Overview
- PSA announced Thursday that it will temporarily stop new submissions to its four Value tiers — Value Bulk, Value, Value Plus, and Value Max — starting June 2, 2026.
- The company says a 20% spike in submissions in May pushed its backlog to nearly 10 million cards even though daily grading capacity is at an all-time high and up about fivefold since 2021.
- PSA will continue to accept higher-priced services such as Regular, Express, Super Express, and Walk-Through and will finish value-tier submissions already in the pipeline while subscribers retain value access.
- Other grading firms including TAG and CGC have also limited tiers or extended turnaround estimates, and analysts say the pause will make PSA-graded cards scarcer and raise effective grading costs for sellers and collectors.
- PSA has published a public backlog tracker and says it aims to reduce the backlog to about 5 million in roughly four months, a change that could push more volume to pricier tiers and affect resale pricing and availability for months.