PSA backlog
 

Does anyone know if PSA has a plan to work through their backlog or is their solution to just “try harder”? If their backlog stays static or continues to grow, that’s nonsensical and seems artificial or intentional. Do they need help with efficiency or debottlenecking? I actually know a guy who helps large businesses with this type of transformation….

All levity aside - I had planned on getting my set graded all by PSA when it was done (which it is) however I’m 36 years old and cannot imagine parting with such a large part of my set for over a year when a competitor does it in 1/12th the time (if I line up for PSA grading and I live to be 80 years old, I’d essentially be giving up my cards for 2.3% of my remaining life, pass on that).

Real curious to hear if they are working on solutions. Thanks!

Yes, the solution has been to lower the submission price thus presumably increasing the flow of submissions and ADDING to the backlog.

Down to just about 1 year behind

It pains me because MY clock starts when the packages were received. I believe THEIR clock starts when they were logged in. And if that is the case, then they aren't going over a year.

My order arrived 3/9/21 and wasn't entered until 4/21/21. It finally moved to Grading, step 4 of 8. I don’t see myself ever using PSA again unless I win the lottery and am able to purchase a Ruth rookie or Wagner T206 and wish to get it in a PSA holder.

I listened to a interview the other day with the new president of PSA. He said that he is hoping to have the 6.7 million card back log caught up by this fall. I guess time will tell. It seems like a pretty lofty goal.

Didn't they say that like a year ago?

They are re-opening the $50 level using queues for people with annual memberships. Limit 5 per order, three orders per customer.
https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1503413

PSA and the other third-party graders will never completely eliminate backlogs. They need the on deck work, so graders aren’t twiddling their thumbs waiting on cards to arrive.

The issue is reducing their backlog to a reasonable and manageable level. I think I read a few months ago that a 1.5M backlog is the ideal mark.

Psa $50?
 

WOW! 15 cards at $50, I am sure that will make all the 60's-80's psa set registry people send in their $4 commons to help fill holes. Not only that, but they will wait an inordinate amount of time to get 8’s on cards they thought were 9’s and 10!

Don’t disagree that a backlog indicates health however in a sold out business - 0 backlog is always the ideal mark. Anything else is bluster. As a consumer - based on my original post - they are losing my business because of the backlog and technology exists today that’s more efficient and accurate at grading. They use it to grade massive amounts of lumber every single day in the wood industry.

I see the NFFTT strikes again!

This reminded me of the time Yogi Berra was asked if he wished to dine at a highly-regarded restaurant, and his response was:

"Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded."

LOL.

We need more Yogi's in Baseball!!!

You can observe a lot by watching this forum

When I came to a fork in the thread, I took it.

PSA still owns the Market, this will not change one bit.

mhmmm
 

Johnny,

Respect your views but they might have the market for backlogs maybe. I agree they have alot of advantages including the Registry and their sales BUT SGC has figured out the market, took a huge backlog, uses flex pricing, and gets your cards back in a month. Bottom line. Their cards are catching up and just try to buy an SGC T206 for a bargain. Not happening.

SGC is running the show right now. Who really wants to wait a year or more? ugh

Mike

The first company that implements automated grading done by vision systems and computers will take market share, it’s just a matter of time. The technology and demand exist and the whole point of grading is a basis of objectivity. Machines are far more objective than humans.

I agree with you Mike, SGC is catching up, definitely in the vintage market.

I heard today that some guys who sent in giant submissions a year ago, and PSA is finally getting around to grading, are getting hit with 6 and 7 figure fees that they now can’t/refuse to pay because the cards aren’t worth the grading fees. Look out.

I’ve never understood this. What is the business advantage for PSA not collecting upfront fees like SGC? You pay SGC upfront before you even mail it your cards. Who doesn’t like getting paid before the work is even done?

Just think how much money in interest alone PSA could’ve made off upfront fees this past year. Even when submissions were running at just 20 days, why wouldn’t any company want to receive all the money upfront and then earn interest on that money, or use it for other business aspects?

