Running PSA Order Tracker

[DKsportscardsWI]

Type: Value Bulk Pre-1980
# of cards: 21
Estimated Completion Date: 4/17/25
Shipped to PSA: 1/13
Delivered: 1/16
Order Prep: 1/16
Research & ID: 2/14
Grading:
Assembly:
Green Check Assembly:
Grades Ready:
QA:
Shipped:
Delivered:

Type: Value Bulk 1980+
# of cards: 24
Estimated Completion Date: 4/17/25
Shipped to PSA: 1/13
Delivered: 1/16
Order Prep: 1/16
Research & ID: 2/14
Grading: 2/26
Assembly: 2/28
Green Check Assembly:
Grades Ready:
QA:
Shipped:
Delivered:

[f2tornado]

Originally Posted by f2tornado

December 16-31 2000-Present Special
87 Cards
Arrived - Jan 17, 2025
Grading - Feb 26, 2025

Assembly - Feb 28, 2025

They are not wasting any time pushing cards through.

[DKsportscardsWI]

Type: Value Bulk Pre-1980
# of cards: 21
Estimated Completion Date: 4/17/25
Shipped to PSA: 1/13
Delivered: 1/16
Order Prep: 1/16
Research & ID: 2/14
Grading:
Assembly:
Green Check Assembly:
Grades Ready:
QA:
Shipped:
Delivered:

Type: Value Bulk 1980+
# of cards: 24
Estimated Completion Date: 4/17/25
Shipped to PSA: 1/13
Delivered: 1/16
Order Prep: 1/16
Research & ID: 2/14
Grading: 2/26
Assembly: 2/28
Green Check Assembly: 3/3
Grades Ready:
QA:
Shipped:
Delivered:

[f2tornado]

December 16-31 2000-Present Special
87 Cards
Arrived - Jan 17, 2025
Grading - Feb 26, 2025
Assembly - Feb 28, 2025
Green Check Assembly - Sometime on or before Mar 3, 2025.

I'd almost prefer they don't pop today so I can use my CC with rewards but whatever works.

Mildly surprised not even a limited bulk special was advertised for March. My above order is going to be done six weeks before the estimated completion date. I suppose I can finally send them some jumbo Pokémon I've been sitting on for years to bridge the gap.

[slogue2]

Order Type: Holiday Special
# of cards: 26
Est. Completion Date: 4/10/2025
Order Delivered: 1/6/2025
Order received per PSA: 1/6/2025 (Arrived - My Orders page)
Research & ID: 1/30/2025
Grading: 2/20/2025
Assembly: 2/21/2025 Green Checkmark 3/3/25
Grades Ready:
QA:
Shipped:

[sheldonbeswift]

January Value Bulk Grading Special (1990-Present)
# of cards: 15
Order Arrived: January 7, 2025
Order Prep: February 1, 2025
Research & ID: February 1, 2025
Grading: February 21, 2025
Assembly: February 22, 2025
Assembly Complete: March 3, 2025
Grades Ready:
QA Checks:
Complete: (Estimated April 14, 2025)

[Daddymc]

Assembly takes a lot longer than grading anymore.

[oddstuff]

Not positive but think the high quality front and back scans are done during the Assembly stage...so imagine every card getting that treatment. That adds significant time to the whole process.

[izlo]

Originally Posted by Daddymc

Assembly takes a lot longer than grading anymore.

I agree but it seems like it had been that way for awhile. I've only been grading cards with PSA for about two years and wasn't really tracking timelines until August 2024. I've noticed assembly on my orders and comments from others saying that it takes much longer than the grading itself.

But I guess that lines up with how non grading steps in the process seem to be the bottleneck.

A month sitting their after delivery. A month for research and id. 1 or 2 days grading. Assembly a few days to a few weeks. Order size makes sense as a factor in assembly

[TKChicago]

Value (1980-Present) service - 45 Business Day Turnaround
# of cards: 15
Est. Completion Date: 3/27/2025
Order Delivered: 12/26/2024
Research & ID: 1/23/2025
Grading: 2/13/2025
Assembly: 2/25/2025 ; Green Check Mark 3/4/25
Grades Ready:
QA:
Shipped:

[JSorensen1771]

Value Plus service - 20 Business Day Turnaround
# of cards: 7
Est. Completion Date: 3/25/2025
[PSA Event Drop-Off]: 2/22/2025
Order Delivered: 2/25/2025
Research & ID: 2/25/2025
Grading: 2/26/2025
Assembly: 3/4/2025
Grades Ready: 3/4/2025
QA: 3/4/2025
Shipped: TBD
Results: 4 GEM-MINT/3 MINT

[thenightman]

January Value Bulk Grading Special (1990-Present)
# of cards: 15
Estimated Completion Date: TBD

Shipped: 2/4/2025
Delivered: 2/10/2025
Received per PSA: 2/10/2025
Research & ID:
Grading:
Assembly:
Assembly Green Check:
Grades Ready:
QA:
Shipped:

On the website, it said Order Received on 2/10, but I just got an email from PSA saying they’ve received the order; just to give you an idea how backed up they are.

