Collectors Universe, the parent company of PSA and PSA/DNA, reported record revenues for fiscal year 2019 on Wednesday.
The company took in $72.5 million in fiscal 2019, which ended June 30. That figure includes a record $5.4 million, or 25% increase in trading card and autograph authentication revenues.
Revenue from trading card and autograph submissions in the fourth quarter also grew to record highs, thanks to a growing number of submissions. In all, PSA and PSA/DNA processed over 680,000 items in that three month stretch, up from 620,000 in the third fiscal quarter.
“The PSA and PSA/DNA business set another all-time quarterly revenue record for the division and eclipsed last year’s Q4 revenue by roughly $1.7 million,” said Collectors Universe President Joe Orlando.
PSA says it has now experienced nine consecutive years of top and bottom-line growth. That record output of nearly 2.5 million items processed for the fiscal year has made it difficult for the company to handle an ongoing backup of orders. They’re still dealing with the largest submission backlog in history and Orlando says they continue to step up efforts increase capacity, so customer turnaround times can be reduced.
“PSA closed Q4 with the highest submission backlog in the division’s history despite increasing its output in each of the last four quarters. This is a clear indication of the power of the PSA brand and the continued demand for our services. The company continues to work on expanding operational capacity, so we can ultimately improve the extended turnaround times facing our customers.”
At the end of the earnings report conference call, the company fielded questions including several related to the FBI investigation into authenticated and graded cards that appear to have been altered. Most were sold by PWCC, the hobby’s largest online auction house.
“I think if you look at the last four months or so which is about at the time that this sort of news story broke on this company, I mean our receiving has actually gone up,” Orlando said. “The prices for PSA certified items remain terrific and the demand is there. So we don’t we don’t anticipate anything of any meaning as a result of this.
“We don’t view this as being any loophole on our end and we think that in the overall scheme of our business that some of this has been blown way out of proportion. But we are very confident in the services that we provide and very confident in the grading staff that we have and so is the public.
“This is the same exact battle that we deal with every day. I guess the way I would characterize this is none of this is really new news. It’s not news to us. It’s not news to the industry that these types of things go on. So there is nothing really out of the ordinary from that perspective about the investigation versus any other year in our history.”
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