PSA Grading Scale

The PSA grading scale is the 1-to-10 numeric system PSA uses to describe the physical condition of a trading card. You send in a raw card, PSA's graders assess it, and it comes back sealed in a tamper-evident plastic holder, called a slab, with a label listing the card's identity and its grade. A PSA 1 survived but looks it; a PSA 10 is as close to factory-perfect as PSA will certify. The same card in two different grades often trades as if it were two different items, so that number is usually the first thing a buyer checks.

PSA judges four attributes. Centering is how evenly the printed image sits inside the borders, measured on both the front and the back and written as a ratio like 55/45. Corners covers sharpness, fraying, and rounding; edges covers chipping, whitening, and roughness from the factory cut; surface covers scratches, print lines, loss of gloss, staining, creases, and dents. The final grade is a holistic call rather than an average, and one weak attribute can cap it even when the other three are strong.

The scale from the top down runs Gem Mint 10, Mint 9, Near Mint-Mint 8, Near Mint 7, Excellent-Mint 6, Excellent 5, Very Good-Excellent 4, Very Good 3, Good 2, Fair 1.5, and Poor 1. In practice a 9 looks perfect to the naked eye but has one small flaw under a light, an 8 shows very slight wear you have to look for, and a 7 has wear visible without hunting for it. Grades from 4 to 6 have plainly rounded corners, surface wear, and softer edges but still display decently. A 2 or 3 has heavy wear and often creasing, and a 1 can include tears or missing paper while still being complete and identifiable.

Gem Mint 10 gets asked about most. It describes a virtually perfect card with four sharp corners, sharp focus, full original gloss, and no staining. Centering tolerances are commonly cited as roughly 55/45 on the front and about 75/25 on the reverse for a 10, loosening to about 60/40 front for Mint 9 and about 65/35 front for NM-MT 8, with backs judged more leniently than fronts throughout; PSA has adjusted these tolerances before, so treat the exact ratios as approximate. A 10 is not a claim of microscopic perfection, and how often a given product produces 10s varies enormously by era and print quality.

PSA also issues half grades, added years after the original scale. They are commonly reported to run from 1.5 through 8.5, with no 9.5 or 10.5, since PSA already has both Mint 9 and Gem Mint 10 at the top. On the label a half grade appears with a plus, so an 8.5 reads NM-MT+ 8.5. Graders assign them at their discretion; a submitter cannot request one.

PSA can also attach a qualifier, a two-letter code in parentheses after the grade. PSA's own submission guidance defines OC for off-center, MC for miscut, ST for staining, PD for a print defect, OF for out of focus, and MK for writing or pencil marks. A qualifier means the card matches its numeric grade in every respect except that one isolated issue, and reads on the label as PSA 8 (OC). PSA designates MC and MK whenever present, while OC, ST, PD, and OF are discretionary; submitters have historically been able to request no discretionary qualifiers, in which case a would-be 8 (OC) simply receives a lower straight grade instead.

The hobby genuinely disagrees about what a qualifier does to a card. One camp uses a rough two-step rule, treating a qualified 6 roughly like an unqualified 4, and points to how qualified cards have been scored in PSA's set registry. Another camp argues you should buy the card and not the grade, since two cards carrying the same qualifier can differ hugely in how bad the flaw looks. Neither view is settled.

Some cards come back with no number. An Authentic label is commonly described as PSA confirming the card is genuine while withholding a grade, usually because of an alteration or a defect outside the normal scale, and Authentic Altered as a more obvious alteration such as trimming or recoloring. Collectors treat both as well below any numbered grade, though opinions differ on whether lightly flagged Authentic cards are unfairly discounted.

PSA is not the only grader, and the scales are not interchangeable. BGS uses a 1-to-10 scale but prints four subgrades on the label, with Pristine 10 at the top and a Black Label for a 10 with four perfect subgrades. SGC uses a 1-to-10 scale with half points topping out at Pristine 10, and CGC places a Pristine 10 above its Gem Mint 10. You will often hear that a BGS 9.5 is about a PSA 10, but that is a market rule of thumb, not an official conversion, and no grader publishes a cross-company equivalence chart.

In everyday use, collectors say a card gemmed, or that a resubmission came back a 9. Cracking out means breaking a card from its slab to submit it again, hoping for a bump. That practice exists because grading is human judgment on a physical object: the same card can come back differently on another day, which remains one of the most argued-about parts of the hobby.