[Singinbobbo]

December Special grades popped this morning. Been seeing a lot of horror stories but did well on mine. 24/27 gem

[BlockShotStop]

The fact that it's taking over a month to get checked in and through research and ID is ridiculous. If the culprit is the pre-grading scans, just get rid of them. They are useless anyway.

[izlo]

Originally Posted by BlockShotStop

The fact that it's taking over a month to get checked in and through research and ID is ridiculous. If the culprit is the pre-grading scans, just get rid of them. They are useless anyway.

I agree. PSA made an announcement about it on X.

"𝙋𝙎𝘼 𝘾𝙐𝙎𝙏𝙊𝙈𝙀𝙍 𝙐𝙋𝘿𝘼𝙏𝙀 – ... we have experienced a high volume of incoming submissions, which has resulted in a delay in our receiving process – the unboxing and system entry of delivered packages.

... Bulk and Value service level orders are those primarily being impacted right now.

We are currently increasing staffing in our receiving department to help alleviate the issue, while also bringing new technology online in the first quarter of 2025 that will help keep receiving times consistent going forward."

Deleted wordy parts with "..."

It's interesting that they have identified the bottleneck in their process, unboxing and system entry primarily affecting Bulk/Value services.

We are in the last month of Q1 so I hope to see improvements. I'm just about at 3 weeks with my order waiting to be unboxed so I don't see the effect of new tech and employees yet. Maybe it is in effect and they just got a lot more cards. Or maybe we just have to wait longer to see the benefit of whatever this new tech is.

Anybody know what the new tech is?

[izlo]

Originally Posted by Singinbobbo

December Special grades popped this morning. Been seeing a lot of horror stories but did well on mine. 24/27 gem

Congrats!

Is that a normal gem rate for you?

What kind of cards? Does this type of card typically have good print quality?

I've graded 217 Pokémon cards over the past 2 years. I'd say gem rate is about 50%. More like 70-80% on Sword & Shield era. 40-50% on Scarlet and Violet era. S&V print quality is awful. Then there's "vintage" which they consider late 90's early 00's which almost never get 10's

[Singinbobbo]

Originally Posted by izlo

Congrats!

Is that a normal gem rate for you?

What kind of cards? Does this type of card typically have good print quality?

I've graded 217 Pokémon cards over the past 2 years. I'd say gem rate is about 50%. More like 70-80% on Sword & Shield era. 40-50% on Scarlet and Violet era. S&V print quality is awful. Then there's "vintage" which they consider late 90's early 00's which almost never get 10's

Thank you!
I do sports cards. Mix of football, baseball, and basketball. Some paper and some chrome. I usually do well with my submissions but I hadn’t done one in a little while since I’ve heard people say they were getting killed so I wasn’t sure what to expect this time. I’d guess my gem rate is probably close to 90% overall as I am fairly picky what I send. I did get one 8 on a thick card. I’m not sure why but I have terrible luck on those even though this one looked excellent to me.

[thenightman]

January Value Bulk Grading Special (1990-Present)
# of cards: 15
Estimated Completion Date: TBD

Shipped: 2/4/2025
Delivered: 2/10/2025
Received per PSA: 2/10/2025
Research & ID: 3/5/2025
Grading: 4/3/2025
Assembly:
Assembly Green Check:
Grades Ready:
QA:
Shipped:

[f2tornado]

Originally Posted by izlo

I've graded 217 Pokémon cards over the past 2 years. I'd say gem rate is about 50%. More like 70-80% on Sword & Shield era. 40-50% on Scarlet and Violet era. S&V print quality is awful. Then there's "vintage" which they consider late 90's early 00's which almost never get 10's

I hit 80%+ on S&S and earlier and don't look too hard at S&V since I rarely find one that meets my standards and I'm batting .500 on gems on the handful I've included. I've had a few Pokémon orders with 95%+ gem rate.

My 87 sports card December 16-31 2000-Present Special has had the green assembly checkmark for several days now. Glad it waited past Monday so I could get a bunch of Scheels points out of the deal.

104 card January Value Bulk Special (1990-Present) rec'd 2/7 in R/ID.
80 card January Value Bulk Special (1990-Present) rec'd 2/21 is still in the box.

No new orders in March unless I send a bulk Pokémon and/or jumbo Pokémon order or they pull a mid-moth special out of hat which doesn't seem likely. I have boxes full of stuff to submit but can't justify $20/card for most of it.

