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Nat Turner Responds to PSA "Scandal"

Nat Turner Responds to PSA "Scandal"

Plus: local card shops moving away from PSA?

Mike Junk Wax Hero
December 09, 2025

Hi friends! I missed my normal Monday deadline, but here I am for Tuesday. I’m not sure what my newsletter schedule looks like the next few weeks. Expect erratic deliveries.

By now you’ve probably already seen it, but in case you missed it here is my video from Friday:

With over 22,000 views and going, it’s my second-highest published in 2025. The whole “scandal” — I’m adding quotation marks because I’m not sure it’s truly a scandal — has generated a lot of discussion, and for that I am thankful for the collector who brought it to light.

On Sunday night Nat Turner, the head of PSA’s parent company, started replying to randos on Twitter about it:

— (@)

If, for some reason, that is truncated or the link is dead, here is a screenshot:

In his explanation for re-grading cards from a 9 to a 10 in which the submitter had already accepted offers from the PSA Partner Network for the 9s, he admits that PSA authenticates counterfeit cards sometimes.

Not a great look!

The explanation is as I expected, though. Systematic failure, which he says they’re working to close:

And when asked about further transparency:

Meanwhile, he’s poking fun at people who are joking about the controversy:

In related news, two card shops have halted PSA submissions:

As many have pointed out, it’s interesting that they mention cleaning on here. Some have speculated that they were actually banned from submitted to PSA because they were caught cleaning cards, but there’s no evidence of that. It’s possible that “cleaning” is simply a wipe-down service.

And the other:

I’ll be keeping a close eye on this.

_{PRESENTED BY COLLECTOR INVESTOR AUCTIONS}

CIA, owned by The Texas Snowman Jeremy Donson and his business partner Chris Sewall, is the best auction house for collectors. Here are some cool items in their current auction:

🗣️ YouTube Comments Of The Week

I received hundreds of comments saying PSA had committed fraud and should be investigated by the DOJ. On the other end of the spectrum was this very reasonable comment: