On this page 5 sections
You have a card worth selling and a choice of graders, and every scorecard on this site now opens with a number out of 100. It is tempting to read the number and stop. Don't. The number is the least informative thing on the page, and the two things that matter more sit right next to it.
Read the standing first
Under the score is a Resale Standing, and it answers the question the number only gestures at: what happens to this slab when you sell a card that is worth real money?
- Premium. The slab itself adds to the price. Buyers pay more for this label.
- Accepted. It sells normally, at some discount to the top labels.
- Emerging. Not carried by eBay's guarantee or the major auction houses, but sold in volume at a meaningful share of PSA's price.
- Regional. Trusted in one market and discounted outside it.
- Crack-out. On a high-value card, expect a buyer to cut it out and regrade it.
A buyer meets the standing before they ever read a grade. So should you.
Then the number, with its limits
Market acceptance carries 60 of the 100. That is deliberate. A grade is only worth what the resale market pays for that company's slab, so the part that measures the market outweighs everything else combined. A grader also cannot score more than 25 points above its market acceptance, which means speed, price and a handsome holder cannot rescue a slab nobody wants.
Two graders three points apart are close, not ranked. A gap that small is smaller than the judgment calls behind it.
Then what is missing
Every scorecard lists the inputs we could not verify, and an input we could not verify scores zero. A low score can therefore mean a weak grader or a thinly documented one, and the breakdown says which. A grader that publishes little about itself is not scored the same as one that does. That is intended.
What the score does not tell you
It does not measure whether a grade is accurate or consistent. We do not test that. Its sold-price evidence currently comes from Pokémon sales only, so a grader's sports numbers may differ. And it describes today: a grader that is gaining acceptance can move, and the changelog records when.
The decision, in one line
Before you pay to grade a card, decide whether you will ever sell it, and for roughly how much. If you will keep it, the holder, the label and the price matter more than the score. If you might sell it for more than a few hundred dollars, read the standing first, because the gap between Accepted and Crack-out is the gap between a buyer who pays for the slab and a buyer who pays for the card and cracks the slab open.
The full method, with the facts behind each part, is on How we score.
