Collector notes · 2026-10-24

Grading explained: PSA, BGS, CGC and the rest

A grader checks a card for authenticity, scores its condition and seals it. A 10 means something different at every company, and it is often worth a multiple of the raw card.

Grading means sending a card to a company. It first checks whether the card is genuine, then scores its condition: centering, corners, edges and surface. The card ends up sealed in a plastic case, the slab. The label shows the grade and a certification number you can look up in the grader's database. The fee is due even if the grade disappoints.

PSA leads the Pokémon market. Its scale runs from 1 to 10, with half grades only from 1.5 to 8.5. There is no PSA 9.5. For a PSA 10 (Gem Mint), PSA requires four sharp corners, full original gloss and centering no worse than about 55/45 on the front and 75/25 on the back. A slight printing flaw is allowed if it does not hurt the overall look.

Beckett (BGS) gives four subgrades for centering, corners, edges and surface. Gem Mint is a 9.5 there. Above it sits the 10 Pristine. A card with a 10 in all four subgrades gets the Black Label, the rarest grade in the hobby. CGC has two 10s: Gem Mint 10 and, above it, Pristine 10 with 50/50 centering. TAG scores out of 1000 points. From 990 points a card is a Pristine 10, from 950 a Gem Mint 10.

There are smaller graders too. ACE from England grades without half points and measures centering to a thousandth of a millimetre. An ACE 10 only needs centering better than 60/40, looser than PSA. In the EU, CollectAura in France and GRAAD and AiGrading in Italy are among the options. They are much cheaper, from about 10 to 20 euros per card. On resale, though, their slabs usually add less than PSA, CGC or BGS.

The population report shows how many copies of a card a grader has graded at each grade. The gem rate is the share of 10s. For Charizard ex 199/165 from 151, PSA had graded about 106,000 copies by October 2026, 27 percent of them as PSA 10. The figure is flattering: people mostly submit cards they believe are flawless. Cracking slabs and resubmitting inflates the report further.

Why bother? The same Charizard sold for about 307 dollars raw in October 2026, about 355 dollars as a PSA 9 and about 1,275 dollars as a PSA 10 (US sale medians). The 10 is worth roughly four times the raw card. The 9 adds little over raw and does not cover fees and postage. Grading pays off mainly for expensive cards with a real chance at a 10.

Costs from Germany as of October 2026: PSA has paused its cheap Value tiers since June 2026. The cheapest open tier is Standard at 59.99 dollars with about 90 to 100 business days turnaround. Since 15 September 2026, PSA Europe in Frankfurt has accepted submissions directly from the EU, with no customs. CGC has graded trading card games in Munich since January 2026, from 22.61 euros per card including VAT. Beckett closed its cheaper tiers several times in 2026. Prices and turnaround change almost monthly right now, so always check the grader's site before submitting.

Common pitfalls: centering is the most common reason a card misses the 10. White specks on the back edges often cost a grade, even on freshly pulled cards. Visible print lines on holo areas usually rule out a 10. And slabs get faked: in 2026 a fraudster was convicted in New York for printing false grades on genuine PSA labels. So look up the certification number and compare the card and grade with the database entry. Cloudy edges on the case or a slab that flexes are warning signs.

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