Grading, and what it does to the price

Grading turns a card into something closer to a traded instrument: a sealed, numbered opinion about condition that other people will price without handling it. That is why a graded card and a raw one are not the same product and cannot share a price history, and why blending them produces a number that describes neither.

These posts cover what a grade certifies and what it does not, why the gap between adjacent grades is often larger than the gap between grading companies, and how to think about whether a submission is worth making. Fees and turnaround times change often enough that this site does not quote them; the graders publish their own current schedules. The full picture is in what grading does to the price.