GemRate March 2026 Report: Record 2.97 Million Cards Graded as PSA Tops 2.17M Alone
March 2026 is the biggest month in card grading history. New GemRate data shows 2.97 million cards slabbed across PSA, CGC, and Beckett, up 19 percent month over month and roughly 50 percent year over year.
The grading industry just had its biggest month on record. According to data released this week by GemRate, the major card grading companies combined to slab 2.97 million cards in March 2026, a roughly 19 percent jump from February and the highest single-month total ever recorded across the hobby.
The Headline Numbers
March was a clean record across the board. The pace is now well above where it was a year ago, and even further above the long-running averages from the pre-2020 era of grading. Year over year, total volume across the major graders is up nearly 50 percent, and 2025 closed at 26.8 million cards graded, a 32 percent increase over 2024.
By the Numbers — March 2026
- PSA — 2.17 million cards, up 16 percent over February and up 47 percent versus March 2025
- CGC — roughly 600,000 cards, an eye-popping 141 percent year over year
- Beckett (BGS) — about 106,000 cards, up over 50 percent in a year
- Industry total — 2.97 million cards, the first time the monthly figure has crossed the 2.9M threshold
What Is Driving the Surge
Three forces are pulling submissions higher at the same time. The first is a structural one: the Pokemon TCG continues to dominate grading queues, with Pulsing Aura, Ascended Heroes, and the lingering surge in vintage Wizards-of-the-Coast era cards all feeding the pipeline. The second is the modern sports rookie wave, with 2025-26 basketball, late-2025 baseball product, and the brand-new Topps NFL flagship lines all hitting bulk submission programs at once.
The third force is more strategic. Collectors are submitting to lock in grades before two market-shifting events: a possible service-fee adjustment cycle later this summer, and the still-pending closure of the Beckett acquisition by Collectors Holdings, which would put PSA, SGC, and BGS under one roof and reshape pricing across the industry.
What It Means for Your Submissions
The volume spike is good news for the long-term health of the hobby but it has near-term consequences for anyone with cards in the queue. PSA's bulk turnaround times have been creeping back up after months of stability, and the company has been quietly tightening declared-value tiers on certain promotional submission specials.
If you have a sub planned for May, double-check the tier you are using and submit early in the month. Service-level windows tend to compress in the second half of any record-setting quarter.
The Bigger Picture
March's data point is not a one-off. February 2026 also broke records, and the running 12-month trend line is steeper than any previous comparable window in the modern grading era. With Topps Chrome Football already in collectors' hands, Bowman Chrome Baseball arriving in May, and another wave of Pokemon Mega Evolution product rolling into the calendar through the summer, April and May are likely to print similar numbers.
Said another way: if you are a buyer of slabbed singles, expect supply of newly-graded cards to keep climbing across virtually every modern category. If you are a seller sitting on raw inventory, the math for grading is still working in your favor as long as you target the right tier and the right card.