Grading is the process of sending a card to a company that examines it, assigns a condition grade, and seals it in a tamper-evident holder with a label and a certification number. The card can no longer be handled, and it can no longer be argued about. That second part is the entire commercial point.
An ungraded — "raw" — card is sold on a description. Two reasonable people will look at the same card and disagree about whether a corner is soft or whether the centring is acceptable, and a buyer paying four figures on a photograph is taking that disagreement as risk. A graded card replaces the description with a number that a third party is accountable for, and buyers pay a premium for that certainty.
What the grade is actually measuring
All four companies are looking at the same four things, and it is worth knowing them because they are also what you should look at before submitting anything.
- Centring — how evenly the image sits inside the borders, front and back. Measured as a ratio. This is the most common reason a card that looks flawless does not get a top grade, and it is a printing defect you cannot do anything about.
- Corners — sharpness under magnification. A corner that reads as sharp to the eye is often visibly soft under a loupe.
- Edges — chipping, whitening, and roughness along the cut. Dark-bordered cards show edge wear far more than white-bordered ones, which is why the same physical condition grades lower on some sets than others.
- Surface — print lines, scratches, indentations, gloss, and any handling marks. Surface issues are the hardest to spot at home and the most common unpleasant surprise.
The four companies
| Company | Scale | Top grades | Strongest reputation in |
|---|---|---|---|
| PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) | 1–10, whole numbers, with qualifier labels such as OC (off-centre) or MK (marked) | PSA 10 Gem Mint | US sports cards and modern Pokémon. The largest grader by volume and the default in most US price conversations. |
| BGS (Beckett Grading Services) | 1–10 in half-point steps, plus four published subgrades for centring, corners, edges and surface | BGS 9.5 Gem Mint, BGS 10 Pristine, and Black Label for a 10 with all four subgrades at 10 | Modern sports, particularly basketball, and anywhere a buyer wants to see the subgrades. Black Label carries a large premium. |
| CGC Cards | 1–10 in half-point steps, with distinct top designations | CGC 10 Pristine and CGC 10 Gem Mint | Trading card games, especially Pokémon, where it has a strong and growing following. Comes from a comic-grading lineage. |
| SGC (Sportscard Guaranty Company) | 1–10 in half-point steps | SGC 10 Gem, SGC 10 Pristine | Vintage and pre-war sports cards. Its black-matted holder is a deliberate presentation choice for old cardboard and it is widely trusted in that market. |
The subgrade difference is worth dwelling on. BGS publishes its four component scores on the label, so a BGS 9.5 tells a buyer *why* it is a 9.5 — a 9.5 with a 9 in centring and 10s elsewhere is a different card from one with a 9 in surface. PSA publishes only the overall number. Neither approach is better; they suit different buyers, and that is part of why the same physical card can be worth more in one company's holder than another's.
Why the company on the label changes the price
It should not, in a rational market, and it emphatically does. The same card at the same nominal grade routinely sells for different amounts depending on who graded it, and for most US sports and modern Pokémon the PSA copy has sold highest for years.
The reasons are liquidity and habit rather than accuracy. PSA grades the most cards, so there are more PSA comparables, so pricing a PSA copy is easier, so buyers bid more confidently — and that loop reinforces itself. Population reports compound it: because more cards have been through PSA, the scarcity of a PSA 10 in a given set is a known number, and known scarcity is easier to pay for than unknown scarcity.
The practical consequence is that "should I grade this?" and "who should grade this?" are the same question. Check recent sold prices for your exact card, in the grade you realistically expect, from each company. Those four numbers are usually not close together, and they should decide your submission.
When grading is worth it, and when it is not
Grading is not free and it is not fast. You are paying a per-card fee that scales with the card's declared value, plus shipping both ways, plus insurance, and you are without the card for weeks or months. Against that you are betting on an uncertain outcome, because the grade you get is not the grade you hoped for often enough to matter.
A workable rule: total the real cost of getting one card graded and returned, then only submit cards whose ungraded value is at least three to four times that number. Below that, a mid grade wipes out the entire gain and a low grade leaves you worse off than when you started.
Cases where grading usually does make sense
- High-value cards you intend to sell. The premium on a well-graded expensive card comfortably exceeds the fee, and the certainty is what gets it sold at all.
- Vintage cards where authenticity is a live question. For pre-war and early post-war cards, authentication is often worth more than the condition grade.
- Cards where a top grade is genuinely plausible. Modern cards straight from a pack, well centred, with no visible surface issues — this is where the upside is largest, because a modern card's value can be concentrated almost entirely in the top grade.
- Anything you want to keep permanently. A sealed holder is good long-term protection, and "I want it protected" is a perfectly legitimate reason that has nothing to do with resale.
Cases where it usually does not
- Common cards, however clean. A perfect copy of a card thousands of people also have perfect copies of is still a cheap card.
- Cards with a visible flaw. If you can see the problem without magnification, the grader will see it too.
- Bulk submissions of hopefuls. Sending fifty cards hoping a few come back high is a strategy that mostly funds the grading company.
- Cards you plan to keep and never sell, unless protection is the actual goal — in which case a good sleeve and a semi-rigid holder cost almost nothing.
Submitting through a local shop
Many shops will submit cards on your behalf, and some run dedicated submission nights. This is genuinely useful: shops often hold a dealer or bulk account with better per-card pricing than an individual can get, they package properly, and you do not have to deal with the shipping.
Ask four questions before handing anything over. Which company is it going to? Which service level and declared value? Who is liable if the cards are lost or damaged in transit, and is that insured? And what does the shop charge on top of the grading fee? All four are reasonable questions and a good shop will answer them without hesitation.
You can find shops that offer submissions in the grading category, and shops that run submission nights appear in our events listings. If you are choosing between shops, the checks in how to find a card shop worth the drive apply here too — a shop handling your cards for two months is a shop you should trust first.
Common questions
Is PSA better than BGS, CGC or SGC?
Not in accuracy — all four are established, competent graders. PSA is more liquid: it grades the most cards, so there are more comparable sales and buyers bid more confidently, which for most US sports and modern Pokémon has meant higher prices at the same nominal grade. BGS publishes four subgrades, which some buyers prefer. CGC has a strong following in trading card games. SGC is highly respected for vintage and pre-war sports. Check recent sold prices for your exact card and grade rather than applying a general ranking.
Is a BGS 9.5 the same as a PSA 10?
No. Both are commonly described as gem mint, but they are different companies' tiers on different scales, and they do not sell for the same amount. BGS also grades above 9.5 — a BGS 10 Pristine, and a Black Label 10 where all four subgrades are 10 — so a 9.5 is not that company's ceiling in the way a PSA 10 is.
How much does it cost to grade a card?
It depends on the company, the service level, and the card's declared value, and every company changes its fees more than once a year. Rather than quote a number that will be wrong, we would point you at the grader's current published price list. Budget for shipping both ways and insurance as well — on a single card those often exceed the grading fee itself.
Can a card shop tell me what grade my card will get?
An experienced dealer can point out specific problems — soft corner, off-centre back, print line on the surface — and that is genuinely valuable. They cannot tell you the grade. Grading is a human judgement made by a third party under magnification, and it varies. Treat a guaranteed grade as a warning sign about the person making the guarantee.
Does grading a card always increase its value?
No. Grading reveals condition rather than improving it. A card that comes back in a mid grade can be worth less than it was raw, because the number removes the buyer's hope that it might be better than described — and you have paid the fee either way. Grading adds value when the grade is high relative to expectations, or when authentication was the real question.