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Pikachu Illustrator collage: the PSA 10 in its diamond pendant and two PSA Mint 9 copies sold at Heritage in 2026

Pikachu Illustrator: The Record Isn’t the Market

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The Pikachu Illustrator’s $16,492,000 record is not the price of a Pikachu Illustrator. That number belongs to one card: the only PSA 10, which Goldin sold on February 16, 2026 ($13.3 million hammer plus buyer’s premium, 97 bids). The copies that actually come up for sale are PSA 9s and lower, and in 2026 the PSA 9 alone printed $1,406,250 in March, $5,000,000 in September, and about $3.2 million in October. A buyer who prices from the headline misses two things. One PSA 10 cannot comp anything else, and the same grade has spread by more than 3.5x within about six months. Like our Base Set Charizard and Black Lotus lessons, the record is a trophy print, not a market.

This card joins our iconic-card liquidity series. For more frameworks, see Collector Guides and Market News.

What the Pikachu Illustrator is, and why so few exist

The Pikachu Illustrator was never sold in packs. It was a prize card for winners of illustration contests run through Japan’s CoroCoro Comic in 1997 and 1998. Heritage puts the distributed count at 39 copies across the first three contests (Collectibles News). The card reads “Illustrator” where a normal card reads “Trainer,” carries a pen symbol in place of a rarity mark, and features art by Atsuko Nishida. Nishida, a character designer on Pokémon Red and Green, in The Pokémon Company’s own creator profile, describes building Pikachu pixel by pixel and coming up with its name.

Graded population runs larger than the awarded count, and that matters for anyone reading a pop report. Folio’s November 9, 2026 read of the PSA census lists 15 PSA 9, 6 PSA 8.5, 13 PSA 8, 1 PSA 7.5, 7 PSA 7, 2 PSA 6, 2 PSA 5, 2 PSA 4 and 10 Authentic, plus the single PSA 10. That is 59 PSA entries against 39 awarded cards. Regrades, crossovers between graders, and copies that were never awarded all inflate the rows. Treat the PSA Population Report as an upper bound on supply here, not a count of cards.

The only PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator, set in a diamond pendant on a gold chain inside a display case
The only PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator in its custom pendant, sold with the card for $16,492,000 at Goldin in February 2026. Image source: Cards n Packs

The $16.49 million PSA 10 has no comp

Goldin’s listing describes the card as the lone GEM MT 10 among the PSA census examples, and Guinness World Records certified the $16,492,000 result as the most expensive Pokémon card sold at auction. The same card had changed hands privately for $5,275,000 in 2021. Two things make that lot a poor yardstick for any other copy. It is a population of one, so no other card shares its grade. And the lot was not just a card: it included a custom diamond necklace appraised at $75,000 and hand delivery by the seller, per Goldin.

A pop-1 sale tells you what one buyer paid for one object on one night. It does not tell you what a PSA 9 is worth, how fast one sells, or what a seller nets.

Same PSA 9 label, 2026 prices 3.5x apart

The PSA 9 tier, with 15 copies on the census, is where the real Illustrator market lives. Here is what the public auction record shows for 2026, prices including buyer’s premium unless noted:

Date (2026)Grade / notesVenuePriceSource
Feb 16PSA 10 (pop 1), with necklaceGoldin$16,492,000Goldin
MarchPSA 9Heritage$1,406,250Star City Games
June 26–27PSA 8.5, MBA Silver Diamond (lot 37028)Heritage$843,750Rare Book Hub
Sept 18–19PSA 9, MBA Gold DiamondHeritage$5,000,000Collectibles News
Sept 19CGC 9Goldin$2,806,271Pallet.Club
Oct 22PSA 9Not named in reportsabout $3.2 millionGempireCards; Folio
Folio lists the October PSA 9 at $3,237,954 as shown by the selling platform and notes that platform does not say whether a buyer’s premium applies. GempireCards notes results are subject to payment confirmation.
1998 Japanese promo Pikachu Illustrator graded PSA Mint 9 in slab, cert 83324823
A PSA Mint 9 Pikachu Illustrator pictured in Star City Games’ report on the $1,406,250 Heritage sale in March 2026. Image source: Star City Games / Heritage Auctions, HA.com

The September card was not a “better 9” on the PSA label. It carried a Mike Baker Authenticated Gold Diamond sticker, and Heritage said it was the only PSA 9 Illustrator with that designation. Heritage’s Jesus Garcia told Collectibles News the sticker effectively signals a card MBA views as worthy of roughly a 9.5. That is the same split we saw with the 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle, where an MBA Silver PSA 8 brought about double the plain PSA 8s. Stickered copies are real sales, but they are a separate lane from plain copies with the same grade.

