Library · 14 pieces · Page 1 of 1
Grading primers, collecting strategies, and market analysis — everything we'd tell a friend just starting out, plus what we're watching this week.
How to measure borders on a raw 1950s card, how to read CGC's published centering lines and PSA's tolerances as secondary sources report them, and how off-center, miscut and diamond-cut cards are labeled. Includes a printable checklist.
PSA's Value tiers are paused and Beckett is Express-only. As of October 2026, CGC Bulk at $17 is the lowest per-card fee still open, but it needs 25 cards and has the longest wait. Here is how the other four graders compare.
PSA's backlog fell to 8.2 million units on October 6, but the company is still 3.2 million units above its 5 million target and has not set a date for Value grading to return. Here is what PSA has committed to, what Standard costs compared with each old Value tier, and how to decide whether to grade now or wait.
Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey hits hobby October 7 with 49 Young Guns, and PSA's cheapest tiers are still paused. Here is how to sort the checklist into grade now, hold raw and sell raw, and how to check the numbers yourself.
A PSA 10 premium isn't a fixed trait of a card. It is a ratio that changes as more copies get graded. This guide shows you how to track gem rate and the PSA 10 multiple each month, using a three-card snapshot taken 24 Sep 2026, so you can check a premium before you pay it or submit a card.
The PSA backlog fell from a late-July high of 12.4 million cards to 9.9 million by Sept. 8, well below the roughly 14 million reached in early June. Here is which slabs are coming back to submitters, why a second wave may matter more, and how to check prices for a specific card instead of guessing.
On a 600 dollar graded sale, the PSA fee is only about 29 percent of what the trade actually costs you. Commission, insured shipping in both directions, authentication routing and five months of carry make up the rest. Here is the full stack, priced line by line.
PSA raised Express from $149 to $199 on September 9. Three recent card drops (McCarthy, Mendoza, Raleigh) show why the speed premium rarely beats a falling market.
A widely repeated claim says the PSA 10 premium over CGC 10 has shrunk to single digits on modern Pokémon. It traces back to one February 2026 price pair. Sold comps on Sep 10 show a much wider gap, and it varies card by card.
A rookie card comp set is corrupted by parallels, hidden Best Offer prices, shill auctions and qualified grades long before anyone lies to you. Here is the funnel that turns a messy sold list into a defensible price band with a date attached.
The September price comparison explains the break-even math for a $30 card. Updated September 30 to remove expired Beckett reopening and event guidance; verify current quotes before submitting.
PSA's four Value tiers have been paused since June 2, 2026, CGC's $20 return shipping costs more than the grade itself on a single-card submission, and eBay takes 13.25% of the sale. Here is the full cost stack, the expected-value math, and a five-minute checklist to run before you ship.
On June 2, 2026, PSA paused new submissions across all four of its Value tiers to work down a ~10-million-card backlog, leaving the $79.99 Regular tier as the cheapest way in. That reset breaks the math on grading commons — and it's built to last months, not weeks.
As of June 2, 2026, PSA's four cheapest grading tiers are paused and $79.99 Regular is the new floor — a ~142% jump from the $32.99 Value tier. Here's the actual cost math on what still clears that floor and what you should hold.