Centering, Surface, Corners, Edges: Four Grading Criteria

PSA, CGC, and BGS each describe a Pokemon card's centering, corners, edges, and surface in their published grade definitions. Beckett states it outright: every card is assessed across those four criteria. At the top of each scale, a card that misses the bar on one of them does not fit the grade's description.

The clearest place this shows up is centering, where each company publishes an exact border-ratio ceiling for its top grades. Below that, the three companies diverge in how much detail they publish, and even in what they name their own top grade.

The four criteria, in plain terms

PSA, CGC, and BGS cover the same ground, even when the wording differs by company.

• Centering: the ratio of border width on opposite sides of the card, scored separately for front and back. PSA's Gem Mint 10 standard requires a ratio no worse than approximately 55/45 on the front and 75/25 on the reverse, as published on PSA's grading standards page (read October 24, 2026).
• Corners: sharpness at all four corners. BGS's top Pristine 10 grade requires corners "perfect to the naked eye and virtually flawless under intense scrutiny," while its bottom Poor 1 grade allows corners that are "heavily rounded or heavily notched with noticeable layering," per the Beckett Grading Scale on Beckett's card grading page (read October 24, 2026).
• Edges: the smoothness of the card's four cut edges. BGS's Pristine 10 uses the same words for edges, "perfect to the naked eye and virtually flawless under intense scrutiny"; a Poor 1 card can show "destructive chipping, notching or layering," per the same Beckett scale.
• Surface: front and back print quality, gloss, scratches, and staining. A PSA Gem Mint 10 must be "free of staining of any kind" and carry "full original gloss," with an allowance only for a slight printing imperfection that does not hurt the card's overall appeal, per PSA's grading standards page.

Centering: the ratio behind gem grades

PSA's and CGC's top standard grades land on nearly identical numbers. Both cap a Gem Mint 10 at approximately 55/45 front and 75/25 back, and BGS's Pristine 10 requires an even tighter 50/50 front with 55/45 or better on the back.

Source: PSA Grading Standards, CGC Cards Grading Scale, and the Beckett Grading Scale on Beckett's card grading page, all read October 24, 2026.

CGC also keeps a second, stricter label inside that same numeric 10: a Pristine 10, for cards that are flawless under 10x magnification and centered at 50/50, a designation PSA's public grade-10 text does not offer.

CGC's published numeric centering ceilings below its top grade come with a scope limit worth knowing. From Mint 9 down through roughly VG/Ex+ 4.5, CGC states those exact ratios apply "for sports and non-sports cards." For TCG cards, including Pokemon, the same grade rows describe wear only in qualitative terms, such as "a few minor manufacturing or handling defects," with no published ratio attached.

A collector checking a Pokemon card's centering against CGC's numbers can treat the Gem Mint 10 and Pristine 10 ratios as directly stated. Almost every other centering ratio on that page carries the sports and non-sports qualifier, so it is not a confirmed Pokemon-specific figure.

How the ceiling loosens grade by grade

Beckett's scale states front and back centering for every grade, which shows how far the tolerance opens up between a 10 and a 1.

Source: the Beckett Grading Scale on Beckett's card grading page, read October 24, 2026. The scale states front and back centering for every grade; from 9.5 down, the front ratio applies both ways.

Beckett's current scale gives Gem Mint 9.5 and Mint 9 the same 55/45 front limit, so on centering the half-point step from 9 to 9.5 shows up on the back of the card, 70/30 against 60/40.

Corner, edge, and surface wording also loosens grade by grade. BGS's Poor 1 definition allows "heavy creases," edges with "destructive chipping," and corners "heavily rounded," the opposite end of the Pristine 10 language quoted above.

Same grade, different names

A "10" does not mean the same thing at every company, and the label on the slab is not always the literal top of the scale.

• PSA calls its top numeric grade Gem Mint 10. There is no separate, stricter 10-level label above it on PSA's published standards.
• BGS reserves "Pristine" for its literal grade 10 and uses "Gem Mint" for the tier below it, 9.5, the reverse order of PSA's naming.
• CGC issues two different labels inside the same numeric 10: a Pristine 10 for cards that are flawless under 10x magnification with 50/50 centering, and a Gem Mint 10 for a card that earns a 10 overall when one criterion falls short of the Pristine standard.

A collector reading "Pristine" on a slab should check which company graded it. On a BGS card, Pristine is the top grade. On a CGC card, Pristine 10 and Gem Mint 10 are both a 10, and Pristine is simply the rarer of the two.

BGS subgrades and label colors

Beckett says it is the only grading company to display all four condition scores on the label, and BGS is the only one of the three whose published scale assigns a separate numeric subgrade to each criterion. Centering, corners, edges, and surface each receive their own subgrade, and Beckett's card grading page says all four are displayed directly on the label. Overall grades run in half-point steps from 1 to 10, and its price list also shows a Base service level without subgrades.

Label color signals the tier at a glance. Beckett's page lists a Black label for perfect Pristine 10s, Gold for Pristine 10 and Gem Mint 9.5, and Silver for all other grades.

The PSA and CGC grading pages reviewed here describe a single overall number with no printed subgrade breakdown, so a BGS slab with subgrades is the only one of the three that shows a collector exactly which of the four criteria held a card back.

Authenticity and the counterfeit problem

Grading is not the same task as authentication, though the two run together at all three companies. CGC's published designations include Authentic, for a genuine card that cannot receive a numeric grade, and Authentic Altered, printed when a card is genuine but altered, with recoloring and trimming given as examples.

Counterfeit Pokemon cards are a large enough problem that both the company and TCG press have covered it directly. Creatures Inc. announced in September 2023 that it would work with Japanese auction platforms to suspend listings of "replica" and "metal" counterfeit cards and pursue legal action against sellers.

The scale of the problem shows up in enforcement data, too. As reported in November 2021, Chinese customs intercepted roughly 7.6 tons of counterfeit Pokemon booster packs, about 400,000 packs, bound for the Netherlands.

Submitting a card to PSA, CGC, or BGS folds an authenticity check into the grading process. At PSA and CGC, a card judged inauthentic or altered does not receive a standard numeric grade, regardless of how sharp its corners or how clean its surface look.

What actually moves the grade

At the top of each scale the definitions cover corners, surface, and centering together, so the weakest trait normally sets the ceiling. A card with gem-quality corners and surface but centering well outside that grade's stated ratio does not match the definition of that grade.

Those published ratios are guidelines rather than arithmetic. PSA says its graders reserve the right, based on eye appeal, to make a judgment call on a card that falls just within or just outside its printed centering standards. Beckett notes that a half-point grade typically shares characteristics from both the level above and the level below, per each company's published standards (read October 24, 2026).

That is why collectors comparing raw copies before submission look at all four traits together instead of focusing on whichever one already looks strongest. How hard that bar is to clear varies widely by set, as PSA's own gem-rate data by set shows.

Collectors browsing graded population data across the catalog can see how thin the population gets near the top of each of these scales. Comparing specific listings by grade is easier from a screener that filters by grade and price, and grade-level price behavior over time shows up in Cardboard Alpha's grade-specific indices.