Last updated September 2026. This is Chapter 1 of How to Grade Sports Cards: A Step-by-Step Guide.
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Before you pay to grade a card, answer two questions. Will grading make you money? And is the card in good enough shape to get the grade you need? This chapter covers both: a simple way to work out the expected return, with a calculator that does the math for you, and what graders look for.
What’s your motivation?
Collectors grade cards for different reasons. Some simply want to protect their favorite cards in a slab. Others want third-party proof that a card is genuine. But by far the most common reason is to sell the card later for a profit.
If that’s you, the goal is a Gem Mint 10 (or a Pristine 10 at some companies). For modern cards, anything less is usually a disappointment, because the price gap between a 10 and a 9 can be huge. A 10 has to be close to flawless, with four sharp corners, clean edges, a clean surface and near-perfect centering. That’s why it’s worth examining every card carefully before you send it. A card with even a subtle flaw may not be worth grading if you plan to sell it. (If you’re keeping it forever, the grade might not matter at all.)
Calculating the potential return on grading a card
Here’s the quick and dirty way to work out whether grading a card should pay.
Step 1: Add up the total cost
- What you paid for the card raw, including tax and shipping.
- The grading fee. At PSA, the cheapest open tier was $59.99 in September 2026. Our guide to the grading companies compares the others.
- Shipping and insurance to the grading company and back.
Step 2: Work out the expected value
(You don’t have to sell the card, of course. It’s just an exercise.)
- Using 130point or eBay’s sold listings (or whatever you use to find comps), look up what the card has sold for in PSA 10, PSA 9 and PSA 8.
- Examine your card critically and estimate your odds of getting each of those grades. Be honest. According to GemRate, PSA gave a 10 to about 43% of the cards it graded in the first half of 2025, and those were cards people chose to send in. For sports cards, across all the grading companies, it was 34%.
- For each grade, multiply the sale price by your odds.
- Add them all up. That total is the expected value.
You might fill out a table like this. (The example is for a card that looks flawless under a loupe. For most cards, 75% odds of a 10 would be optimistic; start nearer 40%.)
| Grade | % Odds of Getting This Grade | Resale Value | Odds x Resale Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| PSA 10 | 75% | $450 | $337.50 |
| PSA 9 | 15% | $200 | $30.00 |
| PSA 8 | 5% | $100 | $5.00 |
| PSA 7 | 5% | $50 | $2.50 |
| PSA 6 | 0% | ||
| PSA 5 | 0% | ||
| PSA 4 | 0% | ||
| PSA 3 | 0% | ||
| PSA 2 | 0% | ||
| PSA 1 | 0% | ||
| TOTAL | 100% | – | $375 |
Step 3: Compare the two
If the expected value is higher than your total cost, grading probably makes financial sense. But keep in mind we’re using a lot of assumptions, and assumptions can be wrong, especially your odds. If it’s close, it’s a coin flip.
Or let the calculator do the math
Plug your own numbers into the example below. It also shows your chance of losing money, which the expected value alone can hide.
Examining the condition of your cards
Your odds only mean something if you’ve looked at the card properly. Graders judge four things: centering, surface, edges and corners. The weakest of the four tends to pull the whole grade down, so a card with perfect corners and one scratch will usually top out at a 9. The PSA grading scale explained covers what each grade allows.
To check a card at home, use a bright light and a 10x loupe, and look at the front and the back. A dark background makes white wear on the edges and corners much easier to see.
Centering
Centering is how evenly the borders frame the picture, front and back. Cards with even borders look better, so collectors pay more for them.
Measure the left border against the right, and the top against the bottom. If the left border is 3 mm and the right is 2 mm, that’s 60/40 (3 mm of the 5 mm total, to 2 mm). If the top and bottom are both 2 mm, that’s 50/50. Graders go by the worst measurement, so check the back too. For a PSA 10, the front needs to be about 55/45 or better and the back about 75/25.
Tip: I usually judge centering by eye, but plenty of collectors use a centering tool, and you can find them on eBay for cheap.
Surface
The grader checks both sides of the card for scratches, print lines, dimples, scuffs, dirt and creases. A single scratch or dimple can knock a card down to a 9. Something bigger, like a crease, costs several grades.
Tip: hold the card under a light and tilt it back and forth. The light reflecting off the surface shows up anything that isn’t smooth.
Edges
Look along all four edges, front and back, for chipping (flecks of the border color missing, which shows as white), small nicks (PSA calls them notches) and rough spots from the factory cut. Dark and colored borders show wear the most, and so do thick patch cards. Under magnification, a 10 should show nothing. PSA’s standards first mention edge wear at a 6, with “very slight notching”, and chipping at a 5, but in practice even small whitening usually costs you the 10.
A card that was badly cut at the factory is a different problem. If part of another card shows, or part of this one is cut off, PSA can still grade it but adds an “MC” (miscut) qualifier, which hurts the value. If the cut is so far off that PSA won’t grade it at all, it comes back marked as a miscut and you aren’t charged the grading fee.
Corners
Check each corner’s tip under the loupe. A PSA 10 needs “four perfectly sharp corners.” The first sign of wear is fraying, where fibers lift at the very tip; PSA allows “the slightest fraying at one or two corners” at a PSA 8. After that come soft corners, where the point is no longer sharp, then visible rounding (PSA 5 and below) and dings, small dents at the corner.
Corner wear is easy to miss by eye and easy to see with a loupe, so check all four, front and back, before you estimate your odds of a 10.
A note about patch cards and autographs
Autographs and patch cards add a few things to think about:
- Pack-pulled autographs (certified by the card company) can be graded at PSA’s normal prices, but the signature doesn’t get its own grade. An autograph grade, or authentication of an autograph you got in person, costs extra through PSA’s Dual Service. Chapter 3 explains the options.
- Sticker autographs can lift or bubble at the edges, and the ink can smear or skip. Check for both. They hurt eye appeal, and smears or skips in the ink lower an autograph grade if you get one.
- Patch and relic cards are thick, so their edges and corners chip easily. Check that the swatch sits flat in its window and hasn’t been tampered with, because added or swapped patches are a known scam. And know that PSA grades these cards, but its guarantee doesn’t cover them at all: not the swatch, and not the grade.
Next, move on to Chapter 2: How to prepare your cards for grading.
