What is a PSA 10?
Grading. . 1 min read.
The top grade on the PSA scale describes a card that is, to the assessor eye under magnification, essentially as it left the factory. It is a statement about condition and manufacture. It is not a statement that the card is rare, important or a good buy.
What is being assessed
- Centring, front and back, measured as a ratio of the borders.
- Corners, examined under magnification where wear invisible to the naked eye shows.
- Edges, particularly chipping and whitening, which dark borders expose mercilessly.
- Surface, including scratches, print lines, dimples and loss of gloss.
Why centring stops most of them
Corners and surfaces can be protected from the moment you own a card. Centring was decided when the sheet was cut, before anyone opened the packet. It is the one component you cannot influence and the one that most often caps a card a grade below where its condition would otherwise place it.
This is why pack-fresh cards still fail to hit the top grade. Nothing happened to them. They were cut that way.
What the grade is worth
That depends entirely on how many others exist at the same grade, which is what a population report tells you, and on whether anyone wants the card at all. The relationship between grade and price is set out in what grading does to the price.
Common questions
- Can a card be regraded to get a higher number?
- Cards can be resubmitted, and grades do sometimes change. It costs the full fee again and the common outcome is the same grade.
The full guide
What grading does to the price
A graded card and a raw card are different products. Here is what the slab is actually buying.