PSA just suspended all new submissions below Super Express

[gmoney328]

Originally Posted by tyrith

CSG has some idea what they're getting into - they've already become #2 on the Pokemon side of things and gotten slammed. Now, does that mean they can do anything about it? ...who knows.

Have to agree here. They've been doing this in some way, shape or form for some time now. Can they ramp up in time to handle the avalanche coming is the $64000 question.

[towerymt]

Originally Posted by andrewjjones

my slabs have been flying off of ebay tonight. Assume this has to do with it?

maybe, but there was also 5% ebay bucks through 3/31 I believe (I didn't get it, so going from memory of what someone said a couple days ago)

[MoreToppsPlease]

Originally Posted by andrewjjones

my slabs have been flying off of ebay tonight. Assume this has to do with it?

5% eBay bucks

[Goldenarm]

This move will hurt all those group submission companies.

[Spacemanspif]

Originally Posted by Spartyon

What if they introduce a lottery system, or limit submissions per person per week/quarter/etc

That’s how I would have managed the problem in the first place. Smooth out revenue stream in the process


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lottery systems wont work. Bots will beat you to the punch if it’s on any sort of time-based release, or they can create 100 profiles against your one entry if it’s a pure randomized lottery.

Again, the problem of not being able to meet demand is a tricky problem, but shutting the door on customers is not a solution. It’s a white flag admitting they’re in over their head.

[base set]

Originally Posted by MoreToppsPlease

You think Topps slabbing cards at the factory a joke? It’s certainly a lot better than having a third party do it. Especially when AI is involved.

Getting truly pristine cards would be easy and less expensive when slabbed at the factory...and that’s what everyone wants, right?

Not quite. What everyone wants is outside validation of their decisions. Much like the perpetual stream of threads here asking which is the “best” Rookie Card card to own.

That’s the value-added service that PSA sells. It’s like a co-brand now with the card manufacturers.

Purists don’t need outside validation. Not everyone in a hobby is a purist.


As for the PSA decision here, they made the right one, in my opinion. At a certain point, you have to acknowledge reality and take care of the customers, even when that means turning down business. Anyone who has ever run a business knows this. There is another big hobby presence with an alphabetic acronym, though of four letters, that is ignoring this basic reality.

[ALBASKETBALL]

All the more reason to submit a 10 card trial run to CSG.

[Soonforget526]

For those interested, Steve Sloan did an interview on the Sports Cards Nonsense podcast a few weeks back (link below). A few interesting points.

- There was 2M subs in Jan/Feb
- 50% of those were <$50 value, of which 30% <$25 value
- If people only subbed cards >$80, PSA can cover their commitments with its’ existing capacity

Overall, good move to pause as none of their traditional tactics have affected demand. As others have mentioned, I think we’ll see pricing and other tactics to motivate folks to think twice before sending in cards <$50 in the future.

Link to podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000512225153

[Shaneacook1989]

Originally Posted by MavsRChamps

Can someone explain this with more context? - In the e-mail from PSA to all users: "I’ll try to further illustrate what has happened. The sheer volume of orders that PSA received in early March has fundamentally changed our ability to service the hobby. The reality is that we recently received more cards in three days than we did during the previous three months. Even after the surge, submissions continue at never-before-seen levels."

So randomly in March they got as much submissions in 3 days than in the 3 months before that? How is that even possible & what was so special about these 3 days - Was it like a couple bulk submitters who submitted hundreds of thousands of cards? Just hard to believe.

On the news - It seems like they had no choice, so it's fine with me. I don't think it will affect much other than give them time to sort out their issues so they'll be ready for the increased orders in a couple months.

I just hope they don't raise prices again; that would be unnecessary I think. Just become more efficient at it & figure that part out.

They probably went to the post office and picked up 3 months worth of submissions and it took them 3 days to gather them all

[BuddyCards]

Originally Posted by Shaneacook1989

They probably went to the post office and picked up 3 months worth of submissions and it took them 3 days to gather them all

Rush of submissions before the prices went up...that is also why they didn't announce earlier that they were going to suspend submissions - otherwise it would have created another big bubble.

[Spartyon]

Originally Posted by Spacemanspif

Lottery systems wont work. Bots will beat you to the punch if it’s on any sort of time-based release, or they can create 100 profiles against your one entry if it’s a pure randomized lottery.



Again, the problem of not being able to meet demand is a tricky problem, but shutting the door on customers is not a solution. It’s a white flag admitting they’re in over their head.

What about straight up restricting submitting cards until 2 months after a given set releases. Could limit the restriction to certain service levels.

Do you think we’d see as many submissions if people were forced to wait for prices to settle in prior to submitting? Honestly don’t know the answer

[Shaneacook1989]

PSA should just temporarily limit the amount of cards/submissions one person can submit in a month. That would slow things down enough for them to catch up and not have surges of orders out of fear of their sporadic and dramatic price increases.

[PelicanFly]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

They simply need to charge $1000 per card for grading - that'll stop the clown submissions.

Super Express at $300 is still open, so we'll see.

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but SGC is promoting HARD about their lead times last few weeks. Well, they just got their wish...yet again. Genius stuff by PSA. With the way competitors are marketing, and before the flood of prizm hits the USPS trucks.

If SGC gets flooded again, expect this to be a 3rd strike for many of their customers. PSA will open back with a more marginal backlog and those "final straw" customers of SGC will be gone. I don't expect SGC to have learned anything since the last time they F'd this up.

