Is grading worth it?

Every grading decision is the same arithmetic. You pay a fee, you wait, and you get back a card that either sold for more than the fee or did not. The number that decides it is the ratio between the graded sale price and the raw price plus the fee.

We have completed graded sales for 21,475 of the 27,302 cards we price, and on 9,460 of those a top slab clears double the raw price plus the fee. That reads like a green light and it is not. The only cards with graded sales are the cards people already decided were worth grading, so the 5,827 cards with no graded sales at all are the honest answer for most of what sits in a binder.

Run the numbers before you send anything

Take the raw price of your card, add $25 for the fee and shipping both ways, and compare that against what a graded copy of the same card actually sold for. If the graded number is not at least double, the grade is not worth chasing, because you will not pull a 10 every time.

That last part is where most people lose money. A card has to be near perfect to come back a 10, and the difference between a 10 and a 9 is often the difference between profit and a loss. On the cards in our worth grading list, a 9 still clears the fee. Outside that list it usually does not.

What graders actually look at

• Centring. Check the back, not the front. The back border is where an otherwise clean card fails.
• Corners. Under a bright light, at an angle. Any whitening caps you at a 9.
• Edges. Run a fingernail along them. Roughness on a holo edge is common straight from the pack.
• Surface. Print lines, scratches on the foil, and the dimpling you get from a tight sleeve.

When to skip it

Skip grading on anything under $40 raw, on any card with no graded sales history, and on modern bulk from a set that is still in print. Print runs on current sets are enormous, and a graded copy of a card that thousands of people can still pull does not hold a premium.

What we would grade today

These are the cards with the widest gap between raw price and graded sale price right now, from the cards where at least three graded sales exist.