PSA's Value tier is back. It reopened Thursday, Oct. 29, at 8 a.m. Pacific, at $39.99 a card in the U.S., nearly five months after PSA shut its cheaper service levels in June. It costs $7 more than it did before the pause. And it comes back while PSA's backlog is still 2.2 million cards above the target the company set for itself.

PSA announced the reopening on Wednesday, Oct. 28, and in the same release cut the estimated turnaround on its next two tiers up.

The New Terms

Value opens in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Japan at the same hour. According to the announcement, as reported by both outlets:

  • U.S.: $39.99 per card, a $500 maximum insured value, and an estimated 90 to 100 business days.
  • Elsewhere: $56.99 CAD in Canada, €39.99 in Europe and ¥5,980 in Japan, where the estimate is 120 business days.
  • Standard: now an estimated 70 to 80 business days, down from 90 to 100.
  • Priority: now an estimated 50 to 60 business days, down from 70 to 80.

The Standard and Priority cuts, 20 business days each, apply to orders submitted from 8 a.m. Pacific on Oct. 28. Heavy puts their prices at $59.99 and $79.99, unchanged.

The price is the first thing collectors will notice. Heavy reports that Value cost $32.99 before the June suspension, which makes the new rate a $7 increase, about 21%. That matches the February price list Heavy published and this blog cited in CASE #0317.

The second thing is the queue. CollectiblesNews reports that new Value orders will be processed behind all orders already at PSA, and that the launch does not change delivery estimates for anyone with a submission already in.

The Estimate Standard Had Last Month

When PSA opened Standard on Sept. 14, it priced it at $59.99 with an estimated 90 to 100 business days (CASE #0317). As of this week, that same estimate is attached to a $39.99 tier.

Analysis: For a collector deciding what to submit, the gap between the two lowest open tiers is now $20 a card and about 20 business days of estimate. On a 20-card order, that is $799.80 at Value against $1,199.80 at Standard, before shipping. The same 20 cards would have cost $659.80 at the pre-pause Value price. Whether the 20-day difference holds in practice depends on the queue, and PSA calls its turnaround figures estimates, not guarantees.

Open Before the Target

This is the part the blog has been tracking. PSA tied the reopening of its cheaper tiers to a backlog target of 5 million units. Its own tracker put the backlog at 7.2 million on Oct. 20, so 2.2 million cards remain between the latest count and the finish line (CASE #0397).

PSA's announcement does not claim the target has been met. CollectiblesNews reports that PSA describes 5 million as its target "before fully reopening," that it plans to keep working toward that number before bringing back more options such as Value Bulk, and that it will reopen in phases while it watches submission demand and adjusts capacity.

Value Bulk stays closed. Heavy reports it previously cost $24.99 a card and that PSA gave no date or new price for its return.

Analysis: PSA set the 5 million figure as a condition for reopening Value, and this week it reopened Value without waiting for it. The company's own framing now treats 5 million as the bar for a full reopening, with Value as one phase before it. That is a change of sequence, not a broken promise, but it means the next tracker updates will be read for Value Bulk news, not Value news.

Why PSA Says It Is Behind

The announcement was unusually direct about late orders. "Too many orders are past their estimated turnaround time, and we owe an explanation," PSA said, according to CollectiblesNews. It gave these figures:

  • Submissions in April and May were 2.5 times those of the same two months in 2025.
  • More than half of the orders now past their estimates came in during a five-week spring stretch, when PSA received 165% more items than in the same period a year earlier.
  • Graded output is up nearly 50% in 2026.
  • PSA says it graded 59 million items in the past three years, more than the 57 million it graded in the 23 years before that.

Ryan Hoge, president of PSA and Grading at Collectors, said in the release: "We have added an incredible amount of capacity, but we still have work to do, both on existing orders and ensuring our estimated turnaround times are accurate."

Speculation

If the backlog keeps falling at the pace of the last few tracker updates, the first update to show it under 5 million could be the one due Dec. 1, as CASE #0397 laid out. A new wave of Value submissions now enters the same queue, so that pace may not hold. PSA has given no date for Value Bulk, and none should be assumed.

Verdict: the cheapest open tier at PSA is $39.99 again, not $59.99, and that is real money back for anyone with a stack of mid-value cards. It is not the old price, it is not the old Value Bulk, and it opened 2.2 million cards ahead of the line PSA drew in the summer. Submit on the estimate if it works for you, but read it as an estimate.

Confidence note: The terms of the reopening, the turnaround changes, PSA's submission and output figures, the Hoge quote and the 7.2 million backlog come from PSA's Oct. 28 announcement as reported by Heavy (Erik C. Anderson, Oct. 28, 2026) and CollectiblesNews (Matt Johnson, Oct. 28, 2026). The pre-pause $32.99 and $24.99 prices and the current Standard and Priority prices are Heavy's. Earlier tracker figures come from this blog's CASE #0317 and CASE #0397. Passages marked Analysis are this blog's interpretation, not findings in the sources.