A thought on older psa graded commons.
 

I've been thinking about this for a bit and wanted others opinions. Since it has now become cost prohibitive to have commons graded by PSA (let's say pre-1977 for argument sale) and since individuals still seek to complete set registry's with all cards for a particular year, wouldn't it make sense that eventually there will be a scarcity of graded commons. Eventually, existing commons that have been previously graded should have a spike in value. That as long as the number of sets registered increases there will be demand for those commons and they should have a premium.

I wish that were the case. I have not noticed such a spike.

It's very frustrating. I have a ton of beautiful 1936 Goudey Wide Pen Type 1s that I can't justify grading even though they would be potentially Population 1 5-6 range because they are commons and grading is so insane.

not sure about this strategy esp in light of many collectors wanting newer PSA slabs?

A "spike" is unlikely, a steady slow increase over time makes some sense at certain grade levels (I would say PSA 5+ for 50s and PSA 7+ for 60s and later)

PSA likely gets back to $25 grading at some point, so might consider using that as an implied floor at some point, but there are still lots of nice looking commons for registry sets that can be had for less than that obviously

PSA will be back to $25 in 4 months and $15 early next year. This is happening very soon and we will have great collectors club specials and bulk in 2023. PSA graded 1 million cards in March and only 150,000 were new submissions. Once the backlog is done, PSA will need over 1 million cards per month to be submitted. Just be patient and you can get your vintage commons graded much sooner than you think!

I concur.

No chance IMO.

They are still a year behind in most of the bulk categories. They currently are allowing very limited action at the $50 level. If they opened up the $50 level to unlimited submissions, they would be overwhelmed.

They may get to $25 at some point in time but not in 4 months.

There is too much demand for their service to ever go back to a $15 level IMO.

So, in late August we can revisit this post and see who is right.

I may be wrong but I think recently I read or saw on YouTube an interview with Nat Turner where he said the $20 service levels are most likely not ever returning.

The time frame may be slightly off but it will happen and there are people who have unlimited submission capability now at below $50.

Maybe auction houses and their largest customers but not the common collector. They know if they open it up to all at $50 now they will be inundated.

I think you would be surprised. Interest is definitely going away for the $50 grading. People are joining queues late and still getting 20 plus card submissions. It is basically open right now.

I deal with experimental data for a living and I can tell you that my predictions of 4 months is not a guess. I have taken the data given and made a pretty solid prediction. I will let you know exactly how I come up with my answer.

Right now, the backlog is at 4.5 million cards, probably less than that. PSA has a podcast where they have been updating this information. Last month the graded 1 million cards. PSA said at a recent conference that 85% of the cards graded are from the backlog. At a minimum every month, that will be 850,000 cards graded from the backlog each month if they don't increase capacity. The backlog will be done in 5 months.

However, they will be opening up extra services in 4 months. Even though it will take them 5 months to clear the backlog, they will need cards to have ready once it is gone. In 4 months from now, I am very confident that we will see at least queues for $25 grading.

What is the demand right now for $50 grading if they opened it up? It is more than 150,000 cards for sure. However, PSA is using queues to cap this number for turnaround times. During the next 4 months $50 grading will be opened up at some point. You can already see on the forums that a lot of people are done with $50 grading and also asking people if they want to submit through them because they are not using their allotment.

In October, this year, PSA will have the capacity to receive 1 to 1.2 million cards per month and not have a backlog. Do you think there is demand for 1.2 million cards a month at $50 per card? The answer is absolutely not. Plus you have to consider the other grading companies. If SGC needs cards, they will have to drop prices. CSG has large capacity as well. BGS is almost done with their backlog as well. By October this year, we will be over 1.5 million cards capacity to be graded with the big 4 without any backlog.

I can say this with 100% certainty. $25 grading will be here by August or October at the latest. (Edit - This Year!)

He tweeted on March 31 that he wants to get back to $12. With a second location next year it will happen with collector's club specials. You won't see ultra-modern cards at that price for a while, but we will see this next year in my opinion unless we get another 2021 boom. Which is not likely.

I remember where I read Nat Turner’s comment on low end grading.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettkn...h=7b0665ab13df


It was a March 30 Forbes article where it states

“Turner says he hopes to return to the normal submission process in the next few months, but all involved concede that the days of $12 service fees for low-end cards are over”

But you say Nat tweeted a day later he hopes to get back to $12 so who knows.

Grading is a supply and demand issue just like any service or good. Right now, because of backlogs, grading companies have the upper edge. PSA/SGC/CSG/BGS are taking in approximately 350,000 submissions every month. In October we will have 1.5 million submissions available every month. In 2023 it may be closer to 2 million a month with the big four and PSA with a second location. The market will dictate the price of grading. These companies all expanded and can't just fire graders. They invested in equipment, rental space, increased slab orders, etc... Of course, PSA wants to grade 1.5 million cards at $50 a piece. However, the hobby is not that strong right now. Most cards are down 50% from when the boom happened.

No, this spike has not happened, nor will it IMO. What is much more likely is that graded set collecting, and the importance of the registry, will be much diminished in the future. I think that this is already happening. Even if they get back to sub-$15 grading, which it seems many doubt, a good amount of damage has been done to that realm of collecting in the past year+. I think that PSA has consciously decided that the registry is no longer the thing that drives their business. Based on their actions, it is hard to imagine otherwise. I do also believe that there is a future in which the current card bubble bursts, and that PSA may well regret permanently losing a large chunk of the business they used to get from grading sub-$50 commons.

EDIT: edit to add that I'm not sure what else PSA could have done given the circumstances, so I'm not really blaming them, it is just the reality.

FWIW, I've noticed an uptick in the emails from PSA advertising their $50 per card "deals" - perhaps they're not getting as much action at that rate as they expected?

