Have some thoughts about grading and costs these days...with the obvious about PSA and the cost to grade even I just am holding onto so much until things die down.

But got me thinking of things:

1) What if … someone started a group or business that covered the the grading cost.

2) What if … PSA not only offered to buy your card after it’s graded and if it gets uncharged they bake that up charge fee into the card purchase offer.

3) What if … when we send our grades in we also provided similar graded slabs out there that we expect our cards to be graded. Based on similar, exact, or even worse conditions. (centering, surface, etc

I feel like it helps with grade expectations on both sides. It also helps with quality control and showing them their own approved examples to assist with our submissions.

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!

So if you missed the news, PSA announced today even longer turn around times!!! 140-160 BUSINESS days for Value Bulk…8 months potentially to get your cards back! Also not pictured is Value Bulk will be shifting from 20 card minimum to 50.Value is now 100-120 business days which is about what Value Bulk was before, but at $32.99 per card

Just insanity. I currently have an order at TAG and an order at AGS, I’m hoping they go well because this is simply a slap in the face

Man that is a lot of cards graded yesterday by the top two. Wow!