THWC 445: Card Grading is Dead Forever

What's up, everybody? Habibu cage episode 445 brought to you by Arena Club by card ladder. Use code Cage. Save yourself a couple bucks and buy the Philly Show. It's only a couple weeks away. Getting excited for that? What am I not excited about? Card grading some fun little stories here? Card grading is dead. Card grading is dead forever. You guys can never grade cards ever again and they're never gonna reopen and it's never gonna happen. And you just have to figure out a way to navigate the hobby without grading cards. Because, I mean, listen, you guys, you watch enough episodes on YouTube, you listen to me enough, you see me with, you know, two liter bottles of soda, which, by the way, are getting harder to buy. You know, I thought I found this hack. You know, Amazon Grocery would deliver bottles of soda to me. I would get them droves. You know, I drink, you know, eight, ten liters a day. So it's great to not have to go to the grocery store and just, you know, pack a whole car full of soda. You just get it delivered, it shows up on your steps. That'd be great. For the last couple weeks, I haven't been able to get them delivered. And it had me thinking, maybe they're on to me. No, it had me thinking, what happens if this two dollars, three dollar bottle of soda, if somebody came to me and said, hey, there's just too much demand for the soda, that's why you aren't able to get it delivered. That's why you aren't able to get it. There's just too much demand for that soda that you want. We're gonna make that bottle $10, and you're gonna have to wait a while to get it. You could pay 15 or 20 and have it tomorrow, no problem. What would I do? And I want you to think about this also. Not with soda, but with something of yours. Whether it's your morning cup of coffee, whether it's, you know, something else that, you know, you need on a daily basis. Who knows? The morning cup of coffee is probably a good one. What happened if you went to Starbucks and your $5 cup of coffee, you walked up to the counter, you made your Frappa Rapper Rapper order with the extra whipped cream and the drizzle and the four pumps or whatever craziness you're putting in there, and they told you, I know it was $5 yesterday, but it's $25. And go wait on that line over there. You get expedited for 50 bucks. I have to think that in most cases, we would look for alternatives. Me, the soda stream. Would I start making soda at home? Would I switch to iced tea, which wouldn't be the same, you know, would I just start drinking water? Maybe a flavored water, you know, where they have like a little flavor, you know, you could put some flavor in water, you know, what would you do? Would you start brewing your own coffee at home? Maybe get one of those pods or an espresso machine and maybe figure it out. It wouldn't be as good, but it's a replacement. And it just makes sense, right? It makes sense everywhere. But grading, it seems, because I'm going to tell you, we are, this is not a crazy statement. We are in the largest bull cycle, boom, period, unit, whatever, whatever you want to call it, for the hobby that we've ever seen, ever. Not Covid not. Look at the card ladder numbers. For August, we had like $900 million worth of card sales. The volume being transacted is amazing. Almost $200 million more than the previous monthly record, which by the way, wasn't that long ago. This year, 2026 is seeing transaction level, volume level, dollar level like we've never seen before. There's already been 57 figure transactions already, 50 of them, and the year is not done. We still have another third of the year to go. It's already a record year. You would think that with this kind of volume, with this kind of money, with the amount of money going back and forth, the grading numbers would be through the roof. Also, if you're a grading company here, you should be making a killing during this. But I guess maybe the card grading was like a leading indicator and they got too busy too soon before this kind of explosion. But I mean, gem rate numbers came out right? In August, PSA graded 2.2 million items, which I would think would be more even with the shutdown. You know, they gotta be grading more cards because they're trying to get rid of the backlog. It's odd, right? Because that's up year over year by 32%. But it's actually less than they graded last month, which is, you know, it's interesting. The Overall grading amounts, 3.4 million between all companies actually down 6% compared to July. And if you do it by business days, actually down compared to July, you know, I mean, sometimes the months have different amount of business days. PSA down 12%. Like rated less cards. You would think, you know, all this stories of, you know, ramping up and, and, you know, and bringing their, you know, their people to bear that they would be grading more cards, you know, adding more graders to get rid of the backlog. Right. It's not that they don't have more cards to grade. Right. We're told about this, you know, this eight figure backlog of cards. You would figure every month they should be grading more. Right. In August, they didn't have the national. They weren't stretched it July they had the national, you know, so you would think, all right, maybe, you know, you know, they, they weren't stretched in, they weren't traveling, they weren't, you know, they weren't at the national, you know, and have their graders there and have their people there instead of, you know, being on site and grading. I was surprised. I mean, it's up 32% year over year. Now let's talk about the alternatives. Wait, we can't because there is no alternative because PSA owns SGC and Beckett. Now. We're going to go through the gem rate numbers in a second. I don't want to bog the episode down. Here's where we're going to go with this about grading being broken. If you want to grade a card right now, where are you going to grade it? Now let's talk about a normal card. I don't care. A couple hundred dollar card. I'm not talking about a base, nothing but a card. Where are you going to grade it? Okay, well, a PSA cost you 80 bucks and you get it back. Never. At Beckett, everything below 80 bucks. 