PSA's active grading backlog read 8.2 million cards on October 6. That is down from 9.0 million two weeks earlier and from 12.4 million on July 28, a 34% reduction in ten weeks.
12.4M8.2M8.2MJul 28Oct 6PSA active backlog, millions of cards, by PSA's fortnightly updates.
The readings
| Date | Backlog | Change |
|---|---|---|
| July 28 | 12.4M | - |
| August 11 | 11.85M | -550k |
| August 25 | 10.9M | -950k |
| September 8 | 9.9M | -1.0M |
| September 22 | 9.0M | -900k |
| October 6 | 8.2M | -800k |
What is still closed
PSA paused every Value tier on June 2: Value Bulk ($24.99 a card), Value ($32.99), Value Plus and Value Max. The cheapest door still open is Standard at $59.99, launched September 14, with a quoted turnaround of 90 to 100 business days. Above it: Priority 70-80 business days, Express 20-30, Super Express 10-15, Premier 7-10.
PSA has said the number it wants to see before it considers reopening discounted tiers is roughly 5 million. At the current pace of 800,000 to a million cards a fortnight, that is a January-to-February conversation, and PSA's own language is "assess reopening additional service tiers in the coming months," not a date.
Why this matters if you hold slabs
While the cheap tiers are closed, the supply of new PSA 10s is arriving slower than normal. The cards that would have gone in at $25 are sitting raw in binders waiting for the price to come back down. That means the existing population of a given card in a 10 is, for the moment, close to fixed, and scarcity that is not growing is scarcity that gets priced. The $960,000 Cresselia in this issue's lead is the extreme version of that; the everyday version is that a PSA 9 or 10 of a mid-tier vintage holo has quietly firmed up all summer.
Why it matters if you hold raw cards
The flip side is the queue that is not visible: grade-worthy raw cards stacking up outside PSA. When Value reopens, those cards go in all at once and pop reports jump in bursts over the following months. The window in which "the PSA 10 pop stays frozen" does your appreciating for you is real, but it closes on a schedule PSA controls. If you are holding raw with the intent to grade, the price gap between Standard and Value is the cost of being early; if you are holding slabs, the pause is on your side for now. Source: Heavy, PSA Grading Backlog Drops Again.
Chart of the Day ran in The Pack Report, October 12, 2026: A $960,000 Cresselia? Sure, Why Not. Published by Rip Station.