Pikachu Illustrator graded PSA Mint 9 with an MBA sticker on the slab, cert 83914162
The PSA Mint 9 pictured in Collectibles News’ report on the $5,000,000 MBA Gold Diamond sale at Heritage, September 2026. Image source: Collectibles News / Heritage Auctions, HA.com

The label gap: a PSA 9 and a CGC 9, one day apart

One day after the $5 million Heritage result, Goldin sold a CGC 9 Illustrator for $2,806,271, a $2,300,222 winning bid plus a 22% buyer’s premium (Pallet.Club). The Pack Report put the gap at 78% and argued that at seven figures the bidder pool is small and prices off PSA’s census. Pokeforecast made the opposite caution: with the MBA sticker on the PSA copy and so few sales, there is not enough liquidity to read a clean PSA-vs-CGC premium from two lots. Both points lead to the same practical rule. If you own a non-PSA Illustrator, do not price it off PSA results.

How liquid is a Pikachu Illustrator?

By trophy-card standards, 2026 was busy. Folio counts 12 copies sold at public auctions it could confirm this year, about $34.0 million in total, from $344,040 for a PSA 5 in May to the PSA 10 record. Spread that across every grade and every grader, though, and any one lane sees only a few public sales a year. Outside the Gold Diamond copy, the PSA 9 had two public auction results in 2026, March and October, roughly $1.8 million apart.

Older prints show how fast the reference points move. Folio’s ledger has PSA 9s at $54,970 in November 2016, $840,000 in June 2022, and $625,000 in August 2025 before 2026’s run. Folio also notes that PSA’s own price guide, read November 9, 2026, still showed $840,000 for a PSA 9, well below every 2026 PSA 9 sale. Guides lag on a card that trades this rarely.

A practical framework for a Pikachu Illustrator

  1. Ignore the PSA 10 for pricing. It is a population of one sold with a necklace. It is a ceiling, not a comp.
  2. Separate stickered and plain copies. The $5,000,000 MBA Gold Diamond PSA 9 and the $1,406,250 plain PSA 9 are different lanes. Average them and you mislead yourself either way.
  3. Compare within the same grader. A CGC 9 sold for $2,806,271 the day after a PSA 9 sold for $5,000,000. Use same-label, dated, lot-linked sales.
  4. Read the pop report as an upper bound. 59 PSA entries against 39 awarded cards means duplicates and crossovers. Supply is thinner than the rows suggest, and so is the buyer pool.
  5. Work net of fees and time. Reported prices include buyer’s premium: 24% on the Goldin PSA 10 and 22% on the CGC 9. A consignor’s proceeds start from the hammer, less any seller fee. With a few public sales per grade each year, plan your exit in auction cycles, not days. Our card grading break-even example walks through the same net-of-fees math at everyday prices.

The bottom line

The Pikachu Illustrator is the most expensive Pokémon card ever auctioned, but its record describes one pop-1 slab, not the card. The tradable market is the 15 PSA 9s and the grades below them, and in 2026 even that tier ran from $1,406,250 to $5,000,000 depending on stickers, label and timing. Price any copy from same-grade, same-grader, plain-versus-stickered sales, and expect to wait for the next comp.

Pokémon PSA 10 vs raw collage: raw Prismatic Evolutions Umbreon ex 161/131 beside PSA 10 Great Encounters Cresselia and PSA 10 Southern Islands Mew slabs

Pokémon PSA 10 Holds as Modern Raw Softens

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Update, October 26, 2026: Chase Society reports that the $960,000 Cresselia PSA 10 and the $840,000 Southern Islands Mew PSA 10 discussed below were still listed as unpaid as of its October 20 update. Treat both as unconfirmed bids, not settled sales. We explain how to check a comp in our Fanatics Collect unpaid bids checklist.

