Grading

PSA/CGC/BGS grading standards, population data and raw-vs-graded value spreads.

Articles

A photograph of a woman peering through a large magnifying glass at a bright desk by a window, with flat hand drawn pokeball-red illustrations of pokeballs, checkmarks, stars drawn over it.

Centering, Surface, Corners, Edges: The Four Grading Criteria

PSA, CGC, and BGS each grade a Pokemon card on centering, corners, edges, and surface, and every grade's published definition describes all four at once. Here is what each company actually publishes, where their numbers agree, and where they do not.

6 min read

A photograph of a man holding up a graded card slab in a sunlit living room, with flat hand drawn pokeball-red illustrations of pokeballs, stars, percent signs drawn over it.

Grading

Gem Mint 10 Odds by Set: Which Sets Grade the Hardest

Gem mint 10 rates are not one hobby-wide number: PSA's Population Report puts Neo Genesis at roughly 3.2 percent PSA 10 and 2021's Evolving Skies near 59.2 percent, an eighteen-fold spread inside the same grading company's own data. PSA publishes the counts behind each rate but no cause for the gap. Even within a single set, one chase card can grade far harder than the set's own average.

5 min read