintroducing these service levels. Our goal is to bring all suspended service levels back by July 1, 2021.