[inaka]

Originally Posted by izlo

It's interesting that they have identified the bottleneck in their process, unboxing and system entry primarily affecting Bulk/Value services.

We are in the last month of Q1 so I hope to see improvements. I'm just about at 3 weeks with my order waiting to be unboxed so I don't see the effect of new tech and employees yet. Maybe it is in effect and they just got a lot more cards. Or maybe we just have to wait longer to see the benefit of whatever this new tech is.

Anybody know what the new tech is?

My personal opinion based on a combination of thin air, my gut, and an absolute lack of any facts or evidence whatsoever is that this is not related to tech at all, and is all related to the GameStop X PSA implementation. The timing of this backlog coincides with the GameStop partnership.

PSA had no idea the GameStop partnership would be this successful, and they have been bombarded with a huge influx of (mostly) Pokemon submissions from GameStop. When hit with this wave of GameStop orders, PSA had a business decision to make:

A. Do we piss off everyone equally and delay most orders to handle this new influx of orders, meaning many new GameStop submitters will be displeased with this service?

or

B. Do we prioritize GameStop bulk submissions so they get returned in a timely fashion (since this is a new venture just getting off the ground and one large GameStop submission may be from 50+ different/new customers trying PSA grading for the first time) and then mostly piss off PSA Collectors Club Members who submitted bulk/specials, knowing these suckers (like myself) will likely continue to submit anyway, even if it takes them an extra month to get their cards?

Especially with the fear of CGC gaining ground in the TCG market, PSA selected B.

[Rpal1977]

Originally Posted by inaka

My personal opinion based on a combination of thin air, my gut, and an absolute lack of any facts or evidence whatsoever is that this is not related to tech at all, and is all related to the GameStop X PSA implementation. The timing of this backlog coincides with the GameStop partnership.

PSA had no idea the GameStop partnership would be this successful, and they have been bombarded with a huge influx of (mostly) Pokemon submissions from GameStop. When hit with this wave of GameStop orders, PSA had a business decision to make:

A. Do we piss off everyone equally and delay most orders to handle this new influx of orders, meaning many new GameStop submitters will be displeased with this service?

or

B. Do we prioritize GameStop bulk submissions so they get returned in a timely fashion (since this is a new venture just getting off the ground and one large GameStop submission may be from 50+ different/new customers trying PSA grading for the first time) and then mostly piss off PSA Collectors Club Members who submitted bulk/specials, knowing these suckers (like myself) will likely continue to submit anyway, even if it takes them an extra month to get their cards?

Especially with the fear of CGC gaining ground in the TCG market, PSA selected B.

I believe this is right on point. Along with the flood of TCG there has also been quite the uptick in Non-Sport the last month or two. PSA definitely selected B.

[izlo]

Man those are big orders! My last two have been around 55 cards each order and I don't see myself growing past that in the near future. I just open casually with my son but we are shifting to keeping more sealed product over time. Maybe like 20-40 card orders once or twice a year after this. Or, maybe not. But I just don't have a lot of motivation to open stuff considering risk.

[izlo]

I've seen GameStop submitters complaining about month-long waiting before R&ID. But I'm not in sync with the actual timelines compared to non GameStop orders. It does make sense that GameStop orders would be faster considering reputation of 2 big businesses on the line.

[elektrokuter]

Originally Posted by izlo

I've seen GameStop submitters complaining about month-long waiting before R&ID. But I'm not in sync with the actual timelines compared to non GameStop orders. It does make sense that GameStop orders would be faster considering reputation of 2 big businesses on the line.

As stated above, when the GS program started the GS subs were indeed returning incredibly fast and at a "too high" gemrate (just imo) compared to direct to PSA subs.

Which I believe was to entice people in to program.

Now with everything backlogged, schedules for GS and direct to PSA seem equally delayed and for GS customers it is:

1. they are new graders and were spoiled by how fast GS was initially
2. dont know how long PSA actually takes
3. and I see this a lot online- dont understand it is 45 business days not just days
4. the GS to PSA status updates seem broken half the time

Receiving is about 3-4 weeks behind so GS subs saying they are waiting a month checks out.

Also GS submitters dont fill out a form of which cards are being submitted which makes me think the R&ID step takes longer for them b/c PSA has to do more work.

[Bauer816]

TCG Bulk (45 day turnaround)
# of cards: 20
Estimated Completion Date: 4/3/2025

Shipped: 1/3/2025
Delivered: 1/6/2025
Received per PSA: 1/30/2025
Research & ID: currently
Grading:
Assembly:
Assembly Green Check:
Grades Ready:
QA:
Shipped:

This is my first submission with PSA but based on other similar orders on here I feel like it has been sitting in Research for longer than expected. My estimated completion date is less than a month away; should I be concerned that something is wrong with my submission?