Does PSA lose your submissions due to memberships?
 

I was going to mail some cards to get graded for the very first time and though I prefer PSA grading system, I cant get past the membership fee (and the higher costs). Am I the only one or does PSA lose a lot of business over this? Or is there a way around that membership that i dont know about?
Thanks for the input :)

no way around the "membership".
do they lose business? nope

seems strange to me that theyd risk losing business for something so silly as a membership.

Yes they do. I don't submit many cards to be graded so when I chose to submit my first cards SGC was the company I went with because it didn't require a membership. Since my first submission I have received great customer service from SCG so I haven't even considered PSA again.

The membership is almost free with the free submissions they give you.

Im not saying I will never usa PSA because of their membership, but it was a very large determining factor when I first got back into the hobby and was looking for a TPG. They're not dying without my business, but there are potential customers who have shied away for this reason.

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Me Too

me 3

I went to have some cards graded by PSA not knowing about the membership, when I realized this, I submitted the cards to SGC. I prefer the SGC holders anyway, but I thought I would give PSA a shot. After the membership aspect and the extra cost......I only use SGC now.

But if you plan to have six or more cards graded, it is no extra cost.

I know it's true in my case, and I'd guess for others.

I have something fundamentally against paying for the right to spend money with someone. In the case of a club with a cover charge, or a show admission I actually get something for the cover charge - I can hear a band without drinking, or I can view the show without buying (Ok, I know it;s a huge stretch there but I could if I wanted to) or just bring in an item or two to sell.

But having to buy a "club membership" to be granted the privilege of giving them my money? Even if thry make up for it with some free grading and a self serving inaccurate price guide? Not for me.

I do have some modern cards that I'd considered sending in. But they even want $25 to look at the population reports, which would be a big part of deciding which cards got sent in. Business is business, and they're not hurting without me, but I'll spend my money somewhere the arrogance and greed are at least not part of the corporate image.

Steve B

not at all (they lose no submissions from me).

and as mentioned earlier - PSA gives you a batch of 'free' submissions with your paid membership.

It really isn't that big a $$$ difference.

yea the free voucher about cancel the membership fees.

The PSA mebership fee and its free voucher does pay for itself IF you get enough cards graded during the membership term. However if you're not a regular submitter and don't know that you will send in enough cards to cover the cost over the term of the membership it doesn't make sense to sign up when another service will grade your cards on a per card basis.

The membership fee doesn't cost them my submissions, their superior (IMO) competition does. I have no issue with the fee and it is offset with vouchers.

tim,

the voucher is for 6 cards...all must be submitted at the same time. i've actually saved a little money by using the voucher whereas if i submitted the cards to sgc they would've charged me $20-$35 depending on the value of the card(s) ($500-$2000).

Quan,

I agree with what you're saying but in the case of collectors like myself that may not submit any cards or just a few during the course of a year it doesn't make sense. I realize I'm in the minority and probably not missed by PSA.

nope
 

It isn't their membership fee that costs them my business either. It's their grading.

There is a link for a non-member submission form on PSA website.

http://www.psacard.com/submission_ce...onmember.chtml

If you plan to grade 6 or more cards, the membership is cool because you receive a hard copy subscription to the SMR for a year. It's not Old Cardboard, but practically free if you sub 6 six cards.

I use PSA because it's about 30 miles from me which equates to lower "raw cards in the mail" induced stress.

I agree with above posts, SGC holders look better and in my opinion, hold the card better. I plan to use SGC for the first time, sometime this month.

+1

There is a way around membership fees.
 

There are dealers that can submit cards directly for people that are not members. I would try contacting any of their authorized dealers in the area.

That statement pretty much sums it up for me too, regardless of the vouchers or not. It would be like me buying a membership to Wal-Mart or Target for the privilege to shop there. Ridiculous!

Sam's Club and COSTCO has developed a very nice business model doing exactly that.

If you can submit cards w/o a 'membership' why would anyone bother w/a membership?

As for me, I think their grading and their holder are inferior to SGC and their attitude sucks, so no submissions from me, except I did sign up when they started the 1/2 grade scale so I could try and bump a bunch of stuff and cross-over some other stuff. A few of the modern SGC 96's that crossed to PSA 9's paid for the whole thing.

I had noticed that recently as well. I have a card that I'd like reviewed and I had been meaning to call and make sure that you can submit without a membership. They did tell me a while back that you could make a first time submission without one, but that was before they had that non member form on the website.

The 6 free submissions do cover most but not all of the membership fee. And it's limited to cards under 499, which is fine since most of what I'd submit is much less.

But...

The SMR subscription is pretty much worthless to me, any price guide that lists prices for cards that don't exist can't be considered reliable or based in any sort of reality. You don't need to go much farther than looking up a Wagner. The best one is an 8, and yet they show a price for one graded 9. If there was any card with a solid trackable price history that would be it.


I'm not a member of Sams Club, Costco, or BJs wholesale either.

Steve B

I believe that you need to be a member to have a look at PSA's pop reports, if you're in to that sort of thing.

This is my reason to. Put me in this group as well.

Psa = no!
 