79.99 closed. And yesterday, the third grading company from collectors, SGC, they announced 50 bucks. I mean, for all intents and purposes, these card grading companies, all three under the collectors heading, are shut down to your normal level of grading. If you want to expedite something, fine, you can get it graded. You want to, you want to expedite, you know, or you want to grade a, a card that's worth spending 50 or $80 grading. Fine, you can still do that. It's going to take a while to get it back. You know, you can, you can grade higher level stuff, sure, but the bulk grading, the bread and butter of these companies, where they get the volume of these cards, it's basically done now for all three of those companies. SGC just announced this overnight new fee schedule. Sgc, you would think they would have been able to find a way to keep one of them open to grade some bulk, low level card, whatever the hell you want to call it. But here's the thing, right? And I don't know if it's Just grading. I don't. The people who are in grading, I have no. No idea. Right. CGC up 114 year over year grading. They graded in August. Almost a million cards. 937,000 cards, up 9%. Well, they're basically the only viable alternative right now. But are they even a viable alternative? You guys are listening to this saying, I wouldn't grade with cgc. Well, somebody is. They. Almost a million cards. Now, keep in mind of that. Almost a million. 720, 719,000 of those cards were TCG and non sport, just like PSA. Of that 2.2 million that they graded, 1.66 million of them. 1.66 million of them TCG, non sport. On the sports side, only 537 cards. 537,000 cards graded down 18% year over year and down 19 month over month. For PSA, CGC graded 218,000 sports cards, which is up 500% from what they did in the same month last year, and up 33%. So. So people are sending a CGC. Here's the interesting part about that. You can grade with CGC. 17 bucks. You know how long it takes to get the card back? According to their website, 150 days. Pay 20 bucks, 90 days. There is literally no option tag. I think you got to go through, like, a whole, you know, like jump through hoops. It's like the old hga. You gotta, like, there's like a drop. You can't just send the card in. You have to, like, you know, there's. There's something going on. But tag and tag. TAG is actually down 6% month over month and only graded 4,000 cards. So for sports, they graded 42. No, 58,000. Excuse me. Overall, SGC only graded 42,000 total cards in August. So does it really matter that they've raised their prices? They were, you know, they're grading 40,000 cards, and PSA is grading 2.2 million cards. I mean, Beckett graded four times the amount of cards that SGC graded in the month of August. What is going on? The backlog. It's still there. It seems to be as massive as it's ever been. And now all three of the collectors companies, for all intents and purposes, you cannot grade for less than 50 or $80. If I'm cgc, I'm. I don't know. How do you have a hundred and fifty day turnaround for seventeen? The whole thing makes no sense to me. But here is the fun card. Grading is dead forever. Absolutely not. It's going to come back stronger than ever. Because you guys know you're sitting there waiting for PSA to open back up, waiting for the backlog. And you know what? When they open up, they're going to get an influx. Backlog is going to be right back again. And I think that's what they're worried about, trying to figure out a way to do this. And maybe they're revamping sgc. Maybe they're going to use the, you know, the best SGC graders and, and have them grade PSA cards. I mean, I don't know what they're doing. They clearly don't know what they're doing. But I can't say that because they obviously do because they will eventually open up a level of grading for you guys. It'll still have a long turnaround time. It'll still be more money. The days of $20 grading, they'll call it value, they'll call it bulk, but it'll be 25, 30, 35, 40, whatever. It's going to be for a card. And here's the fun part, you'll happily pay it. Here's a fun little story my dad told me once, and it is so on point, it's ridiculous. He says, guy drove by a pumpkin stand. You know, September, we're getting into the fall here. The pumpkin flavors are at at Starbucks. So it's an appropriate story. And he drove past the old man standing there selling pumpkins. And the pumpkin sign says said $3 each, three for $10. So this smart guy pulled his car over and said, hey, I'll take one pumpkin. Okay, that'll be $3. And he started to walk. You know what? The guy turned around, I'll buy a second pumpkin, okay, that'll be $3. And the guy turned to walk towards his car and said, wait, you know what, Pops, I'll take another pumpkin. Oh, that'll also be $3. He handed over $3 and smiled. He's standing there with the three pumpkins in his hand and looks at the old guy and says, hey, Pops, can I teach you a lesson here? Yu-Gi-Oh He said, I just bought three pumpkins from you and I only paid $9. Look at your sign. It's three pumpkins for 10. And the old man smiled and said, you're the 11th person who came here today and tried to teach me how to do my business. And all 11 of you left with three pumpkins instead of one. Think about that for a second. When PSA opens back up, whatever they open back up at after Telling you you can't grade a card unless you want to pay 80 bucks. Everyone's gonna run. Everybody's gonna run. And when they open it up for $40 or $45, it's gonna be a bargain because it was 80. This happened before. Look at the news. Look at what. Look at what happened after Covid. When they open up. It was like $200 to grade A card. This will right size card. Grading is not dead forever. But I have to give you guys ridiculous titles because that's the only way you watch this stupid show. I