Short answer: modern raw Pokémon is soft, and top-grade Pokémon PSA 10 slabs are not. TCGplayer’s October 13 price-drop report shows Near Mint singles from Ascended Heroes and Prismatic Evolutions sliding as reprint waves land. In the same window, Trade Collectors’ weekly Top 5 TCG sales were all Pokémon gem-grade slabs, reported at a combined $2.964 million and led by a 2008 Great Encounters Cresselia PSA 10 at $960,000 (a print since flagged as unpaid; see the update above). The market is pricing scarcity by grade, not fame by character. Those are two different markets wearing the same logo.

This is a market-structure read, not a buy signal. If you want the frameworks behind it, see our Collector Guides and the running Market News feed.

The raw side: reprints caught up

TCGplayer’s Seller Center report only counts Near Mint copies with at least ten sales between September 7 and October 6, 2026, so these are not one-off listings (TCGplayer). Its framing is blunt. Around July 2026, modern singles began to retrace “as the waves of reprints finally caught up with the demand,” and that continued in September. Ascended Heroes was hit hardest. A wave of Prismatic Evolutions reprints also arrived in September, which pushed PRE Elite Trainer Boxes to their lowest point since February.

TCGplayer Pokémon Dropping in Price header showing Mega Zeraora ex, Mega Gengar ex and Mega Dragonite ex cards
TCGplayer’s October 13 report header. Its Near Mint data counts only cards with ten or more sales from September 7 to October 6. Image source: TCGplayer Seller Center.

The five biggest declines among cards that started above $60 (Near Mint market price):

  • Umbreon ex 161/131 (Prismatic Evolutions): down $119.04 to $1,323.45.
  • Pikachu ex 276/217 (Ascended Heroes): down $110.87 to $877.35.
  • Mega Dragonite ex 290/217 (Ascended Heroes): down $101.40 to $506.15.
  • Umbreon VMAX Alternate Art (Evolving Skies): down $82.84 to $2,285.50. TCGplayer notes its last two sales, two days apart, were almost $400 apart.
  • Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat (SV promo): down $69.01 to $695.71, after doubling from about $500 to over $1,000 by August even though supply held steady.
Prismatic Evolutions Umbreon ex 161/131 raw card scan, the modern chase that led TCGplayer's October Pokémon price drops
Prismatic Evolutions Umbreon ex 161/131 led TCGplayer’s over-$60 decliners after September’s reprint wave. Official listing: Pokémon TCG Card Database. Image source: Pokémon TCG API.

The Grey Felt Hat line matters most. TCGplayer reads it as sellers cutting prices to lock in gains on something the market had treated as blue chip. That is what softening looks like: no crash, just the ask drifting toward the bid.

The slab side: a $2.964 million all-Pokémon week

Trade Collectors’ October 12 write-up (originally from Sports Illustrated Collectibles) ranked the week’s top TCG sales (Trade Collectors):

  • 2008 Great Encounters Holo Cresselia #2, PSA 10: $960,000, Fanatics Collect Weekly, October 4.
  • 2001 Southern Islands Promo Holo Mew #1, PSA 10: $840,000, Fanatics Weekly.
  • 2019 Detective Pikachu promo, PSA 10: $420,000, eBay, October 9.
  • Japanese Rayquaza Gold Star #67, BGS 10 Pristine: $384,000.
  • Aquapolis Crystal Lugia #149, PSA 10: $360,000.

Every card on the list was reported at $360,000 or more, but the two biggest prints are unconfirmed (see the update at the top). Four were PSA 10s, and the Rayquaza was a BGS 10 Pristine. They span 2001 to 2019 and mix set holos, Japanese chase cards, and promos. None of them is a Charizard. Trade Collectors’ read is that money is chasing condition, not characters. For a 2008 holo, the last step to Gem Mint is often where the real scarcity lives.

Pokémon PSA 10 2008 Diamond and Pearl Great Encounters Holo Cresselia #2 slab, cert 67947853, sold for $960,000 on Fanatics Weekly
The $960,000 Cresselia: cert 67947853, 38 bids, and a PSA 10 population of 46 shown on the lot page. Image source: Fanatics Collect.

What the headline skips: the comps behind the record

Before you treat $960,000 as “what a Cresselia PSA 10 is worth,” look at the venue’s own data. The Fanatics Collect sales-history panel on a PSA 10 listing for this card shows earlier marketplace prints of $1,620 (April 6, 2026) and $600 (October 27, 2025). A second PSA 10 copy, cert 101649807, was listed on Fanatics Buy Now at $150,000 when we checked on October 14, down from a previous ask of $250,000 (Fanatics Collect listing). An ask is not a sale. Still, an ask far below the record tells you the next seller doesn’t think $960,000 repeats easily.

