For years, collectors were told that massive pop counts would eventually crush card values.

And yet… here we are.

A PSA 10 Ohtani rookie with a pop over 15,000 still commands massive prices.

A Pikachu Grey Felt Hat with a PSA 10 pop nearing 50,000 continues climbing.

Even Wemby Prizm Silvers with thousands of PSA 10s are still seeing strong demand.

Why? Because demand, culture, player relevance, nostalgia, and collector confidence often matter more than raw pop reports alone.

What’s even more interesting is what’s happening outside PSA. Lower-pop BGS Pristines and other premium grades are quietly gaining traction because collectors are starting to look beyond the label and ask deeper questions:

• How rare is this specific grade really?

• How difficult is it to gem?

• How iconic is the player or card?

• Does the market trust the eye appeal and scarcity?

The hobby is evolving.

At Hobbycomp, we believe the future of collecting is less about blindly following one slab and more about understanding the full picture through transparency, education, real market data, and collector behavior.

Because in the end, a great card is still a great card. The market is just becoming smarter about how it values them.

#SportsCards #Pokemon #PSA #BGS #Wembanyama #ShoheiOhtani #TradingCards #SportsCardInvesting #CardCollector #TheHobby #Hobbycomp

With the most recent increase to PSA turn around times I decided to try AGS and TAG. I sent 10 cards to AGS and 10 cards to TAG on 4/30. I received my completed AGS order back on 5/23/26. TAG is still in step 1 - “Order Prep”.

AGS is an AI grading company. I’m happy with the slabs. They feel sturdy and are basically the same size as a PSA slab. It also includes sub-grades and the laser imaging.The only complaint I have would be that they seemed more tailored to the TCG side. When completing my submission form the database did not have many of the cards and they had to be entered manually, which takes a little time. Hopefully they grow, and their database does as well.

We’ll see how anything does for resale, but over all I’m happy and will grade with them again.

If anyone wants to give AGS a try, use

https://app.agscard.com/referral/OYPLB for your first submission and save!

There are plenty of reasons to get a card graded!

I know I’ve seen posters and other things larger than a standard card get graded, is there a company that will grade six cards in a collage set and then grade the set on top of it all and do a combination slab? Would that even make sense or would having each card graded and kept as a set still make it more valuable?

Context, these cards are a Lord of the wrong Magic the Gathering foil set worth ~$80 raw according to Collectr as combined individual prices.

Alyx Effron | May 17, 2026

Presented By All Touch Case

One of the strangest things about modern collecting is how normalized upcharges have become. Same service. Same process. Same amount of labor. Completely different price depending on what the item is worth.

A grader looks at one card for a few seconds longer because it last sold for significantly more, and suddenly the fee quadruples. A marketplace facilitates the exact same transaction but takes a much larger cut simply because the final sale price is higher. A platform ships the same size box using the same label printer, same tape, same packaging process, yet somehow the “premium” item costs dramatically more to handle.

What makes this even more interesting is how volatile the sports card market can be. One athlete can have a huge game, an injury, or a viral moment, and overnight the declared value of a card can swing dramatically. A card that cost $25 to grade yesterday suddenly costs hundreds today simply because the player scored 50 points in one game on national television. Yet at the end of the day, the physical grading process itself hasn’t fundamentally changed at all. The grader is still evaluating the same core things: centering, corners, edges, and surface on the exact same cardstock material. Whether it’s a base card or a 1/1, the actual object being assessed is still a printed piece of cardboard. The only real difference is the layers of manufactured scarcity built around the card and the corresponding perceived market demand attached to it.

At a certain point, you have to ask yourself what you’re actually paying for. In many cases, the answer isn’t additional work. It’s access to the ecosystem. It’s perceived status. It’s the psychological understanding that collectors have been conditioned to accept higher fees because “that’s just how the hobby works”.

The dangerous thing about all of this is how quickly people stop questioning these systems once they become normalized. These industries slowly train people to accept inflated costs, artificial scarcity, and endless layers of monetization as part of participation itself. Over time, it becomes harder to separate genuine value from manufactured value.

This mindset exists everywhere in the hobby now. Premium memberships. VIP access. Express grading. Breaker bounty programs. Buybacks. Dynamic pricing. “Exclusive” drops. The same core service wrapped in slightly different packaging and sold back to collectors at increasingly higher margins.

At the end of the day, companies are doing what they’re designed to do – drive revenue and maximize profit. But there’s a fundamental difference between building a sustainable business and extracting as much money as humanly possible from emotional attachment, urgency, and obsession.

That’s why intentional collecting matters. Intentional collecting forces you to slow down and ask: Am I paying for real value here? Or am I paying because I’ve been conditioned to believe I have to?

The reality is, many collectors don’t even realize how much these systems shape their behavior until they step back long enough to see it clearly.

This is all part of why we’ve intentionally partnered with hobby companies like C3 Grading and My Card Post, both of which are featured within The Intentional Collector’s Guide.

In a hobby where fees can suddenly multiply based on hype, volatility, or perceived value, C3 takes a far more transparent approach: a flat $9 per card ($8 per card with code CMD) with no upcharges, no surprise fees, and no penalties because a player had a big game or a breaker decided to pump a particular product. The card being graded doesn’t magically become harder to assess because the market decided it’s worth more this week.

In the same way, My Card Post was built to give collectors a simplified marketplace alternative to many of the excessive seller fees, pressure-driven mechanics, and overly monetized systems that have become increasingly normalized across the hobby. Rather than taking larger cuts as transaction prices rise, My Card Post operates on a straightforward subscription-based model that allows collectors to buy, sell, and trade without traditional seller fees constantly eating into every transaction.

The hobby doesn’t become healthier when every interaction – every intricacy – becomes another opportunity to maximize extraction. It becomes healthier when transparency, fairness, and trust matter more than squeezing every last dollar out of the people who love it most.

#CollectorsMD
Not every premium price reflects premium value – sometimes it’s simply the result of how normalized inflated spending has become.

—
Follow Us On Social: @collectorsmd
Join Our Support Group
Join Us On Mantel
Read More Daily Reflections

This Daily Reflection is sponsored by All Touch Case, a premium display and protection solution designed to showcase your cards while keeping them safe. Use code COLLECTORSMD for 15% off your order. Collect. Protect. It’s a peace of mind.

https://collectorsmd.com/more-than-just-an-upcharge/