PSA hikes Collectors Club fee 📈

Rise and shine, card enthusiasts! This is Penny Sleeve, the newsletter that buffs up your hobby knowledge until it shines like a freshly-cleaned card (shout out Kurt’s Card Care 🫡).

Here’s what we’ve got for you today:

• PSA hikes Collectors Club fee 📈

• Ohtani grading outpaces Jordan, LeBron 💨

• People to follow in the hobby 👥

• Meme of the day 🃏

PSA HIKES COLLECTORS CLUB FEE 📈

In the latest update from Collectors, PSA has announced it’s increasing the price of its Collectors Club membership, with the standard membership rising from $99 to $149. Interestingly, PSA is replacing their previous Loupe credit benefit with Fanatics Live credit, now offering a $60 credit for a standard membership and $125 for a premium membership. That’s a notable decrease from the earlier $100 Loupe credit for the standard $99 membership.

Additional perks include exclusive TCG pricing, access to PSA magazines across various collectibles, and promises of members-only card breaks and exclusive promo cards, among other benefits.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the additional $50 actually forces people to reconsider their Collectors Club membership. If you’re submitting a lot of cards through them, $50/year probably doesn’t move the needle. But if you’re not, it’s possible that using a group submitter or the like becomes a more attractive alternative.

The introduction of Fanatics Live credit also raises questions about a budding partnership between PSA and Fanatics - especially considering Fanatics’ previous partnerships with SGC for grading deals. It remains to be seen whether this partnership is a temporary collaboration or the beginning of a more significant shift in the industry, but we’ll definitely be keeping tabs on it.

OHTANI GRADING OUTPACES JORDAN, LEBRON 💨

Shohei Ohtani is making history beyond the baseball diamond. PSA recently announced that, since the start of 2023, Ohtani leads all athletes (active or retired) in terms of cards submitted for grading, with 270,177 submissions. That means, over that time period, he trumped Jordan, LeBron, and any other athlete that comes to mind.

Interestingly, more Ohtani cards have been submitted than cards of the next four most submitted active MLB players combined (Corbin Carroll, Gunnar Henderson, Julio Rodriguez, and Jackson Holliday).

Using GemRate, I pulled the top 10 most submitted players (or creatures?) across all the grading companies (PSA, SGC, CGC, Beckett). Ohtani currently ranks 8th all time, ahead of Ja Morant and just behind legends like Mew and Kobe. On that note, it seems unfair to include Charizard, Pikachu, and Mew, since their careers just never seem to end — when are they going to tear an ACL?

PEOPLE TO FOLLOW IN THE HOBBY 👥

• Dan The Card Man: Informational sports card news

• CHASING CARDBOARD: Traveling the country chasing card deals

• Joe’s Card Stache: Great UFC card content

MEME OF THE DAY 🃏