[chevy man 22]

Sad day for the grading part of the hobby. 

PSA can now charge what the hell they want and you pay it or you don't get your cards graded. Yes CGC and Beckett are out there but there is no comparison IMO. Get ready for PSA Monthly specials to be far and in between because now they have no reason to do anything great.

Makes sense why SGC turn around times came to a screeching halt the last month.

[jdsun1]

Total disaster. Eating up the competition

[hempick]

Total disaster.

[ZSDOne]

The near complete abdication by the federal government of enforcing antitrust laws has definitely been bad for consumers - although most industries aren't as bad as sportscards when it comes to monopoly

[jaredhuizenga]

Count me in the very unhappy about this camp, too. I HATE PSA. I HATE Ken Goldin. And now my favorite grading company is part of the family ... until Collectors guts them and closes up shop.

There's really zero competition left out there. I like CGC and think they have promise, but not with #s 1 and 2 being the same company, and BGS is a very distant 4th. There's joke companies like HGA and Tag, but this move essentially kills them, too.

I won't pay PSA base prices. I won't pay their stupid upcharges. I won't put up with their wait times. I guess I'll ride it into the sunset and stop grading my stuff.

Terrible day for the hobby.

[Phillies_Joe]

I only grade cards with the thought of selling them. Since PSA for the most part has the best resale values that's all I care about. Grading imo is a total scam and grades are just an opinion anyway. I like Pete from SGC and hope he does well. Moving on....after wasting my time with this comment....LOL. Have a great one!

[chevy man 22]

I for sure see a mass exodus from grading if PSA is the only legit option. This could/should cause a big increase in Raw card sales. Let the suckers take all the risks. I also don't rule out Fanatics at some point getting into the grading game be it through buying one of the other companies or doing direct to product grading where say each box of cards includes a graded card which you know will be Gem Mnt 10. Although if they do I think we are looking at a year or more down the road. But if Fanatics comes out and declares that their brand is " THE ONLY OFFICIAL " grading card it will be interesting to see how that effects PSA especially if they come in at $10-$12 with no minimum where PSA is currently at $18.99 for Bulk Subs with a 10 card minimum.

All the greats fall at some point I mean who would ever have thought BGS, Toys 'R Us or Macy's, or Sears would ever have gone under and even Walmart has seen a big chunk of it's dominance taken away by Amazon. It will be no different for PSA

[dimarco73]

There was a day when PSA was literally the only grading company in the 90's before SGC started up in I think 97ish.
Grading was new, but they use to charge $6 a card.
They make money by having people submit cards to them...not pricing so high so they lose customers.

Even now they are at $15 on the monthly specials, which is not much more then SGC.
I have a ton of SGC slabs..I have many PSA slabs. So I don't really have a favorite.

[chevy man 22]

True but the days of $6 subs is what got them in the trouble they are in today. At that price people were slabbing $.10 commons. Grading should never IMO be for anything that has a value less than the sub price. Anything less than that is what COMC was made for. I think $15 is a decent price but $20 and up just isn't worth it.

[rjcj2017]

The idiot "Great New Covid Collectors I Keep Hearing About" slab everything these days ... hence, ruining yet another aspect of the hobby.

No one needs to slab a sixth-year vet card of anyone, yet ... they still do.

If I were these grading companies I'd start just handing out 6s to any card that is worth less than the cost of the grading fee + shipping, like, automatically.