Mew is a cleaner test. CardWire noted that another PSA 10 Southern Islands Mew sold for $85,001 via eBay Best Offer on July 15, and a third brought $24,000 at Fanatics in June 2025 (CardWire). Then a second PSA 10, which Fanatics lists as a Reverse Holo, was flash-inserted on October 5 and sold for $660,000 on October 12 after 33 bids (Fanatics Collect). That was a contested follow-up, close behind the first, and that is what a real repricing looks like. Cresselia has not shown that second print yet in the sources we checked.

Pokémon PSA 10 2001 Southern Islands Promo Holo Mew #1 slab, cert 27238932, sold for $840,000 on Fanatics Weekly
Southern Islands Mew PSA 10, cert 27238932: $840,000 after 32 bids, with a PSA 10 population of 20 shown on the lot page. Image source: Fanatics Collect.

Index data points the same way. CardSpicy’s October 6 report, which cites a third-party Pokémon index dated October 1, shows the graded PSA 10 segment up 3.5% over 30 days while modern chase cards were flat at 0.0% and pre-2003 vintage slipped 0.6% (CardSpicy). The headline gain came from slabs, not from current-set pulls.

Why raw and grade split

Reprints add raw supply to a modern set. They cannot add PSA 10s to a 2008 holo with a population of 46. That is the whole split. Raw modern prices answer to print runs and sealed restocks. Gem-grade older cards answer to population, and to whoever shows up on auction night. We saw the same pattern in the 1989 Upper Deck Griffey: the most-graded card in the hobby still trades as separate markets by grade. Base Set Charizard works the same way by edition and grade. Because this premium sits on one grader’s label, grading consolidation is worth tracking too. Pop reports live at PSA.

The thin-market caveat cuts both ways. With so few comparable sales, one motivated bidder can set the tape, and the next copy may not come close. A high print proves that buyer existed. It does not prove there is a deep bid behind them.

Collector checklist

  • Separate raw and slab comps. A record PSA 10 does not lift your raw Ascended Heroes or Prismatic Evolutions hits. Those are tracking reprint supply.
  • Check for a second print. One record is a data point. A contested follow-up, like Mew’s $660,000 a week later, is a trend.
  • Read the venue’s sales history. If the prior PSA 10 comps are four figures and the record is six, price the gap as risk, not as value.
  • Treat asks as asks. Buy Now prices and “previously” tags tell you what sellers hope for, not what buyers have paid.
  • Mind the population. Pop 20 and pop 46 are thin. A new 10 coming out of a submission can change the math overnight.
  • Don’t buy raw modern to grade on the headline. Modern gem rates and reprint supply are a different equation from a 2008 holo’s population.

Sources

Raw Near Mint price moves: TCGplayer Seller Center, Price Trends: Pokémon Cards Dropping in Price, October 13, 2026. Weekly top sales: Trade Collectors, October 12, 2026. Lot details and sales history: Fanatics Collect (Cresselia, second Cresselia listing, Mew, second Mew). Earlier Mew comps: CardWire, October 8, 2026. Segment index: CardSpicy, October 6, 2026. Set pages: Ascended Heroes and Prismatic Evolutions on Pokémon TCG official. Prices are as reported on the dates cited and move quickly. Nothing here is investment advice.

Hyperia City Enchanted chase cards collage including Cinderella Unintentional Icon and Coco Un Poco Loco

Hyperia City Enchanted: Early Lorcana Chase Lessons

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Hyperia City Enchanted is the next Disney Lorcana chase to watch: prerelease hits game stores and select Disney Parks/stores on October 16, 2026, with everywhere availability October 23. Ravensburger is bringing Enchanted cards back in an after-dark nightlife art style, naming two Iconics—Mickey Mouse – Best in Town and Cinderella – Unintentional Icon—plus the debut of Coco glimmers and the new ink drops mechanic. The liquidity lesson is not a price call; it is how early Enchanted scarcity still frames how collectors treat chase rarity when a set ships.

Hyperia City Enchanted cards after-dark nightlife art style from Disney Lorcana
Image source: Disney Lorcana – Hyperia City

What Hyperia City is chasing

Per the official Hyperia City press release (September 22, 2026), the set drops Illumineers into a metro-meets-fantastical city with musical street life, Disney Princess and Mickey glimmers, and—new for Lorcana—glimmers from Disney and Pixar’s Coco. The same release introduces ink drops: one-time-use ink counters players can spend to play cards or empower effects.