[ge714]

I was just about submit 25 of my 90s Basketball Cards (Kobe & Garnett rookies, tons of Jordans)

Would Beckett fetch a better resale price if the card is a 10?

[mc1]

Originally Posted by ge714

I was just about submit 25 of my 90s Basketball Cards (Kobe & Garnett rookies, tons of Jordans)

Would Beckett fetch a better resale price if the card is a 10?

9.5 and 10s will do ok.

If you get lower then youll get killed.

[MoreToppsPlease]

Originally Posted by base set

Not quite. What everyone wants is outside validation of their decisions. Much like the perpetual stream of threads here asking which is the “best” Rookie Card card to own.

That’s the value-added service that PSA sells. It’s like a co-brand now with the card manufacturers.

Purists don’t need outside validation. Not everyone in a hobby is a purist.


As for the PSA decision here, they made the right one, in my opinion. At a certain point, you have to acknowledge reality and take care of the customers, even when that means turning down business. Anyone who has ever run a business knows this. There is another big hobby presence with an alphabetic acronym, though of four letters, that is ignoring this basic reality.

Non-purists want a subjective assessment process that they can profit off of. Cards slabbed at the factory greatly cut down on that subjectivity... mostly because damage to cards mostly happens after the card leaves the factory press.

Whether the pristine card comes with a PSA label or a Topps label shouldn’t matter. But cutting out the PSA middleman, reduced costs, almost no wait time and plentiful pristine cards offer the absolute best scenarios for hobbyists.

[chezball]

WTF do you think will happen July 1st?
The same thing will happen, maybe more so.

[Cardfanattic]

Originally Posted by jduds

There is another solution. You missed the part in the letter about opening up physical locations internationally. Even card grading can get outsourced it seems.

Well they have institutional monopoly money to play with now so I wouldn’t be surprised. Earlier in the thread, I mentioned the very real possibility of physical brick n mortar locations in high traffic sports towns or even stadiums, which could serve as drop off points and trading posts.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[clocsta2323]

Group subs is the sole cause of the backlog. Hopefully they abolish them when they open back up.

[thenightman]

Originally Posted by KD35Russ0

This ^^^^

I can't believe people think prices are going to go up because of this announcement. MAYBE for a couple of weeks, but this announcement only confirms the magnitude of the problem that we already knew....there are TONS of, especially super modern, cards that are about to be released back into the wild. Modern, in the short term, is in some trouble imo.

You're mistaken. I hate to think this way, but if I'm being honest it is the truth.

That truth is this, people, in general, are dumb. Maybe you're not dumb, and maybe that other guy isn't dumb, but the majority of people are dumb.

They hear this news and they do ZERO research to understand what this means. All they hear is PSA is not submitting, so to them that means that all currently graded cards are a premium.

It's best not to try and understand this sort of thinking. It's better to just understand that it's true.

You don't have to believe me right now. Just watch. You will see in time that I'm telling you the truth.

If I am wrong, feel free to let me know in the future.

[clocsta2323]

Originally Posted by thenightman

You're mistaken. I hate to think this way, but if I'm being honest it is the truth.

That truth is this, people, in general, are dumb. Maybe you're not dumb, and maybe that other guy isn't dumb, but the majority of people are dumb.

They hear this news and they do ZERO research to understand what this means. All they hear is PSA is not submitting, so to them that means that all currently graded cards are a premium.

It's best not to try and understand this sort of thinking. It's better to just understand that it's true.

You don't have to believe me right now. Just watch. You will see in time that I'm telling you the truth.

If I am wrong, feel free to let me know in the future.

This post is dumb

[Yankees2020]

This is not good I had so many paper bass rookies. How can a company expand into new space, and then stop most submissions?? How do they stay alive? Makes no sense!

[oddstuff]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

The problem is, the turnaround time will NOT improve. In fact, for the bulk orders, it's going to get worse. Tens of millions of more cards will be backed up for submission and card companies have 50 more products to churn out over the next six months.

It's like they reduced a five lane traffic jam to one lane and told all the other commuters to stay at home. Problem is, when they open up the five lanes again in mid-2021, the number of commuters will be double.

They are creating a bottleneck effect cause the supply of cards can only continue to increase, they will NEVER catch up. Unless, of course, they regress into an inferior product and spend about 5 seconds per card or less.

Going along with your analogy, while they're catching up on the existing backlog, they're also building another 3 lanes so that when they open up during the summer, there will be 8 lanes ready instead of 5 lanes....and also, they are building additional separate freeways in the form of additional grading locations, both internationally as well as here in the states.

[NoWhammys2021]

PSA gave me an 8 before.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CaliCollector87]

Originally Posted by PelicanFly

Super Express at $300 is still open, so we'll see.

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but SGC is promoting HARD about their lead times last few weeks. Well, they just got their wish...yet again. Genius stuff by PSA. With the way competitors are marketing, and before the flood of prizm hits the USPS trucks.

If SGC gets flooded again, expect this to be a 3rd strike for many of their customers. PSA will open back with a more marginal backlog and those "final straw" customers of SGC will be gone. I don't expect SGC to have learned anything since the last time they F'd this up.

This is actually a genius move by Nat. Shut down operations and shut up the competitors, and keep your highest clientele. Competitors wanted Psa volume now they're going to get it and wont be able to handle it. Tired of waiting a year for psa, Eventually wait a year for sgc, csg, bgs or get in a lottery for hga. Then after they're clogged open back up. Defensive and offensive move at the same time.