{
  "dataset": "graders",
  "title": "Trading card grading companies",
  "description": "Five grading companies with the facts a collector compares: founding year, scale, whether subgrades are printed, the top grade, and links to each company’s own standards, fee schedule and population report.",
  "source": "https://sportscardradar.com",
  "documentation": "https://sportscardradar.com/api/",
  "publisher": "Vast Flow, LLP",
  "licence": {
    "name": "CC BY 4.0",
    "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
    "attribution": "Sports Card Radar (https://sportscardradar.com)",
    "note": "Reuse any of this, including commercially, with a link back to the page or endpoint it came from."
  },
  "as_of": "2026-09-11",
  "caveats": [
    "The `focus` block is an ORDINAL DESCRIPTION of where each company’s population and buyer pool sit, not a quality score and not a ranking. It exists so a reader can weight what they care about and see the arithmetic; sportscardradar.com/tools/grader-chooser/ prints every contribution.",
    "No evaluation of grading accuracy is published here, in either direction. Grading accuracy is not something this publisher has measured.",
    "Fees are deliberately absent. A fee schedule is the fastest-moving number in this hobby; the URL is given instead.",
    "Disclosure: published by the maker of a card-scanning app, which is not a grading company and competes with none of these."
  ],
  "criteria": [
    {
      "id": "marketLiquidity",
      "label": "How easily the slab sells",
      "meaning": "How wide the pool of buyers is who will pay for that label without argument."
    },
    {
      "id": "subgradeDetail",
      "label": "Detail on the label",
      "meaning": "Whether the holder tells you why the card graded where it did."
    },
    {
      "id": "vintageFocus",
      "label": "Suited to vintage",
      "meaning": "Concentration of pre-1980 cards in the population and of buyers who look there."
    },
    {
      "id": "modernFocus",
      "label": "Suited to modern",
      "meaning": "Concentration of post-2000 cards, parallels and autographs."
    },
    {
      "id": "slabPresentation",
      "label": "How the slab looks",
      "meaning": "Matters more than collectors admit, and more for display pieces than for flips."
    },
    {
      "id": "registrySupport",
      "label": "Set registry",
      "meaning": "Whether completing a registry set with these slabs is a thing people do."
    }
  ],
  "count": 5,
  "graders": [
    {
      "id": "psa",
      "name": "PSA",
      "full_name": "Professional Sports Authenticator",
      "founded": 1991,
      "scale": "1 to 10, half grades from 1.5 to 8.5",
      "half_grades": true,
      "prints_subgrades": false,
      "top_grade": "PSA 10 Gem Mint",
      "uses_qualifiers": true,
      "grading_standards_url": "https://www.psacard.com/gradingstandards",
      "fee_schedule_url": "https://www.psacard.com/services/tradingcardgrading",
      "population_report_url": "https://www.psacard.com/pop",
      "focus": {
        "vintageFocus": 8,
        "modernFocus": 9,
        "subgradeDetail": 2,
        "slabPresentation": 7,
        "marketLiquidity": 10,
        "registrySupport": 10
      },
      "note": "The oldest of the four and the one whose grade the widest range of buyers price without discussion. Qualifiers (OC, MK, ST, PD, MC) appear on the label when a single defect caps an otherwise higher grade."
    },
    {
      "id": "bgs",
      "name": "BGS",
      "full_name": "Beckett Grading Services",
      "founded": 1999,
      "scale": "1 to 10 in half steps, with four subgrades",
      "half_grades": true,
      "prints_subgrades": true,
      "top_grade": "BGS 10 Pristine, and BGS 10 Black Label when all four subgrades are 10",
      "uses_qualifiers": false,
      "grading_standards_url": "https://www.beckett.com/grading/card-grading-scale",
      "fee_schedule_url": "https://www.beckett.com/grading/",
      "population_report_url": "https://www.beckett.com/grading/pop-report",
      "focus": {
        "vintageFocus": 5,
        "modernFocus": 9,
        "subgradeDetail": 10,
        "slabPresentation": 9,
        "marketLiquidity": 7,
        "registrySupport": 6
      },
      "note": "The only one of the four that prints centering, corners, edges and surface separately, which is why a BGS slab tells you why a card graded where it did. The Black Label is the scarcest label in the hobby because it needs four 10s, not one."
