A New York congressman wants the federal government to break up the card grading monopoly. Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) sent a formal letter to FTC Chair Andrew N. Ferguson demanding an antitrust investigation into Collectors Holdings, the parent company that now owns PSA, SGC, and Beckett — three of the four largest grading companies in the hobby.
The timing matters. PSA just hiked grading prices for the second time in six months, and SGC's volume has cratered since its acquisition. Collectors insists its brands operate independently. The numbers tell a different story.
What Ryan Is Asking the FTC to Investigate
Ryan's letter doesn't mince words. He called Collectors' acquisition spree — PSA in 2021, SGC in February 2024, Beckett announced December 2025 — a "systematic" effort to eliminate competition. With all three brands under one roof, Collectors controls over 80% of grading volume. CGC is the only major independent grader left.
But the letter goes beyond market share. Ryan flagged five specific areas for investigation:
- Monopolization: Whether Collectors acquired SGC and Beckett to kill competition, and whether internal documents reveal that intent.
- Regulatory Evasion: Whether Collēctīvus Holdings, the private equity firm that bought Beckett in late 2024 and flipped it to Collectors less than a year later, was a pass-through entity to dodge merger scrutiny.
- SGC Marginalization: Whether gutting SGC after acquisition violated good-faith promises made during the deal — and whether a court-ordered divestiture is warranted.
- Consumer Harm: How consolidation has impacted pricing, service quality, and turnaround times.
- Vertical Integration: Collectors also owns CardLadder (pricing analytics) and participates in buying and selling graded cards, creating conflicts of interest.
"By systematically acquiring its primary competitors, Collectors has effectively dismantled market competition," Ryan wrote. Hobby lawyer Paul Lesko put it more bluntly in an interview with Sports Collectors Digest: "With that market share, yes, I would definitely say that they're a monopoly."
The Numbers Behind the Concern
According to GemRate, PSA graded 19.26 million cards in 2025 — up 26% from 2024. CGC graded 4.92 million (up 121%). SGC graded just 1.42 million (down 24%), and Beckett managed 824,000. Altogether, Collectors' three brands handled about 80% of all graded cards last year.
SGC's collapse is the canary in the coal mine. After Collectors acquired the company, SGC's grading volume dropped 61%. By November 2025, SGC graded just 36,000 cards — its lowest month since GemRate started tracking in 2022. President Peter Steinberg resigned in July 2025, 17 months after the acquisition. PSA president Ryan Hoge now describes SGC as a "boutique" brand.
Then there's the pricing. On February 10, 2026, PSA raised fees by $5 across five service tiers — the second increase in under six months.
| PSA Service Tier | Old Price | New Price (Feb 2026) | Turnaround Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Value Bulk | $21.99 | $24.99 | 95 business days |
| Value | $29.99 | $32.99 | 75 business days |
| Value Plus | $44.99 | $49.99 | 45 business days |
| Value Max | $59.99 | $64.99 | 35 business days |
| Regular | $74.99 | $79.99 | 25 business days |
CGC's bulk option starts at $15 per card with a 40-day turnaround. BGS base grading is $17.95 for 75+ days. PSA's cheapest option is now $24.99 and takes over three months. When one company controls 80% of the market, "managing demand" starts looking a lot like pricing power.
What Collectors Should Watch
The FTC hasn't responded publicly to Ryan's letter, and no investigation has been announced. Under the current administration, aggressive antitrust enforcement in a niche market like card grading is far from guaranteed. But the pressure is building from multiple directions.
CGC's parent company reported an uptick in submissions since the Beckett deal. CEO Steve Eichenbaum told The Athletic that CGC's sports card volumes tripled in 2025, with TCG volumes doubling to a combined total of about 5 million cards graded. "We're not letting our foot off the gas," he said.
For collectors, the practical question isn't whether this is a legal monopoly — it's whether you're getting squeezed. PSA's Value Bulk went from $18 to $24.99 in less than a year. Turnaround times have doubled at some tiers. And if SGC's trajectory is any guide, don't expect Beckett to stay competitive for long under the Collectors umbrella.
Collectors Holdings has built a textbook monopoly. Owning three of four major graders while also controlling pricing data through CardLadder and facilitating card sales on eBay creates the kind of vertical integration that antitrust law was designed to address. The SGC story alone should be enough to raise alarms — promises of independence followed by gutted staff, killed discounts, and volume that fell off a cliff.
Whether the FTC acts is a political question. Whether collectors should act is not. Every submission to PSA right now reinforces a pricing structure that has nowhere to go but up. CGC and TAG exist. Use them. The market only changes when wallets do.
“This is a monopoly at this point. What's next, they acquire CGC?”
— r/psagrading“FTC needs to break up this monopoly, and the Fanatics/Topps monopoly. The hobby was so much better when there were multiple companies making cards, and multiple ways to grade and store cards.”
— r/footballcards“Part of the reason I collect is because it's one of the last few activities that's mostly informed by regular people. Now, corporate monopoly manipulation nonsense which will eventually disadvantage retail collectors.”
— r/PokemonTCG“Feb 2026, again increasing TAT and price. That is two increases in a row with no substantial benefit to customers. And with all this going, we all kind of guess the main reason... 80% chance is cause of the BGS bought over.”
— r/psagrading“PSA graded cards already command a premium compared to the lesser-known graders. So unless there's a massive shift to something not owned by Collectors Holdings, the monopoly will remain without some sort of government intervention.”
— r/footballcardsThe grading market is at a crossroads. If the FTC investigates, it could reshape how cards are graded, priced, and sold for years. If it doesn't, collectors will need to decide whether PSA's premium is worth funding a company that's buying up every alternative. Check PullRate's grading guides to compare current pricing and turnaround times across all major grading companies.