#NoPSAMay Goes Live This Week: Why the Grading Boycott Is Hitting in May 2026

The hobby has watched grading discontent build for over a year, and as April closes it has finally reached a tipping point. The hashtag #NoPSAMay is everywhere on collector social media this week, and what started as a small group of vintage submitters venting about turnaround times has snowballed into a coordinated grassroots boycott of the industry's largest grading firm for the entire month of May.

What Collectors Are Actually Asking For

The #NoPSAMay movement is not a vague protest. The organizers have published a clear list of demands, and most collectors backing the boycott are pointing to the same four buckets:

• Predictable, flat-rate pricing — collectors want service tiers that do not silently shift based on declared value or category
• Grader Notes for every service level — the same transparency around grade reasoning that PSA already offers at higher tiers, extended down the menu
• Strict separation between PSA and PSA-owned inventory — rules preventing the company from buying back, regrading, and reselling cards through affiliated channels
• Real-time tracking and status updates — the level of communication collectors already get from couriers and from competing grading services

The December 2025 Trigger

The boycott did not appear in a vacuum. The trigger was the December 2025 Buyback Scandal, in which collectors alleged that PSA had purchased back graded cards from sellers, regraded them internally to higher grades, and then resold them at significantly inflated prices through affiliated marketplaces. PSA pushed back on the framing, but the resulting reporting and forum discussion created a credibility gap that the company has not been able to close.

Add chronic slow turnarounds, two grading-fee increases inside a six-month window, and inconsistent grading consistency complaints across modern Pokemon and modern basketball, and the conditions for a coordinated boycott were in place.

Where Submissions Are Going Instead

The interesting market signal is not just lower PSA submissions, it is where collectors are sending the cards instead. Three names keep coming up:

• CGC — the clear winner for modern Pokemon thanks to the Pristine 10 grade now commanding higher resale than a PSA 10 on multiple recent chase cards
• SGC — the favorite for vintage baseball collectors who like the slab aesthetic and faster turnarounds
• BGS — making a quiet comeback for high-end modern hits where a Black Label or Pristine 10 carries a premium

What This Means for Card Values

In the short term, expect graded card prices to soften as fewer fresh slabs hit the market and existing population reports stabilize. In the medium term, the more interesting question is whether the boycott pressures PSA into structural reforms or simply accelerates the long-term trend toward a multi-grader ecosystem.

The hobby has talked about wanting real grading competition for years. May 2026 is the first month it might actually get a referendum on it.

If you have a queue of submissions ready to ship, this week is a real decision point. Holding off until June and watching how PSA responds is a valid strategy. Routing the next batch to CGC or SGC is also a valid strategy. The one stance that will not produce useful information is doing nothing and continuing to submit at current rates.