Pokémon & TCG grading
Base Set holos, 1st Edition, modern alt arts and Japanese prints. Graded on the same published 1–10 scale as everything else we do, at the same flat price, sealed in a premium slab with a cert number anyone can verify.
A Pokémon card gives a grader more to work with than a sports card does. The borders are bright yellow, so any whitening shows. The backs are a dark, saturated blue, so any edge wear shows there too. The holo layer marks under a thin clear coat. And the market is sophisticated enough to price all of it precisely.
The result is that the same physical care that would get a sports card a 9 will often get a Pokémon card an 8, and high-grade WOTC-era cards are genuinely rare rather than just uncommon.
Our grading scale sets out where each of these caps a number.
What rarely pays: bulk commons, energy cards, and modern non-holo rares. Check the maths on the card grading cost page before sending a big stack.
No membership and no declared-value tiers — a 1st Edition holo costs the same $5 as a card from last week's booster box. Magic: The Gathering and other TCGs are priced identically. 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 1st Edition holo costs the same to grade as a card from last week's booster box.
The holographic layer sits under a thin clear coat that marks far more readily than the matte finish on the rest of the card. Many holos are scratched inside the pack before anyone opens it, from contact with other cards during collating. Under angled grading light those scratches are obvious even when they're invisible in normal room lighting, which is why holo surface is the most common thing capping a Pokémon grade.
Whitening is the white card core showing through where the printed edge has been worn or cut roughly. It's very visible on Pokémon cards because the borders are yellow and the backs are dark blue. Yes, it affects the grade. On older sets a degree of factory whitening straight from the pack is normal, and it's one reason genuinely high-grade WOTC-era cards are so scarce.
WOTC-era holos from Base Set through the early expansions, anything 1st Edition or Shadowless, modern alternate-art and special illustration rares, full-art trainers, and any card where a clean copy is genuinely hard to find. Bulk commons and modern non-holo rares almost never repay a fee.
Yes. The set, print run and any 1st Edition or Shadowless designation are identified and printed on the label, because they change what the card is entirely. If a card is misidentified in your submission it's corrected before the label is made.
Yes, to the same 1–10 scale at the same price. They're often noticeably better centred and cleaner cut than their English counterparts, which is part of why Japanese prints have become popular with grading in mind.
All card grading → · The grading scale → · What grading costs →
