PSA Current Delay time, anyone know how late?

[yanks87]

I put cards in last year, December 2019, on the Quarterly Grading Special which is supposed to be 35 day turn. There was nothing crazy in there, honestly it was 1940 Superman Cards, 1935 Diamond Stars and some tobacco, 51 total, and it is still sitting there. Is anyone also experiencing a long delay in grading?

In a classic interaction, I sent customer service an email, inquiring what the current estimated delay is, and got an auto response that it would be 5 days before they could respond to the email. That was 8 business days ago.

I crunched the numbers and accounted for business days, adding two weeks for any holiday down time, and I'm still overdue. Just curious if anyone else is sitting and waiting.

[BabyRuth]

I submitted cards at the Wilmington, Ma show on 11/02/2019 and I got them back on 02/03/2020. Plan on 3 months.

[yanks87]

Sounds good, thank you!. So the 85 day order that I put in I should expect some time in 2021 right?

[bobbyw8469]

The group sub that logged in on Oct. 14th of last year hasn't even left "Research and ID" if that gives you any frame of reference.

[Goudey77]

I feel like my prospect RC cards are being held hostage. Probably a good thing that prevents me from selling too early.

I just submit and forget about it. Will be a nice surprise when Robert tells us the grades popped.

[MULLINS5]

Maybe they're using rulers now and that's increased the backlog.

[whitehse]

Originally Posted by bobbyw8469

The group sub that logged in on Oct. 14th of last year hasn't even left "Research and ID" if that gives you any frame of reference.

Four months plus and still no movement? Thats just crazy. Tell me again why anyone sends anything to PSA with that kind of stupid crazy turn around time? Any prospect cards one may send will come back to you when they are about ready to retire.

[ngnichols]

Originally Posted by whitehse

Four months plus and still no movement? Thats just crazy. Tell me again why anyone sends anything to PSA with that kind of stupid crazy turn around time? Any prospect cards one may send will come back to you when they are about ready to retire.

Because pretty much everyone grading cards wants it for as cheap of a price as they can possibly find, but still get it back quickly and have it be as accurate as possible. That works great in a vacuum, but not in real life given the amount of volume PSA and BGS are currently seeing.

In regards to PSA, they have created their own monster by being too cheap on their bulk submission program and have been flooded with cards through that. Having to house, secure, and maintain the amount of cards they have on-site is incredibly expensive and it's obviously not what they want to have happen. Unless changes are made to that program, it will continue to get worse and worse.

In regards to BGS, their formerly guaranteed turnaround times made them the primary grading source for time-sensitive products i.e. new stuff. They would get flooded with base prospect AU's every time Bowman/Bowman Draft would be released and so that's why they raised the prices to where they are right now. You can't afford to pay $37 + shipping there and back per card on base AU's because if they don't gem, it's not even worth the costs you just paid. This made their customer base become much more selective with what they send in and basically transferred all of the base RC's over to PSA because of their ability to grade cheap in bulk on stuff like 2018-19 Prizm Luka Doncic base RC's.

Even with that, with as many product releases that Panini is putting out in basketball and football every year on top of Topps' product releases, there is still so much volume that they were still operating at or above 100% daily capacity. They were getting everything done on-time, but barely and if they got hit with a big 30-Business day order combined with everything else (walk-in and other mail in orders) that timed up with that, it would really strain their ability to get stuff done in a timely manner. They had to go to a "estimated" turnaround time just in case they got to a point to where they needed an extra day or two to get some jobs done without having to eat the entire order for free.

There are simply not enough graders currently employed by PSA, BGS, and SGC to handle the demand that's being seen by all of those companies. It's like trying to fill an Olypmic swimming pool with a straw as your filling source.

[Mrc32]

Originally Posted by yanks87

In a classic interaction, I sent customer service an email, inquiring what the current estimated delay is, and got an auto response that it would be 5 days before they could respond to the email. That was 8 business days ago.

LOL. This is hilarious.