Plus, when the cards are graded, there is not any extra waiting to finally receive the bill, which delays shipping. With SGC, the cards are graded and then shipped. There is no extra invoice step (absent up charges), etc. PSA submitting a bill after grading, takes more time, increases overhead, and is just more work. Surprised Nat hasn’t figured this out. The float is your friend if your a business!

Seems like

This isn't correct. I was just hit with a surcharge for a grading submission to PSA. However, to be honest, PSA was correct in their value estimates for the cards I submitted. It was more that in the past, PSA was more lenient in allowing cards that were over the declared value limit to pass without adding a surcharge, and now they are lot stricter. You are also able to negotiate with them on the fees to come up with something somewhat more palatable. I'm not happy with paying these significant fees, which will impact how I submit to PSA in the future, but to be honest, they were correct in this situation.

MARX cards, very large bulk submitter, is defaulting on the million(s) it owes to PSA. But they took cash up front from their customers and seem to have frittered it away, and can no longer pay for the subs now that the bill came due.
https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1503473

Josh from PCSportscards (another bulk submitter) posted in that thread that some of his clients have also been stiffing his company by walking away from worthless slabs. The "base card revolution" seems to have crashed less than 2 years after it began.

Did they use their Value guide in determining this? In Bobby's most recent sub ($500 and under declared value) there was an upcharge on 6 cards and using PSA's own guide on the values they were all under $500. Was your card over their value on it?
https://www.psacard.com/priceguide/b...card-values/13

Selling some basketball and football cards for the maximum return timing was crucial. A flipper sent cards to PSA a year ago expecting 20,000 in profit. Just now receiving them back now lost the potential 20,000 gain---even with a few great basketball cards a high grade Bird RC sell prices went from 75,000 down to 30,000. I know a Pokémon collector he breaks out graded cards and resubmits to Beckett, because he likes their holders--its all ones preference- --

I used this from PSA's site when the declared value is understated: Link.

The relevant text is as follows:

"If you refuse, or are unable, to pay PSA for the accurate Service Level, then PSA will return the item to you unprocessed at your cost, and you will be charged for the Service Level at which you submitted the item."

Therefore, I still had to pay the upfront fee for the service level that I submitted the cards at, but I did not have to pay the upcharge. The cards were returned to me unslabbed. Saying that, this had to go through approval at PSA, and they told me this would be a one-time exception.

When I spoke with the PSA rep, we didn't go into how they were valuing my cards, so I can't say with certainty what methodology they were using. I'm pretty sure they were not using the PSA price guide. It seemed more that they were googling the card and checking latest prices for the card at that grade. However, I really am not sure on this part. They could be using VCP for all I know.

They are probably using their APR value, which is the recent average sales price for reported PSA sales. The PSA value is just the old SMR price, which is updated every 10 years or so.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Even using their APR value there shouldn't have been an upcharge on some of the cards.
One of the cards was a Mathewson white cap in a PSA 2 the APR on that card is $449.99

https://www.psacard.com/auctionprice...ummary/2092813

Let's just be patient. Card grading is a privilege.

Let's just be patient. Card grading is a privilege.

That sale for the PSA2 Mathewson was in 2017. I think we can all agree that prices have gone up significantly since then. Here's a PSA 2 that sold this year for $1375 on ebay. Link. That would be the correct value to use, so the card would probably have gotten a $100 upcharge. I'm not saying I like this, but it is what it is.

Haha, aren't you a trip. That was a 2017 sale. I am guessing the value of that card is slightly higher now. What do you think it is worth today? $2500?

PSA Upcharges
 

The last PSA Submission I received (December 2021) I was hit with an "Upcharge". They sent me a link to a Goldin Auction that ended in October.

That's a Win on the Upcharge !

BTW, PSA has issued a statement on MARX cards here: Link

Well you're the one that said that's what they were probably using for the values.

Looks like PSA is aware the authorized dealer is filing for bankruptcy protection. So the customers get their cards back in whatever state of grading they're in (most ungraded?), then have to fight PSA and others who are also owed money by Marx? Ugh. This may drag on a long time. And PSA specifically didn't say that those cards would be allowed to continue going through grading, just that they would be returned in the most expeditious manner. Many customers will now be out the grading fees (to Marx), with their cards back 1+ years later ungraded and some nearly worthless.

