PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator), one of the largest sports card grading companies, has temporarily paused submissions in some of its tiers.
The company says it has a backlog of nearly 10 million submissions. and needs to shut down some of its cheaper submission channels until it can reduce the backlog to 5 million cards, which it estimates will take around four months.
In a statement posted to their website, PSA said: “While our daily grading output is at an all-time high, with capacity up 5x since 2021, continuing to accept submissions at this breakneck pace would put more pressure on our operations and compromise the turnaround times of existing orders.”
Four “value” tiers for submissions are being closed. Turnaround times for grading will also increase.
The trading card industry has seen huge boosts in recent years. Records for historic rarities have gone through the roof: a 1952 Mickey Mantle Topps baseball card sold for $12.6 million in 2022.
And it’s not just these older issues: a new generation of cards is valuable from the moment of issue. These cards, one-of-one cards, usually signed, and often with parts of a player’s game uniform included, have inspired booming demand for new cards and trade at huge prices as soon as they are found. Last week, a current Josh Allen NFL card auctioned for $1.4 million before it had even been made. The most valuable card in history (a Michael Jordan/Kobe Bryant double autographed card) was made as recently as 2008.
It sold for $12.9 million in August 2025 and its buyers were a group of investors. That’s a great indicator of where the hobby is: no kid would be alllowed to put a sports card in their bike spokes today without first extensively checking online markets for value. As Sports Illustrated reports in response to the PSA pause: “People have quit their 9-5 jobs and turned their hobby into a living; they have graduated from college and go to card shows every week to make a living.”
With cards trading for huge sums, authenticity and condition have become vital to setting prices and reassuring buyers. What this pause will do to liquidity and the supply of cards in these markets will only become clear in the coming month.