On the collector side, Ravensburger highlights Enchanted cards as the showcase for handcrafted art, each framed as night-out city moments. The two Iconic cards—“the rarest in the game”—adopt that same nightlife look: Mickey Mouse – Best in Town (shown earlier at D23) and Cinderella – Unintentional Icon. The Hyperia City product page confirms prerelease October 16 and everywhere October 23, with Prerelease Boxes, Illumineer’s Troves, and booster products in the lineup.

Cinderella Unintentional Icon Hyperia City Enchanted chase parallel
Image source: Disney Lorcana Creative Spotlight – Hyperia City

Ravensburger’s Creative Spotlight (October 1, 2026) is blunt about the hierarchy: Iconic and Enchanted are two of the rarest card types in Disney Lorcana, each with set-specific styles. For Hyperia City, much of the standard art sits in daytime city scenes while Enchanted (and Iconic) shots push after-dark lighting—useful when you are sorting what is “chase art” versus playable stock as packs open.

Un Poco Loco Hyperia City Enchanted card marking Coco debut in Disney Lorcana
Image source: Disney Lorcana Creative Spotlight – Hyperia City

Historic lesson: early Enchanted as a scarcity template

When Enchanted first appeared in The First Chapter, Ravensburger did not position it as a gameplay upgrade. Official copy from Enchanted Cards Revealed still matters for how chase liquidity works:

  • Enchanted was introduced as an extremely rare sixth rarity with alternate full art and Inkwash foiling.
  • Those cards carried a new rarity symbol and collector numbers above 204 (the standard set count).
  • Gameplay and subjects matched the standard versions—so the premium was collectibility and treatment, not a rules edge.
  • Every booster pack could contain one, which kept the chase tied to sealed product rather than a separate lottery SKU.
The First Chapter Enchanted rarity cards gallery from early Disney Lorcana
Image source: Disney Lorcana – Enchanted Cards Revealed

Later, when Epic and Iconic arrived, Ravensburger again published the stack in plain language: Epic sits rarer than Legendary but not as rare as Enchanted; Iconics (two per set) sit far less common than Enchanteds, with full-card art, lore-star foil, and 3D hot stamping (Stunning New Rarities). That official ladder is the useful historic parallel for Hyperia City: Enchanted remains a high-visibility chase band, and Iconics sit above it as the set’s rarest named tier—without needing invented print runs or sale comps to understand how collectors will sort demand.

How to use the lesson before prerelease

For Hyperia City week, treat the early Enchanted template as behavior guidance, not a valuation sheet:

  1. Separate play from chase. Official Enchanted copy stressed identical gameplay to standards. Budget sealed opens and single buys around whether you want ink-drop decks or nightlife art.
  2. Name the tiers before you chase. Enchanted returns with a distinct night style; Iconics are explicitly the rarest cards in the game for this set. Know which lane you are hunting.
  3. Watch franchise heat without inventing floors. Coco debuts and named Iconics (Mickey, Cinderella) will pull attention—that is collector behavior, not a promised secondary-market outcome.
  4. Use manufacturer pages as the source of truth. Dates, mechanic text, and rarity framing live on disneylorcana.com; ignore unsourced pull-rate rumors.

If you are mapping this drop against the wider October calendar, see our October TCG drops radar. For another scarcity-versus-liquidity framing from a different game, compare Reality Fracture chase scarcity and the booster-structure angle in MTG God Packs: What 2027 Booster Changes Mean. More market notes live under Market News; deeper collector frameworks sit in Collector Guides.

Card Core does not invent comps, floors, or print runs. Product facts above cite Disney Lorcana / Ravensburger official pages only.

Collage of Pokémon TCG chase cards illustrating sealed-product liquidity under reprints. Image source: Pokémon TCG API; © Pokémon / Creatures / TPC.

Pokémon Sealed Liquidity Under Reprints: A Collector Framework

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Pokémon sealed still trades like a scarcity story. The Pokémon Company’s own availability messaging says something quieter and more useful for liquidity: demand is outrunning supply, and they are printing more of impacted TCG products at maximum capacity, with reprints routed through participating retailers and Pokémon Center when available.