Honest question: what the !*&# is PSA doing? (From a business perspective, I mean.)

Instead of spending years failing to work through the backlog and angering their customer base, why not hire more people and expand their capacity?

Honest answer: I believe they have more than tripled their capacity in the last couple of years, it just hasn't been enough for the market which has grown into base card slab flippers in the same time.
Their biggest failure seems to be keeping low prices for too long, so that the backlog grew quickly to an inordinate pile to ever grow out of.

That’s my take as well. Also, people who say “just hire more people” must not have tried hiring anyone of late…it’s really difficult right now!

I’ve heard guys ask why PSA doesn’t just charge at the time of submission like SCG. Ive wondered the same thing, and the only possible reason I can come up with having something to do with liability and them being able skirt any semblance of legal responsibility for promised services….basically saying we don’t have make good on any promises until payment is collected. Curious to hear other takes, though.

PSA Pros:
1) Charging for the order in advance would make it harder to upcharge customers when their assessed graded card value now exceeds their submission level declared value.
2) They would have to escrow large amounts of money on behalf of customers, maybe? Or at least change up their accounting
3) Don't have to deal with refunds.

Customer pros:
1) You couldn't file a chargeback on a credit card payment if the grading took over 6 months? This is the cluster that BGS has been in for 4 (?) years.
2) Theoretically you could let them keep your cards if you were underwater on them, like sending back your house keys to your mortgage lender during the subprime crisis.
3) Your money isn't tied up.

The backlog was allegedly between 13M and 14M cards. Let’s compromise at 13.5M. Let’s estimate that the average grading fee for the 13.5M cards was $15.00. That equals $202,500,000.00 in upfront fees.

Let’s estimate that PSA could earn just 1% interest on those fees. That’s $2,025,000.00 in yearly interest (free money) just from collecting fees upfront and depositing them into an account. How does this not make sense?

Difficult? CU is worth close to a billion dollars and PSA is the industry leader. We're not talking about a Burger King franchise here.

So there’s several ways to overcome that:
1) pay more to qualified people (raising wages shouldn’t be too hard since they’re a private company now
2) train card graders and incentivize it - lots of good people working in industries still that they’d probably prefer to be a card grader - I feel comfortable on that assumption
3) invest in automation that alleviates the human capacity requirement, decreases cycle time and increases accuracy.

If they aren’t having the above 3 conversations in the c-suite daily they’re doing it wrong.

You’d be surprised how many people don’t want to sit in a dark room for 10 hours a day scrutinizing sportscards for $35k/year.

More so in Newport Beach. Maybe they need an office in Podunk Iowa?

The whole concept of these large group submissions is one I feel PSA should not encourage. By doing so I would think they are providing or at least implying assurances that the authorized dealer will safeguard participants' cards. So it begs the question if they have any liability or responsibility in this instance.

My bigger issue with it is that it creates an "unfair" competitive edge for the person or business who simply has the capacity to create these massive ongoing submissions. PSA was going to get the business from the individuals who make up these group subs anyway. These submitters now get much faster turnaround and they get a price per card that is significantly less. There is nothing stopping me from participating and sharing that edge but I like being able to control my own valuables to the extent that I can. I always worry something like this could happen or that cards gets switched out or there are delays on making the submission, etc. These subs are much different than two hobbyists piggybacking on an order. If my 200 card sub gets to PSA the same day one of these group subs of 5,000 cards gets there my sub is going to be there for months well after the 5,000 card sub has been returned.

It’s not just fast food that’s hurting…try hiring a technician, a software developer, or basically any job up or down the salary scale. Unemployment is at 3.9%.

Higher wages can help…although that usually means higher prices. But we have a shortage of workers globally right now - probably with many contributing reasons.

That being said…PSA is having success hiring…from their website:

“ In January 2020, PSA's parent company Collectors Universe employed 421 team members. Today we stand 783 people strong and growing daily. We’ve been adding more than 2 people per business day for more than 6 months and we’re still going.”