Pop Report: PSA’s June Returns Shift From Ultra-Modern to Junk Wax

PSA graded 887,723 items in June, which was roughly flat with the 889,751 items graded in May and a 15% increase over the 778,933 graded in June 2021. Overall, there was a clear shift in grading activity — moving from ultra-modern to the junk-wax heavy backlog — a trend that was particularly noticeable in baseball and basketball.

Read this month’s Pop Report from GemRate for the latest news on PSA’s grading trends.

From a category perspective:

• Basketball and hockey were the only major sports to show an increase.

The mix of the top 50 players (and characters) graded during June were as follows:

20 – Basketball

10 – Baseball

10 – TCG

6 – Football

1 – Golf

1 – Hockey

1 – Tennis

1 – F1

Below you’ll find a list of the top players graded for each category. 

An important consideration is what to make of this list. In the current situation where fears of junk slabs dominate the hobby, ranking high on this list likely is negatively correlated with price as that signals a meaningful number of slabs could move into the market in the near future. However, under normal circumstances, it could potentially be a leading indicator of positive price correlation as the list more accurately represents forward looking activity (i.e. bets being placed on players) and price potential.

BASKETBALL

Top 10 Most Graded Players & Top Graded Card – June 2022

Noteworthy moves:

• UP: Magic Johnson, Allen Iverson, Larry Bird, Anthony Edwards
• DOWN: LaMelo Ball, Ja Morant
• OUT: Zion Williamson (from 6 -> 17), Luka Doncic (8 -> 21), Kevin Durant (10 -> 16)

BASEBALL

Top 10 Most Graded Players & Top Graded Card – June 2022

Note: The baseball section has been updated from the first version of the report published on 7/13/22. We added minor-league cards to the GemRate database in June and the data has been adjusted to consider those changes.

Noteworthy moves:

• UP: Derek Jeter, Bo Jackson, Wander Franco, Shohei Ohtani, Barry Bonds, Nolan Ryan, Frank Thomas
• DOWN: Fernando Tatis Jr
• OUT: Luis Robert (4 -> 12), Juan Soto (7 -> 11), Bo Bichette (9 -> 13)

FOOTBALL

Top 10 Most Graded Players & Top Graded Card – June 2022

Noteworthy moves:

• UP: Barry Sanders, Mac Jones, Peyton Manning, Deion Sanders, Trevor Lawrence
• DOWN: Tua Tagovailoa
• OUT: Jalen Hurts (from 3 -> 13), Justin Jefferson (9 -> 30), Aaron Rodgers (10 -> 11)

SOCCER

Top 10 Most Graded Players & Top Graded Card – June 2022

Noteworthy moves:

• UP: Cristiano Ronaldo, Youssoufa Moukoko, Jude Bellingham, Paul Pogba
• DOWN: Lionel Messi, Erling Haaland, Christian Pulisic 
• OUT: Jadon Sancho (from 10 -> 25) 

HOCKEY

Top 10 Most Graded Players & Top Graded Card – June 2022

Noteworthy moves:

• UP: Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Steve Yzerman, Patrick Roy
• DOWN: Jaromir Jagr, Kirill Kaprizov
• OUT: Jack Hughes (from 9 -> 51), Cale Makar (10 -> 16)

Data in the Sports Card Investor Pop Report series is provided by GemRate. Follow GemRate on Instagram and Twitter for more on the latest cards graded by PSA.

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