Primary reference: Pokémon Support — Update on Pokémon TCG Product Availability. Secondary coverage of shortage statements and reprint intent includes IGN. We will not invent ETB unit counts, Costco allotments, or “guaranteed restock dates” that Pokémon did not publish.

What “maximum capacity” means for sealed holders

  • Reprint risk is policy, not a rumor sheet. If you are long sealed primarily because shelves are empty, you are long a variable the publisher is actively trying to shrink.
  • Timing is opaque. Pokémon Support’s availability update does not guarantee when a specific SKU returns or how many units any retailer receives.
  • Queues ≠ reservations. Virtual queues at Pokémon Center control access during traffic spikes; they do not lock inventory for you.

Liquidity framework for Pokémon sealed (no fake print runs)

  1. Separate play/open demand from sealed-investment demand. Product that gets opened for chase hits has a different exit path than product held closed for future nostalgia.
  2. Prefer SKUs with clear, recurring retail paths when you need liquidity — not because they will moon, but because they can be sold without finding a single whale.
  3. Treat secondary premiums as temporary when reprints are acknowledged. Premiums can persist; they are not a contract.
  4. Document your cost basis and exit venue (LGS buy list, marketplace solds, private trade) before the next shortage headline hits.
  5. Counterfeit awareness scales with scarcity narratives. Pokémon Support’s counterfeit guidance remains relevant when underpriced packs flood flea markets and social DMs.

Sets frequently named in 2025–2026 shortage/reprint conversations (Destined Rivals, Prismatic Evolutions, and later Mega Evolution-era demand) should be monitored via official channels and your own sold comps — not influencer “print run” graphics. If a number is not on Pokémon Support or Pokémon Company materials, Card Core will not reprint it as fact.

Cross-links: 2026 bubble risk report, Coinbase Packed trading cards (platform FMV vs public sealed liquidity), and our Pokémon category.

Image credit: featured collage uses Pokémon TCG API card images; © Pokémon / Creatures Inc. / The Pokémon Company. Commentary use.

Bottom line

Pokémon sealed liquidity in 2026 is a race between collector demand and publisher reprint intent. Hold what you will open or display; size “investment sealed” assuming more supply is the official goal — and never invent the print run.

ChatGPT Image May 29, 2026, 08_26_49 AM

PSA Hits Pause on Value Grading Tiers as 10 Million-Card Backlog Rocks the Hobby

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The trading card hobby just got another reminder that the grading economy is still running hotter than almost anyone can comfortably manage.

Professional Sports Authenticator, better known as PSA, is temporarily pausing several of its most popular grading service levels after submissions surged into a massive 10 million-card backlog. According to the report, PSA will halt new submissions for its Value Bulk, Value, Value Plus, and Value Max tiers beginning June 2, 2026, while continuing to process orders submitted before that date.

For collectors, flippers, TCG players, sports card investors, and anyone sitting on a pile of “maybe this is a 10” cards, this is a big deal.

PSA is not shutting down grading entirely. Higher-priced service levels above Regular are expected to remain active, although even Regular service will reportedly see estimated turnaround times stretch to 40–50 days. But the temporary pause on value-tier grading changes the calculus for a huge part of the hobby, especially collectors submitting lower-cost cards in bulk.

Why PSA Is Pausing Submissions

The short answer: demand went nuclear.

PSA’s parent company, Collectors, recently announced a $200 million investment to expand PSA’s operations. That investment is expected to help double PSA’s physical footprint and add more than 1,000 employees over the next 18 months.

But the announcement appears to have created an immediate wave of new demand. Collectors president Ryan Hoge said PSA saw a 20% spike in submissions after the May 14 investment news, adding roughly 1.6 million cards to the active backlog and pushing the total to around 10 million cards.

That is not a backlog. That is a cardboard traffic jam visible from space.

PSA’s stated goal is to reduce the backlog from 10 million cards to 5 million cards, a milestone the company estimates could take up to four months. PSA also plans to launch a public Backlog Tracker, giving collectors visibility into the company’s progress.

The GameStop Effect and the TCG Boom

One of the biggest forces behind the backlog appears to be the explosive growth of trading card games, especially Pokémon.

The report notes that PSA graded more than 11.5 million TCG cards in 2025, an 85% year-over-year increase. That is a staggering number and shows how much the grading world has shifted beyond traditional sports cards.

