Grader scorecard
Degree Grading
Explains a grade better than almost anyone in the hobby — and almost nobody is buying the slabs.
Our score25/100TierDNo. 24 on the scorecards
Resale standingRaw valueOn a high-value card, expect a buyer to cut it out and regrade it.
Cheapest way in$15Bulk, 10-card minimum
Typical turnaroundAbout 47 business daysReader reports →
BacklogNone published
Cert lookupPublicVerify a cert →
Owned byIndependent
The short version
3 min to read it all, belowWhy it scores 25
The full breakdownWhere the slab sells
- eBay Authenticity GuaranteeNot verified
- Major US auction housesNot standard inventory
- Public cert lookupYes
What to watch
Four, and three of them are visible on the company's own pages. The scale runs to 11 but the published arithmetic cannot reach it: three categories at three points each plus the one-point crease bonus totals 10, which is exactly what the sample cert shows, while the site's own calculator returns DEGREE 11 for a card at 100% across the board.
All known concernsPricing
Official price list$25 a card standard, or $15 a card in bulk at a ten-card minimum. A first submission is 5 cards for $50.
| Tier | Price | Minimum | Quoted turnaround | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First submission (5 cards) | $50per submission | 5 cards | — | Once per customer |
| Bulk | $15per card | 10 cards | About 51 business days (standard queue plus 4) | Faster queues: +$10 (about 24 days), +$25 (14), +$50 (5) |
| Standard | $25per card | — | About 47 business days (standard queue) | Faster queues: +$10 (about 24 days), +$25 (14), +$50 (5) |
Prices as checked on 9 Oct 2026. They change often; the grader's own list is the final word.
PRSRVD — the same slab with no grade — is $18 a card, $11 in bulk. The standard queue runs about 47 business days and bulk adds four; paying $10, $25 or $50 a card more cuts that to about 24, 14 or 5. A submission kit with prepaid label and sleeves is $5, and custom label colors are $3 a card. No membership and no card required to start a submission.
The full file
What sets them apart
The cert page is the product. Every Degree cert opens a live data page carrying the card's subgrade marks, the full grade distribution for the set, how this copy compares with every other graded copy, and a grader's notebook entry written during inspection — 'scuffing is present on the front, corner wear on the bottom left' — which no major grader publishes for an ordinary card.
The population report is public and drillable by brand and set. The grading scale is arithmetic rather than judgement: 0–3 points each for surface, corners/edges and centering, plus one point for no creases or dents, with the bands published to the percentage and a calculator on the site. PRSRVD encapsulates a card in the same slab with no grade at all, for cards you want protected rather than scored.
Where the slab sells
Effectively none. No eBay Authenticity Guarantee coverage, no auction-house category, and two listings found on eBay from one seller. That is the gap that matters here: the grading is documented better than most and the slabs still do not trade, so a Degree grade is information about your card rather than a number a buyer will pay for.
Turnaround
The site publishes a live standard estimate, about 45 business days when checked on 8 October 2026, up from 42 on 4 October and 40 on 28 September.
Prepaying moves an order to a faster queue at about 34, and paid priority cuts it further: about 23 days at $10 a card, about 14 at $25 and about 5 at $50. Bulk orders add four business days before any priority reduction.
Price history
Degree Grading has not raised a listed price since Oct 2026.
Show the price history: 3 tiers, 0 changes
These come from our own records. Small ticks are sightings where the price held. A line ends where the evidence ends.
Bulk$15 unchanged since 26 Oct 2026
Standard$25 unchanged since 26 Oct 2026
First submission (5 cards)$50 unchanged since 26 Oct 2026
Every change
| Date | Tier | Change | Source |
|---|
An archived page shows the price on the day it was saved, so a change happened somewhere between that page and the one before it.
The slab and the label
Subgrades: Four, on the label
A premium slab carrying a lifetime 'Slab Guard' guarantee on the encapsulation, returned in a Collector's Box built for an unboxing.
Example slab shown for reference, not a card the editor owns.
Labels can be colour-matched to the card for $3, chosen after grading rather than at checkout.
The front label carries the grade, the card identity and the cert number. The back label lists the four marks the grade is built from — surface, corners/edges, centering, and the creases/dents check — and the cert number opens the full live report.
What they grade
- Sports Cards
- TCG
Who it's for
- Personal Collection
- Condition Documentation
- Protection & Preservation
For a card you are keeping and want to understand. Nobody at this price explains a grade as thoroughly, and PRSRVD is a genuinely useful option for a card you want in a slab without a number on it.
Do not submit here expecting the grade to carry at resale: the market has barely seen these slabs, which is what the D records.
Known concerns
Four, and three of them are visible on the company's own pages. The scale runs to 11 but the published arithmetic cannot reach it: three categories at three points each plus the one-point crease bonus totals 10, which is exactly what the sample cert shows, while the site's own calculator returns DEGREE 11 for a card at 100% across the board.
The top grade is not explained by the formula published beneath it. Second, the marketing case is a selective top end — 'we would rather protect the meaning of a top grade than overuse it' — while its own published distribution for 2025 Topps NOW puts 54.7% of the set at DEGREE 10 and another 36.1% at 9. Third, the cert page's population maths contradicts itself: the Ohtani cert reads 'one of 0 copies' and '0 / 888' directly above a histogram showing 54.7%. Fourth, the resale market has barely encountered it — a search in September 2026 returned two Degree slabs listed on eBay, both from a single seller, both niche TCG cards at $15.
History
Trades as Degree Grading from a mailbox address in Henderson, Nevada, with no founding date, owner or facility published anywhere on the site.
It claims 25,000-plus collectors and a 4.2/5 rating, and the volume looks real: cert numbers sampled in September 2026 run in the 450,000s and 480,000s, and the public population report shows 888 cards graded from 2025 Topps NOW and 1,004 from one 1986 Topps team set.
Score breakdown
Five parts, each scored 0 to 100 and weighted. Market acceptance carries 60 of the 100, because the point of a slab is what the market pays for it.
Market acceptance 10 / 100 (weight 60). The other four parts together 48 / 100 (weight 40).
Market acceptance
10 / 100weight 60adds 6.0
Unverified, scored as zero: eBay Authenticity Guarantee; Recognised in a major non-US market.
Trust and verifiability
50 / 100weight 15adds 7.5
−5 The published arithmetic cannot reach the scale's top grade: the site's own calculator returns DEGREE 11, which the formula beneath it does not explain.
Unverified, scored as zero: Years operating; Identifiable operator and disclosed ownership.
Holder and label
0 / 100weight 10adds 0.0
Unverified, scored as zero: Sealed, tamper-evident holder; Standard footprint that fits hobby cases; Scannable cert code on the label.
Turnaround and access
70 / 100weight 5adds 3.5
Unverified, scored as zero: Backlog figure published.
Pricing
80 / 100weight 10adds 8.0
Unverified, scored as zero: No price rise over 25% in the last 12 months.
Weighted total 25.0, shown as 25 out of 100.
Scored on 5 Oct 2026. 9 inputs could not be verified and score zero. How we score
On the Wire
Nothing on the Wire about Degree Grading yet. It fills in as stories are reported.
Reader reports
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