PSA blows. Usually overgraded, lousy looking holders and elitist attitude made me an SGC guy from the start. Why anyone would pay a premium for the stuff in their holders is beyond me. OOOOO a PSA 9!! Who the hell cares, it probably would only get a 7 from SGC anyway.:mad:

except walmart and target don't give you a $100 giftcard to cover for the membership fee.

grading is subjective, i've found crappy overgraded cards in both psa/sgc holders. i've also found undergraded that easily crossed psa-->sgc and vice versa.

I did not renew because I only need a few more cards for some Registry sets and it's easier just to buy them already graded. Paying for 6 "free subs" and other worthless stuff doesn't help much... the specials are sometimes good, but I can't use them because they require 25+ card min and I don't need that many.

That was my experience too in terms of analyzing the value of their benefits. I felt it was just a load of crap I did not want or need.

I use both PSA and SGC. Both TPG's have different strengths. I sub quite a few cards, so I'm not bothered by membership fee for PSA since its offset by the voucher, you get the magazine subscription, and that coffee table book.

Where do I sign up?!?!?

I've been a member for a few years. I'm not renewing. I just don't send in enough cards, and if I want graded cards, I can just get them already graded on the bay.

SMR was nice to get as a magazine, and to use as a price guide online, but I hardly ever check it anyway.

I do have a bunch of cards registered, I have no idea what happens when I don't renew, and really don't care. I bought into the registry thing for a while, but now don't care. I can't tell the difference between a 7, 8 and a 9 raw most of the time anyway so why should I pay big money for the 9?

I have never submitted a card to PSA, and the membership is a huge factor in that. I have raw cards that I would prefer in a PSA holder because of set continuity, but I will not submit to PSA as long as this membership thing stays in place. In the meantime, I've been very, very happy with numerous submissions to SGC.

Cheers,
Blair

If...
 

If PSA provided decent customer service and consistent grading, I'd be willing to pay a membership fee for that. But SGC is better, more consistent and allows an ad hoc submission with no additional fees.

I was a member of PSA for a bit, but have allowed it to lapse. The membership fee has most defintely stopped me from submitting cards for grading. Yes, they give you a few free submissions for cards valued under $500, but I'm working on Buffalo Bills teams sets all PSA graded, and there are really no cards that are worth much more than $10. The grading specials let me get these graded for $5 each, so I'm getting $30 in vouchers for my $100 a year?

The SMR was OK, I never used the price guide, but every once in a while there was a decent article in it. I really liked the coffee table book, but I got a free copy anyways for letting them use one of my cards.

I was going to rejoin when they had a membership fee of $59/year but no free submissions, then they no longer offered that option.

Maybe someday I'll join again. I've got some 1970's OPC hockey that should grade decently, and I could probably make a couple of $$ on them. Add that to some of my 1970's/80's Bills commons for my Registry and MAYBE I could justify the membership fee just to finish some things up. In the meantime, I've got some post-war baseball HOF rookies that I'll send to SGC, I really don't plan on selling any of them anytime soon anyways.

I'm getting confused - you say you get "a few" free submissions (the cheapest membership currently provides 6 for $110, or $18.33 per card) for cards valued under $500 BUT yours are valued at around $10? Doesn't that mean the plan works well for you? Why the "but"? And are you saying PSA also offers some $5 grading specials to its members, which would bring down the average submission cost? I'm not sure why you'd value the original membership vouchers at only $5 if that's only a special sale price for submissions incremental to the original purchase.

I plan on subscribing in a week or two, and going with the $189 membership with 15 free submissions. I have about 15 cards I'd like to grade, and that works out to about $12.50 each, which seems reasonable to me. I don't care much about the other "freebies", and I don't even really look at it as a membership. I'm just buying 15 submissions, and I'm okay with the price.

The reason is the prices. At PSA, the "sale" prices for cards with a declared value under $100 (and after 1960) is $4.50 per card. SGC is fairly similar. That means that if you went with SGC, it would only cost you ~$67.50 to grade 15 cards. And if you use your Platinum voucher, you pay $189, so you would basically be paying > $100 more than you had to. The best use of the voucher is for cards with a declared value > $250 and less than $500. The < $250 special at PSA is $10/card, so 15 cards would bring you up to $150. The < $500 special is $14/card, which would bring it to $210, so this is the best price point to use the voucher for. However, as the previous poster said, if all you want to submit are cards that are < $100, it doesn't make too much sense to pay for the membership fee for the voucher.

Im sold. eff PSA Im going with SGC

My local card shop will submit at their cost. They even called me & told me when my card arrived.

Gary - thanks for clarifying for me. You hit the nail on the head.

Karl - If you have cards valued at >$250 but <$500, then you are right, the free submissions would just about pay for the membership. I just don't have that type of stuff I would want to send to PSA. My more expensive items are pre-war, and I get them slabbed by SGC.

If you do join, watch the monthly specials. They can be pretty good at times. I believe not long ago they had one for cards valued <$250 for just $6. It's also good if you submit large numbers of cards, or you're looking to sell.

Sometimes you can find others (like authorized dealers as mentioned earlier) to submit cards for you under their memberships. I've actually submitted cards for 2 board members in the past, and for one of them I used one of my free vouchers. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a bad experience. PSA didn't log in my cards timely, their "turnaround time" is not guaranteed and took longer than expected, and they didn't update the shipment back to me timely. If memory serves me correctly, I received my cards before PSA ever showed they had shipped.