    },
    {
      "id": "sgc",
      "name": "SGC",
      "full_name": "Sportscard Guaranty Corporation",
      "founded": 1998,
      "scale": "1 to 10 with half grades, plus Pristine 10 above Gem 10",
      "half_grades": true,
      "prints_subgrades": false,
      "top_grade": "SGC 10 Pristine",
      "uses_qualifiers": false,
      "grading_standards_url": "https://gosgc.com/grading-scale/",
      "fee_schedule_url": "https://gosgc.com/pricing/",
      "population_report_url": "https://gosgc.com/pop-report/",
      "focus": {
        "vintageFocus": 10,
        "modernFocus": 6,
        "subgradeDetail": 2,
        "slabPresentation": 9,
        "marketLiquidity": 7,
        "registrySupport": 4
      },
      "note": "The black inner mat is the reason vintage collectors send cards here: it makes an old card photograph well and it hides nothing. Turnaround has historically been the shortest of the four."
    },
    {
      "id": "cgc",
      "name": "CGC Cards",
      "full_name": "Certified Guaranty Company (Cards)",
      "founded": 2020,
      "scale": "1 to 10 with half grades and optional subgrades",
      "half_grades": true,
      "prints_subgrades": true,
      "top_grade": "CGC 10 Pristine, and CGC 10 Perfect when all subgrades are 10",
      "uses_qualifiers": false,
      "grading_standards_url": "https://www.cgccards.com/card-grading/grading-scale/",
      "fee_schedule_url": "https://www.cgccards.com/fees/",
      "population_report_url": "https://www.cgccards.com/population-report/",
      "focus": {
        "vintageFocus": 6,
        "modernFocus": 8,
        "subgradeDetail": 8,
        "slabPresentation": 8,
        "marketLiquidity": 5,
        "registrySupport": 5
      },
      "note": "Came to sports cards from comics and trading-card games, where its grade already carried weight. The sports-card market prices a CGC slab at a discount to PSA on most cards, which is a market fact rather than a statement about the grading."
    },
    {
      "id": "tag",
      "name": "TAG",
      "full_name": "Technical Authentication & Grading",
      "founded": 2022,
      "scale": "1 to 10, reported to one decimal place with a per-defect map",
      "half_grades": true,
      "prints_subgrades": true,
      "top_grade": "TAG 10 Pristine",
      "uses_qualifiers": false,
      "grading_standards_url": "https://taggrading.com/about",
      "fee_schedule_url": "https://taggrading.com/pricing",
      "population_report_url": "https://my.taggrading.com/pop-report",
      "focus": {
        "vintageFocus": 3,
        "modernFocus": 8,
        "subgradeDetail": 10,
        "slabPresentation": 7,
        "marketLiquidity": 3,
        "registrySupport": 3
      },
      "note": "Grades by machine vision and publishes a defect map for every card, so the grade is reproducible in a way a human grade is not. The market has not repriced around it yet, which is the trade: more information, less liquidity."
    }
  ],
  "submission_cost_components": [
    {
      "id": "fee",
      "label": "Grading fee per card",
      "what_it_covers": "Set by the service level, and the service level is set by the declared value of the card, not by how fast you want it. This is the only number most people budget for."
    },
    {
      "id": "upcharge",
      "label": "Declared-value upcharge",
      "what_it_covers": "If a card grades into a value band above the tier you paid for, the company bills the difference before it ships. Declare honestly: the upcharge is cheaper than the argument."
    },
    {
      "id": "shipTo",
      "label": "Shipping to the grader",
      "what_it_covers": "Insured and tracked, both ways, because an uninsured parcel of cards is the one place in this hobby where a total loss is uncompensated."
    },
    {
      "id": "shipBack",
      "label": "Return shipping",
      "what_it_covers": "Charged per submission and scaled to declared value. On a small submission it is often the second-largest line after the fees."
    },
    {
      "id": "insurance",
      "label": "Insurance on declared value",
      "what_it_covers": "Usually a percentage of the declared value in each direction. On a high-value card it can exceed the grading fee."
    },
    {
      "id": "supplies",
      "label": "Supplies",
      "what_it_covers": "Semi-rigid holders, penny sleeves, a box and packing. Small per card and never zero."
    },
    {
      "id": "membership",
      "label": "Membership",
      "what_it_covers": "Some tiers are only reachable through a paid annual membership, which is a real cost on a one-off submission and close to free on a regular one."
    }
  ]
}