Basketball card grading
Prizm, Optic, Select, Mosaic, National Treasures and everything before them. One flat price whatever the card turns out to be worth, on a published 1–10 scale.
More than any other sport, modern basketball value is concentrated at the top of the scale. On a hyped rookie parallel the difference between a 9 and a 10 is routinely several multiples of the card's price, and a 9 often sells for barely more than the same card raw.
Which means the arithmetic of grading basketball cards is unusual: you're not paying for a grade, you're buying a ticket on a 10. At $80 a card that's a bad bet on all but the most obvious submissions. At $5 it's a bet you can afford to make on a stack.
Chrome and foil stock is the most punishing surface in the hobby, and modern basketball is almost entirely chrome. Four things account for nearly every 9 that could have been a 10:
None of this is damage you caused, and none of it is avoidable by being careful after the fact. Our grading scale shows exactly where each of these caps a grade.
The cards to think twice about are modern base commons and anything with visible surface damage on chrome — a scratch you can see with the naked eye is a scratch the grader will see under a light. Work the numbers on the card grading cost page.
Almost all avoidable grade loss on basketball cards happens in the first five minutes after the pack is opened:
No membership and no declared-value upcharge, so a numbered rookie parallel costs the same $5 as a base card. Optional custom labels are $3 a card.
$7 per card for Premium service, with faster tiers at $9 and $15. Submissions of 100 cards or more go through our Bulk service, which starts at $5 per card on a 90-day turnaround and is quoted per submission. There's no declared-value upcharge, so a numbered rookie parallel costs the same to grade as a base card.
Chrome stock. The mirrored surface shows print lines, roller marks and hairline scratches under angled light that paper stock would hide, and the coloured parallels chip at the edges from the smallest amount of handling. Centering on chrome sets is also inconsistent enough that a visually clean card can still cap at a 9. None of that is your fault — which is why the population of 10s is far smaller than people expect.
Rookie cards of players who are actually going to matter, numbered and coloured parallels, on-card autographs, and vintage from the 1980s and earlier. The graded premium in modern basketball is concentrated almost entirely at a 10, so cards you wouldn't bet on getting a 10 need to be cheap enough to grade speculatively.
It depends entirely on the fee. On modern chrome the price gap between a 9 and a 10 is often several times the card's value, and a 9 frequently sells for barely more than raw. That maths is what makes an expensive grading fee punishing on modern basketball and a $5 fee workable — at $5, a 9 doesn't cost you much to find out.
Sleeve them straight out of the pack, then into a semi-rigid holder, handled by the edges only. Chrome and foil pick up fingerprints and hairline scratches immediately, and a scratch that appeared after the pack was opened is indistinguishable from one that came out of it as far as the grade is concerned.
Yes, to the same 1–10 scale and at the same price. Expect centering and edge wear to be the deciding factors on pre-1990 cardboard rather than surface — the reverse of the modern chrome era.