mean, I. I gotta tell you guys, I have. I have unlocked the secret to this nonsense. I mean, why I left the hobby is like my most watched video. Anybody who knows me at all knows I'll never leave the hobby. I'll leave the hobby in a coffin. So, I mean, what. What are you talking about? But that one, why I left the hobby, you guys ate that one up. This is when the crash will happen. Boom. Huge numbers. Come on now, guys. This is when the crash will happen. Is PSA about to kill the hobby? Boom. Numbers card grading is dead forever. I have a feeling this one will be a banger, but the truth of the matter is, it's not dead. They push the pause button and what are they gonna do? Who the hell knows? And I gotta tell you, they're all gonna get it wrong. And it one-of-one matter because we're still going to grade with them. I sent in an 83 card order to PSA in April. It's been in assembly for two months. How does that make any sense? They've really been assembling it for two months. Not research, not grading. Assembly takes a while to make those labels and seal the plastic.83 cards. It had a date for me of September 18th. I think they marked it received as May 1st. Right? So May 1st to June 1st to July 1st to August 1st to September 1st. Four months plus September 18th. I don't know, what is that? Five months? What is that, 90 business days? 100. I'm not getting it back by September 18th. There is no way. No way. But I'm okay with that, because what's my alternative? What's yours? There is none. But here's the best part. It doesn't matter, because with grading closed, with no real alternative, the hobby is stronger than ever. The hobby is turning around and saying, we don't even need it. Now, I don't know how long that could last, but we found a way to spend almost a billion dollars in August without being Able to grade cards. Maybe it's because there's enough graded cards out there that are continuing to change hands. Maybe there's enough stuff out there at least for a temporary, you know, basis. Now new card releases. If I'm Fanatics, I'm a little worried about this. You know, you want to be able to get those cards graded. You want to be able to get all these new hits. You know, football coming out, you have Topps Chrome. Football coming out, you have Topps Chrome update coming out. Whether they want to admit it or not, there is a symbiotic relationship between the card manufacturers and the card graders and the card grading being broken. Not a good thing long term, but short term, if I'm Fanatics, I'm at like a who care level, because grading. While they graded a lot of cards in August, just look at gem rate, right? They graded cards. They actually graded 3.4 million cards, which is down. Grading activity is down. When card volume, the amount of sales is up. If I'm sitting there Fanatics, I'm saying, all right, well, clearly doesn't matter. We'll see how long that can last. And we're supposed to be getting some sort of an update from Beckett mid September. If it was the old Beckett regime, I would expect Beckett guy to come out and say something. You know, I mean, I'd expect them to come out and say, we're, here's the update. We're changing the slabs again and we're going to a Beckett 11 scale. But it's on the collectors. You got to hope they know what they're doing. You got to think with three grading companies under the one umbrella, they gotta come up with a way to figure out, you know, something to do bulk level for people who just want to grade their cards and get them in slabs and, you know, have something to be able to, you know, sell and flip. I don't know. I guess we'll see. It's one of those fun, interesting things that the hobby brings to us, right? I have cards I want to grade. I'm just not grading them. Don't wait. And it's a shame, too, because I have some old, you know, Marvel cards that I bought the last time they ran. You know, I have some old 1960s Marvel cards, 1970s Marvel cards. The things that are running now again. The Spider man stuff, the Hulk, you know, Iron Man. I bought them all. I bought as many of them as I could the last time that everybody went crazy for the same stuff. But I can't grade them. I mean, they're like five dollar raw cards. They'd be cool in slabs eventually, but I'll just wait. Just gotta be patient. There's plenty of other things to do in this hobby. With $900 million worth of sales volume and in, in the last month, I mean we're gonna hit a billion dollar sales volume month pretty soon. That's, that's kind of crazy. And it's not nuts to think about it, right? Because I mean one day in August, I think it was August 16th, it was maybe we had a 65 million dollar day, right? I mean we're not gonna have 30 of those, but if we did, that's 2 billion in a month. So the numbers are there. The numbers are there to support it. I mean it is, it is an interesting thing to watch and I mean, I hope you guys don't hate me too much for card grading is dead forever. It's not, it's, it's. I mean, how could I say it's dead when this month we graded almost 3 1/2 million cards? Pokemon gonna be interesting. And if I'm these grading companies, I have to see that. This 30th anniversary Pokemon is coming out. It is going to be huge. They're making so many of these cards and people are gonna want to grade them. Somebody, you would think collectors or one of these companies would figure out a way to be open and be able to take that influx in. Because that is gonna be a massive release and we see how much grading is done in Pokemon. I mean PSA graded 2.2 million cards. 1.66 million of them last month were Pokemon cards. And they have the biggest release so far coming out in the next month or two. So it's going to be interesting. It's going to be fun to watch. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. We'll be back tomorrow after another episode here. And that one was brought to you by Arena Club. Buy card ladder, use code cage. Save yourself a couple bucks and buy the Philly Show. See you guys tomorrow. Take care everybody.