Quick recap: on May 28, PSA announced it was pausing all four Value grading tiers (Value Bulk, Value, Value Plus, Value Max) effective Tuesday, June 2, 2026. The reason given was a backlog approaching 10 million cards. Read the full breakdown in PSA Pauses Value Grading — Here's What Sellers Should Do Now.
That was a week ago. Here's where things actually stand.
The Week 1 numbers
PSA gave sellers about five days between the announcement and the June 2 cutoff to get last-call Value submissions in. The hobby read that as "now or never" — and floored the gas.
- ~2.5 million extra cards were submitted between Wednesday May 28 and Monday June 2 (per industry reporting).
- That pushed the active backlog from ~10M to ~14 million cards — possibly higher when the official June Backlog Tracker drops.
- PSA's monthly grading throughput is roughly 2.2-2.5 million cards. Do the math: 14M ÷ 2.3M ≈ 6 months minimum to clear, not the 4 months PSA originally projected.
- TAG also paused several service tiers the same week, citing the same "incredible demand."
What this changes for sellers
The original advice still stands — but the timeline just got longer. A few practical shifts:
Slabbed inventory is going to stay scarce longer. If you're holding PSA 9s and 10s on modern, you're now looking at a summer plus a fall with no new bulk-graded supply hitting the market. That's not a temporary blip. Price accordingly.
SGC and BGS are seeing the runoff already. Anecdotally, dealer feeds are full of "first SGC submission" posts this week. If you've never submitted to SGC, it's worth learning the process now — they're going to be the path of least resistance through summer. The vintage community already trusts SGC slabs; the modern community is going to start. Walk through the differences in PSA vs BGS vs SGC — Which Grading Company Should You Use in 2026?
Raw modern is moving slowly. Exactly what you'd expect: bulk-buyers who used to scoop raw at $5-15 to flip through Value Bulk have evaporated. If you've got raw modern that you were going to grade yourself, do the math on Regular at $79.99 — if the slabbed comp isn't $200+, it's probably not worth it. Sell it raw this summer.
Raw vintage is unaffected. Vintage almost always went Regular or Express anyway. No change in demand, no change in your strategy.
Show-floor walk-up grading just got more valuable. Where PSA has on-site booths at major shows, expect lines to wrap. If you're hitting a National-tier event this summer, build that into your day — or come prepared to send through SGC's on-site rep instead.
What I'm doing at my tables this summer
I'm at Columbus, Monroeville, Rosemont, and Shipshewana over the next ten weeks. Three things I've already adjusted:
- I'm not upcharging slabs because of the pause — but I am sticking firm to my sticker prices. No haggle discounts on mid-grade modern (PSA 8-9, $40-200 range) right now. That's the segment most exposed to the supply freeze, and with no new bulk-graded supply hitting through summer, there's no reason to give it away under sticker.
- I'm carrying a small stack of SGC slabs at the table — partly inventory, partly conversation. Buyers want to talk about the alternatives right now.
- Any raw modern I was going to bulk-submit is hitting the buy bins. Not worth holding through the summer.
What I'll be watching this week
- The official PSA Backlog Tracker — they said monthly updates, so first official number should land late June.
- SGC turnaround times. If they extend past 30 days, the alternative gets a lot less attractive.
- Whether eBay sold-comp prices on PSA 9s/10s of modern actually firm up (early signs say yes, but it's noisy).
The takeaway
Week 1 didn't go the way PSA wanted. The pause was supposed to thin the queue — instead the last-minute rush added five months of work to the pipeline. Sellers who treat this as a 4-month story are going to get caught when reopens slide into the holiday season. Plan for a longer winter.
I'll post Week 2 once the official Tracker number drops. If you're hitting any of the shows on my schedule, come find the Big John's Cards table.
— John