PSA - $22 per card
 

Just saw an email from PSA. It had the following info:

Join Collectors Club to unlock PSA’s lowest standard grading price.

BULK SERVICE LEVEL
• $22 per card
• 25-card minimum each (1996-Present; 1995-Older)
• $199 Max Declared Value per Card
• 120-150 Day Estimated Turnaround Time*

Should be interesting to see the influx of new submissions.

The crime of it is....
 

They have a value cap of $199. They are charging $22 (+ 2 way shipping). That means in a BEST CASE scenario for the submitter PSA is pocketing 11% of the value of the card. If it comes back a grade or two lower than expected - 30%, 50%, 80%? That seems like an exorbitant amount of money as a percentage of value.

Why send in any cards with a value of under $200 ? With all the other costs added ( shipping both ways etc ) + $22 each. Count me out.

from my experience, PSA is pretty lenient when it comes to declared card value. if you send in a Lebron rookie or a 52 Mantle, you will get upcharged. If you send in a card that you expect to sell for $350 in a PSA 9, and it gets a 9, you probably wont be upcharged most of the time.

Is the sales tax added to the $22?

thanks for information

If PSA grades t206 variations/miscut/overprint etc, even if they come back as Auth, I don't mind to encapsulated them for $22. However, I don't know how to evaluation the values of those oddball cards. Some people think they are ugly and trash but some people would think they worth thousands of dollar.

If something happens to your cards while entrusted to PSA, they wouldn’t consider their value to be thousands of dollars each. Just food for thought.

What is this sales tax that you speak of?

Signed,

Lives in Montana :D

I just checked and I've never been charged sales tax by PSA. I live in a state that has a state sales tax (RI).

Technically you are not buying a tangible item from PSA, you are paying them for service, and services are typically not subject to sales tax in most states. Also, since you're sending the card to them, the service is actually being performed in whatever state they are in, not your home state, and as such, any potential sales tax due would most likely be based on the sales tax laws and rates where PSA has the work done, not where you live.

Thank you for the info….. I didn’t know that.

Yeah. I think you have them figured out. They control both the 'generally accepted value' of cards they grade AND what grade they give.

How is that not illegal?


Additionally, they limit their 'price guides' to only certain cards in certain grades, so, even the most careful of us have a devil of a time deciding which cards are even worth the effort.



One possible solution: Purchase stock in Collectors Universe. (add rim-shot were applicable)


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Until PSA starts to demonstrate consistent, reliable, and fair grades again, I have zero interest in this service. What's the point of paying them $22 when you're just going to have to crack it back out of the casing after they ship it back to you? Half of my submissions as of late just result in cards that are now worth LESS after they've been slabbed than they were raw.

I’d say it is a mixed goods and service contract. The grading is the service. The plastic case and flip are the goods. The goods have more value than the service. PSA simply grading (the service) the card and communicating it’s opinion does not have much value without the plastic case and the flip that proves the opined grade and creates liquidity.

You can call it what you like, but the grading service is the main thing.

If you go to an attorney and ask them to draw you up a will, they don't separately charge you for the paper copy(ies) of your will they create either. The service provided is the main thing in both cases, with the flip/holder or the paper hard copies just being ancillary items to the actual work/services being performed.

for bulk, the $18 national special seemed reasonable for the $199 max value. for $22, i dunno, probably just hold onto anything in that bracket for next summer's special. or bump to $30 for anything more valuable.

So does that mean we can expect to buy all graded cards at their raw prices plus grading fees going forward rather than what the market values those same cards in the PSA slabs for?