Baseball Insiders Interview: A deep dive into grading with PSA president Ryan Hoge

Collecting cards as a hobby has been around basically as long as professional sports have existed in the U.S. Ask any long-time sports fan and they will probably at least have memories of opening packs of cards as kids while hunting for their favorite players. For many, that passion for collecting never went away, continuing to collect well into adulthood. But what has changed about the hobby in recent years has been the introduction of grading.

Grading collectibles (sports or otherwise) is a true rabbit hole to go down, and for a lot of people, it can appear arcane and/or intimidating to even begin to figure out. Rather than embrace the dark and uncertain void, we decided to reach out to an expert on the matter in Ryan Hoge, president of leading grading company Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA), to answer questions that a lot of collectors have on their minds.

Understanding what card grading is and how it has changed

Make no mistake about: PSA is king in the world of grading. Yes, there are other companies like Beckett, SGC, CGC, and others that grade collectibles and specifically cards, but no company on the planet does the level of volume or commands the premium prices that PSA does. However, when asked about how PSA started compared to where it is now, Hoge was clear that the company began in order to fulfill a basic need for consistency when it comes to cards' condition.

“If you go back to 1991 when PSA started, the reason it started is because collectors saw inconsistencies in the way sellers described the condition of cards," Hoge said. "Whether it was at a show or in a shop, there was a need in the industry and in the hobby to have consistent standards with conditions that impact the value of the card itself. Since then, you have seen it become much more mainstream ... [and] the more expected and almost required way for cards to trade and transact.”

Of course, this presents a potential problem for a lot of collectors, especially those with smaller budgets: Grading is not free. Assuming you are not a member of their Collector's Club, which gives you a bit of a discount and submission pricing specials, grading a card valued up to $500 will cost you $24.99 per card — and that number goes up the more valuable the card.

For younger collectors, or those who aren't necessarily looking to buy and sell at volume, that can create some accessibility concerns. However, Hoge takes a more holistic approach, correctly pointing out that there is no shortage of collectors that don't dabble heavily when it comes to grading.

“I do think collecting being accessible to people with different budgets, for kids in particular, is important, but I do still think you have that today," Hoge said. "I don’t think there is a requirement to be a collector, whether it is sports cards or Pokemon ... But when you get more sophisticated, grading is like graduating up the collecting hierarchy. If you care more about the investment aspect and the potential financial gains, that is really where grading comes into play.”

Once real money starts becoming a factor, Hoge is 100-percent right that it starts mattering a lot more that a card (or whatever collectible) is in the condition the seller says it is. Having cards graded gives those that want to buy and sell an authenticity guarantee that allows more and more people to have confidence in what they getting. Put another way: "What we are doing is adding liquidity to the collecting industry and allowing these items to transact because they were graded by PSA and we say they are real and they are in the condition they are in."

How grading has changed over the years and what remains the same

While grading is a relative newcomer to the scene when compared to how long collectibles have existed, it is still a decades-old industry at this point. Printing technologies have changed and improved, loads of different products and companies have come and gone, and everyone has learned more about issues with condition to keep an eye out for.

According to Hoge, all of these changes over the years haven't changed PSAs standards. Yes, the company has had to adapt over time when it comes to dealing with increased demand, but he maintains that the cards graded decades ago used the same standards and often the same graders as the ones graded now.

“Our director of grading has been in his role since 1998," Hoge said. "That is a really long time to have the same director of grading. Some of our senior graders have been with us since the 90s. You have a really well-established crew especially on the vintage side and looking at vintage cards."

In recent years, Fanatics has made a huge foray into the collectible card scene by buying Topps and gobbling up the licenses for other sports leagues beyond baseball as well. While many collectors were concerned because, well, all change could be crazy and terrible, Hoge likes what he has seen so far, especially compared to some of the issues that came during the COVID collecting boom.

“During the boom, I think you saw things suffer," Hoge said. "There were constraints on the printers that were either owned or were partnered with third parties where you had some significant delays. We saw quality suffer in a lot of these cards ... both on the Topps side as well as the Panini side. I will say the last two years, a lot of the Topps products have been top notch. I think they have done some innovative things with the product design as well as the quality of cards coming out of Topps has been outstanding.”

Of course, not all change is good. One of the biggest reasons that PSA exists as a company is because there are crooks and counterfeiters out there who will always try to scam people, and they continue to refine their methods. However, PSA makes sure to take images of every card submitted to them to help them build a database to compare cards against.

“Wherever there is a chance for money to be made, there’s going to be bad actors that will try to exploit or take advantage of it,” Hoge said. “On the grading and authentication side, we are continuing to see counterfeits pop whether from the U.S. domestically or overseas. Some of the counterfeit cards coming out of Asia have gotten pretty sophisticated and are really, really hard to detect unless you have the expertise."

Common concerns for those that are looking to get into graded cards and how collectors should get started

Right now, the grading industry is at an all-time high and there are few signs of it slowing down.

"We haven’t really seen any busts in the demand for our services in the last five years," Hoge said. "There are third-party sites out there that track how many cards the companies are shipping in a year, we have grown year after year.”

For many collectors, though, the whole process is pretty scary. You have to spend a not-insignificant amount of money to take what are essentially small squares of cardboard and ship them long distances in the hopes they will return safely and with a grade that made the process worth it. Hoge has some pretty simple advice for those that are interested in grading cards, but haven't been willing or able to pull the trigger.

“I think some people get intimidated, they are scared about grading," Hoge said. "They are worried that their cards will get lost or damaged or they will do something wrong and that is a reason why they don’t submit. A great way to alleviate some of those fears is to go to PSAcard.com/events and see if we are going to be in your area. Go to one of those in-person events and talk to a PSA employee. They will help you get over the hump."

Avoiding shipping headaches certainly can help with these in-person events at stores around the country or with PSA's partnership with GameStop, where you can just drop your cards off there to be shipped and graded. However, another transitional step you can take is to just download PSA's app, which will soon have the functionality to let you take a picture of your raw card, identify it, and then pull up graded population reports and pricing for the card at individual grades. It won't grade the card for you, but it is a good starting point to at least dip one's toes in the grading waters.

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