PSA Economy – Ground Truth

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by abothebear

All in all, this seems like an outright disaster for a lot of collectors. I am a low budget collector. I get a new card or two once every couple of months, usually under $10. I know the business side of the hobby doesn't need the likes of me, so I'm not clamoring for some unrealistic reversal for my sake. But it seems to me the grading craze is going to affect everybody. If a PSA case is being valued at $100 - $150, any card for sale in a PSA case should be expected to go for market value of the card plus market value of the case. That is a significant premium on any card, but disastrous for cards under $300. The raw market will certainly be getting an influx of collectors abandoning the graded game - another blow to low budget collectors like myself. I suppose we are stuck waiting it out, hoping a correction of some kind happens sooner or later. Eight years ago I could get almost anything I wanted at a reasonable price (I only lacked the money). Now if I had the money I don't know if I could justify spending it knowing its all inflated 1990-style, except worse because it is shifted up $100 because of the case and the related consequences for the raw market.

You say this as if there aren't any other options for sending your cards to. SGC is crushing it right now. CSG offers super cheap grading with longer waits, but at least you can submit to them. I've been sending a lot of my stuff to SGC though lately.

[Johnny630]

As every lower price point opens at PSA, the next being 100$ Per card it is my contention that SGC loses market share/business. SGC modern graded cards sell much lower then PSA modern. If is my believe they’re not fully capitalizing on that market. If they had sub grades for modern cards it would greatly help their market share.

I love both PSA and SGC.

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by Snowman

You say this as if there aren't any other options for sending your cards to. SGC is crushing it right now. CSG offers super cheap grading with longer waits, but at least you can submit to them. I've been sending a lot of my stuff to SGC though lately.

SGC crushes it except for prices attained.

[Yoda]

I have had approximately 50 post war vintage cards with PSA waiting for grading since May of 2020. These were submitted under their old bulk pricing. Thus, I have lost the time value of my money, since I intended to auction them off as soon as received. But, depending on the grades received, there might be some price increases since their incarceration, so financially I may find myself better off than had there been a quick turnaround. Kind of a 2 edge sword.
SGC has done a great job clearing their backlog, and I have always preferred their holder to PSA's eg., Cracker Jacks. Hopefully, in time collectors will realize that SGC operates in a more professional manner and this will bring about price increases for their cards.
Once my submission is finally received, I am through with PSA forever.

[abothebear]

Yeah, I know there are other (better) choices. My remarks weren't about the choices people have for grading, they were on the action of the collective and its effects. The mass of action revolves around PSA, and the market consequences are significant. I hope those who get cards graded shift to PSA's competition. Perhaps if it balances out between other TPGs (which it might if the "PSA" premium gets way out of hand for long enough), the overall market will return to reason.

Originally Posted by Snowman

You say this as if there aren't any other options for sending your cards to. SGC is crushing it right now. CSG offers super cheap grading with longer waits, but at least you can submit to them. I've been sending a lot of my stuff to SGC though lately.

[Mike D.]

They must be planning on bringing Economy back at some point…they’ve said they’ll extend all memberships until you’d get whatever number of months of economy as you’d have had from when they shut down to when your membership was set to expire.

[Johnny630]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

They must be planning on bringing Economy back at some point…they’ve said they’ll extend all memberships until you’d get whatever number of months of economy as you’d have had from when they shut down to when your membership was set to expire.

In terms of “Economy” based solely on Economy what do expect that price to be?

I think it will come back for sure, price I would be satisfied with would be around $25 per card for a 12-18 month turn around time.

The days of 12$ per card are in my mind over, I for one hope they are, that’s how we got to the situation we are in now. Thousands of cards not worth grading being sent in. I would think PSA doesn’t want or need a price structure of less then $25 at any level per card.

[yanks87]

I too think the days of the $8-$12 grade are LONG gone, which makes me happy that I got all of my crappy cards in when I did. $20 per card is a threshold for me, but I am also cheap and sit on my cards, not looking for the quick flip or have a ton into them.

I have two orders in with PSA right now, one that has 20 cards, and the other is a 172 T206's, T201's and Diamond Stars, once that comes back, I will be done submitting until they open back up the "value" grading. I am fine with waiting, but will be more precise on what I send in going forward.

