PSA Population Report to be free as of 1/1/2012

[Leon]

Originally Posted by tedzan

I'd bet that, that "items" number includes a huge number of COINS (and other goodies).


Regards,

TED Z

You would lose that bet too....and to add why....according to sources I have, PSA grades +/- 120k cards a month....so the 20M is probably pretty close to accurate.....and I understand all of the little caveats, but my guess is that they have indeed graded that many cards....though maybe a small bit more or less...



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[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by Leon

....according to sources I have, PSA grades +/- 120k cards a month....

120,000 cards per month...

Assuming a 6 day work week, and an 10 hour day (not including breaks), that's between 7 and 8 cards graded every minute.

Insert smiley face here.

I currently have 43,052 pre-1992 Topps cards, If I took them all in to get graded today, it seems like I might be able to get them back in time for Christmas.

Doug

[Leon]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

120,000 cards per month...

Assuming a 6 day work week, and an 10 hour day (not including breaks), that's between 7 and 8 cards graded every minute.

Insert smiley face here.

I currently have 43,052 pre-1992 Topps cards, If I took them all in to get graded today, it seems like I might be able to get them back in time for Christmas.

Doug

If they had one dude doing it that would be a stretch. I would guess they have more than that though. The number I quoted is fairly accurate I believe. It was from a few reliable sources.

[timzcardz]

I don't recall the numbers, but they are a publicly traded company and they do publish the numbers in their annual report. So it definitely is not some trade secret and can be looked up.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by Leon

If they had one dude doing it that would be a stretch. I would guess they have more than that though. The number I quoted is fairly accurate I believe. It was from a few reliable sources.

If you assume a 40 hour work week, and 1 minute per card, then they need 12 graders to do 120k per month.

Of course, if they work a bit faster, they won't need so many graders.

Doug

[Jay Wolt]

The number I quoted is fairly accurate I believe. It was from a few reliable sources

Leon, It is very accurate. On PSA's front page of their website, they have a counter that
changes every month, its at 18,390,660 now

[Leon]

Originally Posted by Jay Wolt

Leon, It is very accurate. On PSA's front page of their website, they have a counter that
changes every month, its at 18,390,660 now

Thanks Jay....I guess I was off some...but not too, too much.

[vintagetoppsguy]

Originally Posted by Jay Wolt

Leon, It is very accurate. On PSA's front page of their website, they have a counter that
changes every month, its at 18,390,660 now

Yeah, but those aren't are all cards. It says 18,390,660 Collectibles Certified. Many of those items are PSA/DNA.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by vintagetoppsguy

Yeah, but those aren't are all cards. It says 18,390,660 Collectibles Certified. Many of those items are PSA/DNA.

I would like to think that an autograph gets more than the minute I have conjectured, since I would think it would need to be compared to others. And that an old photo needs a bit of time to determine if it was printed within a certain time frame of when the photo was taken. Both of these items whould then leave even less time for the cards.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

If you assume a 40 hour work week, and 1 minute per card, then they need 12 graders to do 120k per month.

Of course, if they work a bit faster, they won't need so many graders.

Doug

I might have been thinking of 1.2M a yr therefore 100k a month......but regardless, take a card and a loupe and look at it for 1 full minute. It's actually longer than you think it is. Going back to the original question though, I do think 20M isn't far off and that was the whole premise of this. Now back to sparring with David on the other side of the board. My post count is skyrocketing today!!

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by Leon

take a card and a loupe and look at it for 1 full minute. It's actually longer than you think it is.

I agree that 1 minute can be a long time to look at a card, but if we all take that minute to think about what would actually be involved in the grading process, checking front and back and sides, looking for imperfections, and then making some sort of notation, that brings up some interesting ideas about how much time is actually spent by a grader looking at a specific card.

Obviously there are more than 12 people involved in the process, and most of them don't do the actual grading, but we are talking about looking at card after card after card after card. And, each is different from the one before, so it must be hard to develop a rhythm. This process needs to be done carefully enough so as to not damage a small piece of paper.

When I have multiple copies of the same card, it often takes me a minute or two to decide which one is the "best" card, and that is just ranking them against each other, I don't have to assign them numbers on a 1 to 19 scale (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 ... 8.5, 9. 9.5. 10 is a effectively a scale of 1 to 19)

As a guy who doesn't agree with the whole grading "thing", I am obviously biased in my thoughts, but these are pure numbers we are talking about, and numbers tend to be unbiased, if looked at correctly.

We have threads on this forum that stretch onto many pages discussing whether a specific card should be given a specific grade, but we can see that, on the average, all cards are looked at by a grader for a period of time that is probably less than one minute, during which time they need to decide if it's a 15 or a 16 on the scale.

The key missing fact in my equations is the actual number of graders. Maybe they have a hundred people who get paid to grade sports cards / collectibles for a living. That would give them a lot more time per item. I'm just curious where these people come from. Maybe the really cool bagger at my local grocery store who just quit, found a new calling.

Doug

[WhenItWasAHobby]

Originally Posted by doug.goodman

If you assume a 40 hour work week, and 1 minute per card, then they need 12 graders to do 120k per month.

Of course, if they work a bit faster, they won't need so many graders.

Doug

Good math check. This sort of reminds me of Wilt Chamberlain claiming that he slept with over 20,000 women.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by WhenItWasAHobby

Good math check. This sort of reminds me of Wilt Chamberlain claiming that he slept with over 20,000 women.

Laughing.

The thing about that claim is that if he started when he was 18 and "slept" with one woman a day until a year before he died, we're talking over 16,000 women.

I've spent the last 28 years working for an assortment of rockstars and there are a few of them who have accumulated some numbers that make me think Wilt's claims might be true.

I'm of course using the Clinton method to define "sleeping with".

Doug