In the world of sports card collection, few factors weigh as heavily on the minds of hobbyists as the grading process. Today, the dripping faucet of time has turned into a steady downpour, as Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA)—the venerated body responsible for ensuring your holographic Arcanine or old-school rookie card is truly mint—unveiled a fresh set of changes. While collectors might have hoped that “change” meant faster and cheaper, it’s quite the reverse: longer waits and slightly higher price tags now greet those eager to authenticate their treasures.
Starting April 7, these adjustments rolled into effect, leaving card enthusiasts to grapple with extended estimated turnaround times. The new timeline will have the Value, Value Bulk, and TCG Bulk service levels sitting in the queue for about 65 business days before seeing the light of day again. For those opting for the Value + Bulk Dual Service, brace yourself for a 75-business-day waiting period. Patience, once a virtue, may now become a necessity.
Adding a dash of salt to the brew, starting April 8, prices for TCG Bulk submissions will inch upward from $16.99 to $18.99 per card. It’s the second such price hike this year, the last having been in mid-January when PSA nudged the turnaround window from 45 to 65 days—enough to make even the most stalwart collector wince involuntarily.
What’s driving these changes? According to PSA, it’s merely an attempt to keep stride with an insatiable demand that continues unabated. It’s akin to a game of whack-a-mole, with the moles being ever-increasing piles of getting cards demanding evaluation, and PSA wielding the mallet of trained graders-with no end in sight.
For those who’ve dipped their toes—or rather, their prized cards—into the PSA waters over the past few months, this news might seem a familiar refrain. Submissions from earlier in the year, still drifting through the processing pipeline, has many collectors nervously checking calendars and contesting with estimated completion dates that stretch into the far horizon.
And though the option of fleeing to another grading company might sound appealing, it seems that the grass is no greener on the other side. Companies like SGC, PSA’s notable competitor, are similarly feeling the squeeze under the pressure of an overflowing submission tray. Demand for grading services, it seems, is as popular as ever—enough to turn what was once a leisurely pursuit into a minor taste of a logistical labyrinth.
But time delays aren’t the sole anecdote card enthusiasts are grousing about. Earlier this year, PSA announced a recalibration of its grading standards, pointing their magnifying lenses more strictly at card centering. It wasn’t mere bluster. Recent card returns suggest Gem Mint 10s—the Holy Grail of graded cards—have become as rare as a blue moon, whereas almost-mints continually veer south of expectation.
For collectors, these shifts in criteria combine with the increased waiting times and prices to form a potent cocktail of reconsideration. Where fragility existed before, there might be firmly reinforced resolve: fewer speculative submissions—those cards teetering on the boundary of greatness—might remain tucked safely in shoeboxes a bit longer, for fear of temporary purgatorial delays and inevitable downgrades.
For now, PSA retains its throne as the titan of the grading landscape, a far cry from any dramatic dethronement thanks to this latest tweak. However, it does shine a light upon an increasingly esoteric question: what will these changes mean for the card-collecting hobby as a whole?
While some whisper fears of a stagnated market, such forecasts feel premature, much like forecasting bad weather in the sunnier months ahead. The possibility exists that fewer speculative submissions may indeed speed up the backlog over time—yet that’s the future’s concern.
In the interim, collectors and hobbyists alike must strategize with foresight and precision, their prized shoebox archives evaluated with a more discerning eye. If you’re about to send in your precious mementos for grading, pack an extra portion of patience, pick your cards with care, and maybe find a few extra hobbies in the interim. After all, with waits like these, it might be time to give stamp collecting another go.