PSA’s partnership with GameStop has likely accelerated this even further. GameStop began accepting grading submissions through PSA in October 2024, and by May 2025 the program had already reached one million cards graded. That kind of retail accessibility lowers the friction for casual collectors, Pokémon fans, and newer hobbyists to submit cards.

In other words, grading is no longer just for high-end sports collectors mailing in vintage Mantles or Jordan rookies. It is now something Pokémon collectors, One Piece players, Lorcana fans, Magic collectors, and casual hobbyists can access at scale.

That is great for the hobby.

It is also clearly stressing the infrastructure.

What This Means for Collectors

The immediate impact depends on what kind of cards you are holding.

For personal collection cards, waiting may be the smartest move. If you are not trying to flip immediately, there is no reason to rush into a more expensive tier just because the lower tiers are paused.

For low-end grading flips, this is more painful. Cards that only make financial sense at $25–$50 grading fees may not work at higher service levels. That could force some collectors to sell raw, wait out the pause, or reconsider whether certain cards are worth grading at all.

For mid- and high-end cards, the impact is less severe. Cards with declared values of $1,500 or more generally move through higher service tiers anyway, and those remain available.

Could PSA-Graded Cards Get More Expensive?

Possibly.

Whenever supply slows, markets react. If fewer PSA value-tier cards are entering the marketplace over the next few months, certain already-graded cards could see short-term premiums, especially high-demand Pokémon, sports, and TCG cards where PSA 10 liquidity matters.

Raw cards may also see movement. Some collectors may shift focus to higher-quality raw copies that can eventually be submitted once PSA reopens value tiers.

But this is not a guaranteed moonshot. The hobby has seen these moments before. PSA paused submissions during the pandemic boom in 2021, and while some graded cards spiked, the broader market eventually normalized.

The bigger question is whether this backlog creates a temporary pricing squeeze or a longer-term shift in how collectors think about grading ROI.

Will Other Grading Companies Benefit?

Almost certainly.

When PSA slows down, collectors look elsewhere. SGC, Beckett, CGC, TAG, and other grading companies could see increased demand from hobbyists who do not want to wait months for PSA value tiers to reopen.

But that does not automatically mean competitors are immune from the same pressure. The article notes that CGC appears to have increased turnaround times on some services, and TAG has already paused certain service levels due to capacity.

The grading bottleneck may not be just a PSA problem.

It may be a hobby-wide infrastructure problem.

PSA’s Market Power Is Still the Real Story

This situation also reinforces why PSA remains the dominant force in grading.

Collectors continue to submit to PSA because PSA slabs generally carry the strongest resale liquidity. Other graders can absolutely outperform PSA in specific niches, especially with premium grades like BGS Black Label 10 or CGC Pristine 10, but PSA still tends to be the default market standard.

That matters because grading is not just about authentication. It is about market confidence. A PSA slab is often easier to sell, easier to comp, and easier for casual buyers to understand.

That liquidity advantage is why collectors keep sending cards to PSA even when turnaround times stretch, prices rise, or service tiers pause.

The Bigger Hobby Takeaway

The PSA backlog is not a sign that the hobby is dead.

It is the opposite.

This is what happens when sports cards, Pokémon, TCGs, retail submission partnerships, online marketplaces, and collector speculation all collide at once.

The industry has become bigger, more mainstream, and more technologically connected. Cards are no longer just nostalgic objects sitting in binders. They are collectible assets, cultural artifacts, gaming pieces, investment vehicles, and social flexes all at the same time.

That growth is exciting. It also creates pressure.

The next phase of the grading market will be about capacity, transparency, turnaround reliability, and trust. PSA is trying to solve that with a major expansion, but collectors are going to feel the pain before they feel the benefits.

For now, the smart move is simple: grade with intention.

Not every card needs a slab. Not every raw card is worth the wait. And not every backlog creates a buying opportunity.

But for the right cards, in the right condition, with the right timing, PSA still matters.

Probably more than ever.

TLDR

PSA is pausing several lower-cost grading tiers starting June 2, 2026, after submissions pushed its backlog to roughly 10 million cards. The surge is being driven by record hobby demand, Pokémon and TCG growth, and easier submission access through partners like GameStop. Collectors with personal collection cards may be better off waiting, while low-end flippers may need to rethink grading economics. PSA’s dominance remains intact, but competitors like CGC, SGC, Beckett, and TAG could see increased demand as collectors search for alternatives.