$20-$25 seems to be a good low price point for the service, provided it is open to cards valued anywhere up to $1,000 or even more. At $500 or less I am not sure that the PSA service adds enough value to justify paying 5% or more to the TPG, but there is definitely a sweet spot between $500 and $1,000 where taking a shot is worth it.

Personally, I think for set collectors, the registry is going to slowly stagnate and even die off. As mentioned, it just makes no sense to spend $50/card for grading a common just to fill a spot in your registry. What's driving submissions these days are folks trying to flip a card for $$$$/investments and not to fill holes in their registry sets. I just don't see folks being that patient and waiting years more for subs to come down to the $10/card mark.

Given current prices and backlogs (talk about supply chain issues) with TPG's, there just might be a revival of collectors who have decided they like their cards raw just fine, even some high value cards included. The ability to touch and smell the ancient paper is really impossible to replicate when your treasure is entombed in plastic.

Motto: "I grade 'em as I see 'em."

Chad,

I tend to agree that with the influx of investors vs. collectors that the registry is not going to be as dominant as before. That coupled with the prohibitive costs of acquiring star/HOF player's cards, let alone the additional cost and time to get them ygraded now.

I do see a potential for all low-level graded cards to maintain a premium over raw cards, simply because of the time, effort, and cost it takes to get them graded, regardless of the registry, as it makes it easier for their resale.

There is a revival, at least I know of one for sure. ;) I'm a set collector. I was a graded set collector, but I've now abandoned the idea of starting any news graded sets. And I'm happy about it. I started my T3 set last April, right around the TPG armageddon, consciously looking for ungraded cards. And I liked them so much that I ended up cracking out (checks spreadsheet...) 20 T3's from a mix of SGC and PSA holders in the process.

I'll admit that I knew for a while that I enjoyed my ungraded cards more than the slabbed ones, but it took a few well publicized PSA scandals (breaking the spell of the registry and pushing me to SGC) and then the grading shutdown (pushing me away from all TPGs) to finally turn me around and force me to accept the truth.

I don't think that conclusion necessarily flows from that circumstance. It sounds like a variant on story you get at a card show from a dealer who wants a premium over market because he is into the card for that much. Who cares what it cost him, the question is what it can be sold for. As my daughter's friends would say, paying too much for something is a "you" problem not a "me" problem.

I have been saying this for the past year. We need a generic registry where we can use any grading company. I was strictly PSA until they closed and now I have SGC, BGS (BVG), and CSG slabs. I am shocked that a company like Market Movers haven't tried to make a registry for all brands of slabs.

Did anyone see the email that Beckett officially opened back up today at a $30 level??

Personally, I'm holding back 2-3 that are worth sending in at the $50 level, another 15-20 that are worth it at $25, but another hundred that are worthwhile at $12. Pretty typical. I've been holding on for a year already and have no problem holding on a few more. Purely anecdotal.

Maybe they tie it to membership and cap it. Silver gets you general submission, Gold gets you five Economy vouchers and a hundred slots at $10-15 each for max value of $100-200 each, and Platinum gets you ten Economy vouchers with two hundred slots. (Just spitballparking on those specific amounts.) Of course, there's a lot of settling down to go, plus I'm shockingly not a market researcher.

How would this be possible unless that 3rd party had access to all of PSA, SGC, BGS databases to confirm what the card actually is? And why would those TPG's support the efforts of a 3rd party? Or are you suggesting an honor-based registry? Which I would be fine with, but there would surely be rampant cheating by those who just want to be on top of a list, listing cards they don't actually have.

I see your points and I really don't use a registry for competitive purposes. Mainly just want to complete certain sets and would be completely fine with an honor-based registry. I choose eye-appeal over grades anyways. However, a large portion of PSA registry people are definitely competitive, and I see the issues with a 3rd party.

Once PSA does get cheaper grading, 2023 won't be the junk slab era, it will be the cracked slabbed era. 70% of SGC and CSG slabs will be cracked to submit the cards to PSA.

Don't disagree at all, but if someone spent $20-$25 for a raw card, and then another $20-$25 to get it graded (plus S&H), they are going to be extremely hesitant to ever sell the card for only the $20-$25 it is truly worth. Unless there is a sudden dire need by them for cash, I would think most people would tell a potential buyer "No thanks!" if they weren't getting at least close to what they had into a card.

+1

I've been saying this for even longer, along with an overriding hobby group running it, not one of the TPGs. And the hobby should be the one setting and dictating consistent and unchanging grading standards to the TPGs to follow, not them each telling us what the standards are, and not each of them setting their own standards and telling us what is what, with regard to grading.

This ever happening was virtually impossible before, but with the advent and influx of investors over collectors entering the hobby of late, we can probably kiss that one-in-a-million chance of happening goodbye as well.

I don't think anything says "Loser" more than this.

If it ever happened, internet trolls would call out and (figuratively) crucify the folks who did this, and they would never be given any credibility going forward.

Social Media trolls are renowned for publishing the names of anyone who would do this. Their "fame" would last about 15 minutes.

$30 with a 4-5 month turn time and no sub grades.

Wow! What a bargain!

It actually is a bargain because there are no declared value tiers at Beckett. You could send a T206 Honus Wagner under this Standard tier and pay just $30 to grade it. This would cost you $10,000 at PSA and $3750 from SGC. Of course, you'd still need to wait 4-5 months to get your card back. :)

And that is exactly the way it should be, so the "opinion" one gets on their card is not given with any bias or contingent costs associated with it. It also denotes that a TPG charges the same for each card because they submit each card to the exact same, consistent review and grading process, which again, is exactly how it should be.

I love when the dealers at shows tell me, "Let me figure out what I have into it' :D