If this change has any effect on the backlog, it won’t be noticeable for a long time. Even if this reduces submissions by 75%, they’d still be receiving more submissions than they can process in a timely manner. The backlog is already so incomprehensibly large that reducing the rate that it’s growing at isn’t going to make any material difference for at least a year.
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As previously stated they send the cards in organised and properly presentable to PSA. They also deal in large volumes so makes sens to get a discount for the ease of submissions, loyalty and large subs consistently.
this is imo just a drop in the ocean, the sellers will easily be able to pass the added expenses to the buyers.
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Hah yea it sucks, I have my largest amount of cards ready to sub aswell XD typical and story of my life.
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I just got 800 cards ready this weekend to send to Ludkins…
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RIP sorry bro
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Damn they even doubled the price for the Quarterly Special:/ Was planning on sending one in before it had ended.
Looks like no submission for me in the near future:(
CGC is king
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Having to raise people’s wages for staff and passing that increase onto customers is common enough.
Simply doubling every price with the click of your fingers however leans more greed.
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New owners taking PSA private means there will be lots of additional price increases etc. The business is now purely for profit and not for shareholders(yes they want profit too). It also means they ahev flexibility to make changes quicker and easier…good and bad.
They have to start some time though to slow the feed that is piling onto the end of the backlog
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@garyis2000 I’ve officially joined your boycott
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Just wanted to note that while technically this should go in the Giant Professional Grading Thread, it’s such big and impactful news to many people here that we’ll keep it as its own thread.
I was expecting price rises, but a doubling in price is rough. I expected maybe a 25-30% increase. Really have mixed feelings about this, from a business standpoint it was clear PSA needed to do something to prices to slow down the backlog. It always sucks to pay more per card but if turnaround times decrease and customer service increases, that’s a trade-off I’m willing to make. The current submission levels were unsustainable with PSA’s current model.
If things don’t change, and (relatively) quickly, that’s when I’m going to start getting annoyed. Turnaround times need to be clearly communicated and stuck to. “Value” needs to come back in months not years. Pay the graders more to do a good job. It’s good that the value limits have been adjusted upwards in tune with prices.
I hope these price rises are what’s needed to at least get things under control and start returning us to at least a semblance of normalcy.
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Ouch, but it’s already super expensive in Japan.
Lol CGC is 17/card if you want subgrades and why do CGC if you aren’t doing their main benefiting factor, subgrades.
It is definitely slightly more appealing now though but I imagine they will get crushed with backlog now as PSA submitters switch.
Agreed, I was thinking something like 50% increase but to just straight up double seems like a big f-u to their customer base. It also seems like a bad price point mark as it now makes their competition more attractive as they offer subgrades, cheaper prices, and faster turnarounds still…
I’m guessing they will never lower this amount now that it is posted but instead offer quarterly discounts and then flooded during those periods?
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CGC at least has TAR times, unlike PSA which is just “whenever we feel like getting around to it”
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yeah for now…
Maybe I should explain myself a little bit more:
I was expecting some kind of price increases to happen, but doubling prices is crazy and not changing anything about the process or business model and having a crazy back log of submissions and submissions taking so long to grade, this is not a proper solution. Yes they definitely are going to get less orders now with this so there will be more time for them to catch up, but it will still be slow and it’s not a solution.
And as a customer who only sent couple submissions a year anyway, I’m dissatisfied and will stop grading cards for now and maybe move to CGC in the future if an European middle man becomes available.
I’ve been debating about stopping grading for couple of months already as it’s expensive and this decision by PSA has helped me make my decision in a way. Those few cards that I would need to send in to complete goals I think I won’t do even that as who knows when those cards would come back so is it really worth it? I don’t think so.
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This is a real bummer.
I had been holding off sending my 1st Edition Base set cards until I completed the full set, which I’m about 9 cards away. Naturally I was waiting for turnaround times to die down a bit, but some of these prices are crazy.
I’m not necessarily looking to sell these, so I’m less concerned about margins, but dropping at a minimum $20 a card (and likely more) just doesn’t really make me want to push through PSA.
I suppose if selling them isn’t on my radar that going through CGC would at least allow for protection, but I have about 10 of them already graded through PSA which makes this trickier.
What a bummer that they didn’t just scale operations to meet demand and are instead trying to curb supply – bad business model IMO
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