The grading industry just posted its biggest month on record. GemRate's July report, covered by Sports Illustrated's collectibles desk on August 5, shows the five major graders — PSA, CGC, Beckett, TAG and SGC — processed 3.61 million cards in July, up from 3.5 million in June. The headline number is a record. The number underneath it is more interesting: on a per-business-day basis, volume actually slipped.

A Record With an Asterisk

July had 22 business days against June's 21. The monthly total rose about 3 percent, but on a per-business-day basis grading volume was down 2 percent month-over-month. That is not a collapse — it is a plateau at an extraordinarily high level, with the industry running close to flat out.

The extra business day is part of why the record landed in July. How much of the month's increase was calendar and how much was genuine demand is not something the GemRate figures settle, and it would be a stretch to claim otherwise in either direction.

PSA remains the center of gravity. It graded 2.49 million cards in July against 2.50 million in June — essentially flat month-to-month, but up 49 percent year-over-year. Read one way, that is the profile of a company operating at capacity rather than one still scaling into demand.

PSA's Sports Slice Is Shrinking

Here is the number that matters most to the readers of this blog: PSA's sports-card submissions came in at roughly 662,000 in July, down 9 percent month-over-month and roughly flat year-over-year. Its trading-card-game volume, meanwhile, rose 3 percent month-over-month and 81 percent year-over-year.

Within PSA's July mix, sports cards were not the growth engine — TCG was. The scope matters, though: that is PSA's month, not a verdict on the industry. CGC's sports volume moved hard in the opposite direction, as the next section shows. Across all five graders, the record month was carried by TCG and non-sports cards rather than by sports submissions, and that shapes the environment sports collectors submit into, since turnaround times, tier pricing and capacity decisions all get made against total volume rather than against the sports subset.

CGC and Beckett Are Growing Faster

The competitive picture has changed sharply from a year ago:

  • Beckett — up 10 percent month-over-month and 115 percent year-over-year, with TCG up 27 percent month-over-month and 159 percent year-over-year.
  • CGC — up 12 percent month-over-month and 115 percent year-over-year. Its sports-card volume is up 21 percent month-over-month and 311 percent year-over-year.
  • SGC — up 13 percent month-over-month, but down 71 percent year-over-year.

Beckett and CGC have both more than doubled against July 2025. CGC's sports growth is the standout: up 311 percent year-over-year means July's sports volume was roughly four times what that same month produced in 2025 — a month-to-month comparison against the year-ago period, not a cumulative figure or a market-share claim. SGC's split reading, growing month-to-month while down sharply against last year, points to ground given up earlier in the cycle. TAG is counted in the five-grader total, but the report does not break out its July comparison, so it sits outside this picture.

Analysis: CGC and Beckett doubling year-over-year while PSA holds flat is the shape you would expect if submitters who once defaulted to PSA were spreading their business around. The volume data are consistent with that; they do not prove it.

Plano Comes Online

PSA's new grading facility in Plano, Texas became operational at the end of July, and SI expects PSA's numbers to rise as it works through a 12 million card backlog. That backlog is the story this blog covered on August 2 (CASE #0211).

Analysis: the open question is mix, not capacity. Added throughput only shortens a given queue if that category is what actually moves through the building — and the July report says nothing about what Plano will process, or how it will split between sports and TCG. Capacity is measurable today; its effect is not.

The Verdict

A record month that was flat on a per-business-day basis, at a company that was flat month-to-month, in the category — PSA's sports submissions — that fell 9 percent month over month. Growth in grading is real. In July it was concentrated at CGC and Beckett, and in TCG rather than sports.

For collectors sitting on submissions, capacity is expanding and competition is intensifying, which could eventually improve turnaround times. The July data measure volume, not turnaround, so they do not demonstrate that effect one way or the other.

Confidence Note

Every figure in this article comes from Sports Illustrated's collectibles report by Conor B. McGrath (August 5, 2026), which attributes its grading-volume data to GemRate's July report, read in full for this piece. Backlog context cross-references our August 2 coverage (CASE #0211). Passages labeled Analysis are this blog's interpretation, not findings in the GemRate data. No secondary-market values, submission prices, or turnaround-time measurements are included, as the source reports volume only.