PSA announced Tuesday that its backlog now stands at about 3.6 million cards. The company says the majority of cards have actually been through the grading process but are waiting to be packaged and shipped.
PSA has been sending about 200,000 cards per week back to customers.
Expectations are that the backlog, which once stood at over 12 million cards, will be completely cleared by early this fall.
The vast majority of the cards that have yet to be shipped back to customers, some of which have been in the company’s possession for over a year, continue to be the modern era cards that were submitted when lower cost bulk grading was an option. As the hobby’s growth began to explode and prices for even lower end graded rookie cards were well above grading costs, submissions piled up.
PSA continues to expend 80 percent of its authentication and grading resources on the backlog, but on Tuesday announced it has now opened up its $50 Economy service to Collectors Club members without any restrictions on the number of cards that can be submitted.
“In order to keep the flow of submissions into the departments before grading, we are preparing to more fully open the Economy service level,” the company stated. “This will allow PSA to keep a steady flow of orders moving through our operation.”
When the company first offered the Economy option several months ago, customers were limited to sending in five cards at a time. Cards must not be valued at more than $999 and the turnaround time is 90 days.
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