How to Determine Your Card’s Grade

This is Part 3 in my grading primer. We’ve discussed when to grade and which company to choose, so today I’ll go over how I determine the condition of a card. If you missed those editions and are interested, I’m happy to forward them your way.

I’ll look at these from a PSA perspective, but the grading scale is relatively similar in other companies (the big difference being that a BGS 9.5 is roughly equal to a PSA or SGC 10).

There are four aspects of a card’s condition:

1. Centering

2. Corners

3. Edges

4. Surface

Centering

Unless there’s major damage elsewhere, centering is often the most important consideration for a collector. If you’re selling raw, that’s often the first thing buyers inspect.

Even if your card has been graded, bad centering can cause a card to sell for cheaper. There are some pretty suspect PSA 10s out there where the grader fell asleep or something:

This is especially true when considering vintage cards that are expected to grade out poorly. Two PSA 4s of the same card may sell for wildly different prices if one has much better centering!

For a PSA 10, the front of the card needs to be centered no worse than 55/45 and the back at 75/25.

With centering that precise, it can be tough to eyeball if it’s 55/45 or 60/40—especially since not all cards have an obvious rectangular border that makes it easier.

I always use a centering tool before I send a card in for grading. They’re dirt cheap, so there’s no reason not to have one if you’re considering grading.

Corners

This one’s pretty easy when it comes to a PSA 10: all four corners must be perfectly sharp. Even one soft corner (depending how soft) makes it hard to get a PSA 9.

PSA says this about an 8: “Slightest fraying at one or two corners.” In my experience, if I can spot an issue with a corner with the naked eye, I’m almost for sure not going to send it in if I’m looking to grade out at a 10.

Edges

After looking at the corners, I’m going to inspect the edges of the card. The issues I’m looking for are:

• Anything that doesn’t look crisp.

• Some coloring coming off—most obvious on cards with dark backgrounds.

• Slight indentations, sometimes from the printer or a person mishandling a card.

Surface

In my experience, the surface is far and away the hardest to gauge. For this reason, I’m looking at my card with a magnifying glass or loupe under very strong lighting. I hold the card at every different angle and look over every inch of it.

I can’t tell you how often a card looks good to the naked eye, but a close inspection of the surface reveals issues.

Here, you’re going to be looking for:

• Indentations

• Discoloration

• Marks/scratches

• Printing lines (PSA officially says for a 10: “an allowance may be made for a slight printing imperfection, if it doesn’t impair the overall appeal of the card.”)

I also love these magnifying glass/light combos that sit on your desk. It’s the perfect way to find any imperfections.

Final Word on Determining Condition

Here’s the thing:

Since I’m not a pro at this, I figure that if I can find a visible imperfection, then I’m guessing it’s not going to be gem mint. The exception would be if I only see a single minor flaw and everything else looks great.

The other strategy is to pay a bulk submitter who sends in cards to PSA on your behalf, but also reviews them. This is normally what I do actually (on top of the intense review outlined above). It’s usually less than $5/card and they’ll send you back anything they don’t think is worth grading. Better than spending $30+ to get a PSA 7!

Buy/Sell Targets

This doesn’t constitute investment advice, more just a window into my overall strategy and how I see the market, and for entertainment purposes.

✔ Justin Herbert 🏈 - I’m so high on him. He’s got all the right tools, but just hasn’t played for a competent offense until now. Harbaugh might like a run-first approach, but this could be a stellar team, and they’ll still throw enough that he could be in the MVP convo. His Prizm PSA 10 is less than half of Joe Burrow’s price…but I think he’s just as talented. They have a middle-of-the-road strength of schedule, but some of their toughest opponents come at the end. Great chance for him to have a stellar season, and you can sell around week 11-13.

✔ Jalen Williams 🏀 - You’ll see in a minute that I’m a sell on SGA, but Jalen’s prices (strangely) have stayed pretty steady throughout this run. With the national spotlight that comes from the Finals, I could see him 1) put up big stats in a run-and-gun series and 2) get recognition as a true #2 on a championship team. He’s also barely 24 on a great team, so he’s an excellent long-term hold, albeit with a much lower ceiling than SGA.

✔ Bryce Harper ⚾ - He’s one of the more popular players in baseball, but has significantly underperformed this year. The good news is that his Phillies have one of the best records in baseball, and a hot streak would go a long way to bumping up his stagnant pricing (especially come playoff time).

❌ Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 🏀 - Recent history has shown us that with runs like his, the value is usually in the lead-up to the championship. The Thunder are such heavy favorites that winning the Finals is already baked into his pricing. If you’re in it for the long haul, he could go on an all-time run in the next 5 years, making him a great hold. If you’re on a shorter timeline, I’d sell now. Here’s his Prizm PSA 10 pricing since January—you’ll notice that he actually dropped during the first few rounds of the playoffs!

❌ Tyrese Haliburton 🏀 - I mentioned him last week, but just want to reiterate: if you’re a short/medium-term flipper, sell now. His worst games of the season came against the Thunder, and they have 4 excellent perimeter defenders to throw at him. The Thunder have the best transition defense in the league, negating some of the easy scoring/assisting opportunities for the Pacers. All signs point to a Thunder beatdown, so I’d either sell Hali now or hold him longer term (into next season).

Quick Hits

News From Around the Hobby

+ Goudey for Him - “A cigar box in the attic…was filled with more than 600 vintage—and likely valuable—baseball cards.” Just a ho-hum collection with 5 Ruths, 3 Gehrigs, and others like Hornsby, Speaker, DiMaggio, and more. Don’t show my kids this story—they’re in line to inherit a bunch of cheap ‘90s Shaq inserts.

+ Too Many Autos? - “Now, it’s almost compulsory for every sports card box to have at least one [auto].” Collectors have come to expect autos, and the industry is growing. The thinking is they have to find autos somewhere, so they get undrafted DBs to sign. I think too many sets rely on autos as the “big hit” when they can do a better job of making cooler inserts and better parallels. Think Prizm, where the parallels are often the big chase. Let’s make autos a bit more exclusive again.

+ Messi Autos - “Following our investigation, we will proceed with remakes of the Topps Dynasty Lionel Messi cards.” If you’re new to the story, there were some Messi autos in 2022-23 that PSA failed to authenticate (some think his brother signed them). Topps replacing them is the right move here 👏 

+ Being a Cop Not in the Cards - “A Chicago police officer and former University of Illinois quarterback was taken into custody Wednesday after he was allegedly caught stealing sports memorabilia.” Is $300 really worth losing your career? LOL

16 Strangely Rare Cards for Serious Collectors Only

As the demand for basketball cards increases, many collectors go on the hunt for the rarest cards! And sure, there are those Luka 1/1s, but sometimes it’s more fun to find the old, underground card that shows you’re a true collector! [Keep Reading]

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The content in this newsletter is for entertainment purposes only and is not intended to be actual financial or investment advice.