[Frankish]

Originally Posted by yanks87

I too think the days of the $8-$12 grade are LONG gone, which makes me happy that I got all of my crappy cards in when I did. $20 per card is a threshold for me, but I am also cheap and sit on my cards, not looking for the quick flip or have a ton into them.

...I am fine with waiting, but will be more precise on what I send in going forward.

Totally agree.

One of the irritating aspects is that many of the cards I submitted in late 2020 or early 2021 have been graded to standards that I don't think applied in 2019 or earlier. Cards I would have sworn a PSA 7 came back a 5 or 5.5. Not a big deal, but since you mentioned getting all of the crappy cards graded, I wish I'd done it a year earlier!

Someone mentioned CSG earlier. For the time being at least, I am through with them. I submitted a couple of hundred cards (partly out of curiosity and partly because of the $8/card deal) and have been confused by those I've gotten back. The modern seem okay. The vintage cards are more problematic. If I took submissions as a whole, the grades seem fine. But on a card-by-card basis, I can't figure the grades out at all. In a way, I viewed the submissions as simply paying $8/card for slabs and an ID label, so am satisfied with that. But I don't see how I can rely on the grading if I can't understand it....

Hopefully SGC's business plan works out and they can grow in importance, even if slowly. Many of my vintage cards (tobacco, Japanese menko, 1940s Cuban) look so much better in their holders!

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

SGC crushes it except for prices attained.

SGC is closing the gap though, slowly but surely. The longer PSA takes to reopen at reasonable prices, the more SGC will continue to grow and the greater market share they will grab hold of. There will be some pull back once PSA reopens of course, but by that time, I'd bet that SGC will have made a pretty significant impact on the market and people will realize that they are a legit (if not the best) grading company with respect to consistency and customer experience.

Originally Posted by Frankish

One of the irritating aspects is that many of the cards I submitted in late 2020 or early 2021 have been graded to standards that I don't think applied in 2019 or earlier. Cards I would have sworn a PSA 7 came back a 5 or 5.5. Not a big deal, but since you mentioned getting all of the crappy cards graded, I wish I'd done it a year earlier!

This is my biggest issue with PSA right now. I understand the wait times, but they have drastically moved the goal posts with respect to their grades over the past year. I have hundreds of cards that were submitted in 2019 all from the same two cases across multiple different submissions, then submitted again from those same two cases, the same cards of other players in mid 2020. Those cards were graded in 2021 and despite all being from the same case, my PSA 10 rates from 2019 were ~85% and in 2021 they were ~35%. My criteria did not change, their standards did. I've seen the same thing with a lot of mid-century vintage baseball submissions. Cards that used to be 4s and 5s are now 2s and 3s, and 8s are now 6s. And I'm not even comparing it to the earliest graded cards with the old flips that start with 0 or 1 serial numbers. I'm talking about cards graded just a few years ago. Someone on another forum was talking about how they cracked open 3 PSA 9 Ryne Sandberg rookie cards because they thought they had a pretty good chance at bumping up to a 10. They came back as two 7s and an 8. It's super frustrating. Their standards no longer even align with their own published standards on their website with the Mantle card photos.

Originally Posted by Frankish

Someone mentioned CSG earlier. For the time being at least, I am through with them. I submitted a couple of hundred cards (partly out of curiosity and partly because of the $8/card deal) and have been confused by those I've gotten back. The modern seem okay. The vintage cards are more problematic. If I took submissions as a whole, the grades seem fine. But on a card-by-card basis, I can't figure the grades out at all. In a way, I viewed the submissions as simply paying $8/card for slabs and an ID label, so am satisfied with that. But I don't see how I can rely on the grading if I can't understand it....

Ya, I was excited for CSG at first. I love the look of their slabs. They feel great in hand and are crystal clear. But they've been super disappointing since they launched. They really dropped the ball. SGC has been the clear winner of 2021 for me.

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by Johnny630

In terms of “Economy” based solely on Economy what do expect that price to be?

I think it will come back for sure, price I would be satisfied with would be around $25 per card for a 12-18 month turn around time.

The days of 12$ per card are in my mind over, I for one hope they are, that’s how we got to the situation we are in now. Thousands of cards not worth grading being sent in. I would think PSA doesn’t want or need a price structure of less then $25 at any level per card.

I’ll guess $25 for economy and $18-20 for value bulk subs…but those are more guesses than anything.