Beckett to suspend most grading operations on June 7

Posted on June 3, 2021 by Pre-War Cards

With the revitalization of the sports card hobby, there have been all sorts of changes to the grading card industry in the past year. Another bombshell hit recently with Beckett announcing they are suspending most grading operations on June 7. The exception will be grading at their Premium Level which, according to their submission form, starts at $125 per card without subgrades.

The decision, announced here, is about allowing the company to catch up on its backlog:

Beckett will suspend all grading submissions other than our Premium Level. All orders that are submitted under the Express, Standard, and Economy level will be returned to the customer, ungraded. The reason behind this decision is simply to allow us to focus on the growing backlog we have and to get as many cards back to customers as possible, before the National. This is not ideal for anyone but something our competition has done. We now feel this is right the move for Beckett. Again, this is going to be temporary and something we believe will improve our availability for the remainder of 2021 and into 2022.

That backlog, apparently, is quite significant. According to Beckett’s site, estimated turnaround times are more than 11 months for economy submissions and more than eight months for standard submissions.