[raulus]

PSA is quoting these turnaround times:

SERVICE LEVEL ESTIMATED TURNAROUND TIME*
(in calendar days)

Premium + 3 Days
Walk-Through 3 Days
Super Express 7 Days
Express 14 Days
Regular 15-30 Days
Economy 45-90 Days
Value** 90-120 Days
Reholder 90 Days

My experience is that these are a little bit aspirational. At the same time, there's an element of randomness. I have an economy submission for 5 items that they entered on 5/4 that is very close to being done (2nd QC check), so it's at about 120 days, which isn't toooooo far over their estimate. And I have a value submission for 47 items entered on 6/28 that is also at 2nd QC check, which is just over 60 days, which is obviously well under their estimate. At the same time, the economy submission is for a vintage regional issue with very low pop counts, and the value submission is for mainline cards from the junk wax era. So perhaps that's part of the magic.

In some ways, it seems like they must have a great big pile that any given grader is working off of, and when they finish working on one submission, then they close their eyes and randomly grab one off of the pile. Maybe the piles are sorted based on submission level so that the higher submission levels have a higher probability of getting picked. If your submission gets picked up today by a grader when they're working through the pile, then you get lucky. And if it doesn't get picked up, then it might languish for weeks or months until they get to it.

Update:

Since writing this post this morning, my economy submission for 5 items that was entered into the system on 5/4 has been completed. So almost exactly 120 days by my count. And I'm even reasonably happy with my grades!