PSA Grading Scale Explained (1–10)

The PSA grading scale is the 10-point system Professional Sports Authenticator uses to describe a card’s condition. When someone calls a card “a PSA 10”, this is the scale they mean. A single number on a PSA label can change what a card sells for, so it pays to know exactly what each grade allows.

Everything below comes from PSA’s published grading standards, checked in September 2026, plus PSA’s own grading guide and pricing pages.

How does PSA grading work?

PSA grading happens in three steps. First, graders authenticate the card: they check that it’s genuine and look for doctoring such as trimming or recoloring. Only a card that passes gets graded. Second, graders assign a grade from 1 to 10 based on corners, edges, surface, focus, gloss, staining and centering. Third, the card is sealed in a tamper-evident case, and the grade and a certification number go on the label.

The grade is mostly objective. Graders measure centering and look for print defects, stains and surface wrinkles. But PSA is open about a small subjective part too: when a card sits right on the line between two grades, graders make the call based on eye appeal and what the market would accept.

The PSA grading scale from 1 to 10

This table summarizes PSA’s written standard for each grade. Centering is written as a split of the border width between opposite sides, so 60/40 means one border takes 60% of the combined width and the border opposite it 40%.

Grade	Name	What PSA allows	Front centering	Back centering
PSA 10	Gem Mint	A virtually perfect card: four sharp corners, sharp focus, full original gloss and no staining. A slight printing imperfection is allowed if it doesn’t hurt the card’s appeal.	About 55/45	75/25
PSA 9	Mint	Superb condition with just one minor flaw: a very slight wax stain on the back, a minor printing imperfection or slightly off-white borders.	About 60/40	90/10
PSA 8	Near Mint-Mint	Looks like a 9 at first glance. Up close it may show the slightest fraying at one or two corners, a minor printing imperfection or slightly off-white borders.	About 65/35	90/10
PSA 7	Near Mint	Slight surface wear on close inspection, slight fraying on some corners, a minor printing blemish. Most of the original gloss remains.	About 70/30	90/10
PSA 6	Excellent-Mint	Visible surface wear or a printing defect that doesn’t spoil the overall look, a very light scratch, slightly graduated corner fraying, some loss of gloss.	80/20	90/10
PSA 5	Excellent	Very minor rounding of the corners, more visible surface wear, minor chipping on edges, several light scratches.	85/15	90/10
PSA 4	Very Good-Excellent	Slightly rounded corners, noticeable but modest surface wear, light scuffing or scratches. A light crease may be visible.	85/15	90/10
PSA 3	Very Good	Some rounding of the corners, noticeable edge wear, much of the gloss gone, borders somewhat yellowed. A crease may be visible.	90/10	90/10
PSA 2	Good	Accelerated corner rounding, obvious surface wear, scratching, scuffing, light staining or chipping. There may be several creases.	90/10	90/10
PSA 1.5	Fair	Extreme corner wear, advanced surface wear and possibly heavy creases. The card must still be fully intact.	About 90/10	About 90/10
PSA 1	Poor	Defects so advanced that the eye appeal has nearly vanished. The card may be missing small pieces, heavily creased, badly discolored or warped.	Not listed	Not listed

Two things stand out. The jump from PSA 9 to PSA 10 is mostly about perfection: a 9 is allowed one minor flaw, a 10 essentially none. And back centering barely matters below the top grade: PSA allows 90/10 on the back for every grade from 9 down to 5.

What separates a PSA 10, 9 and 8?

These are the grades most modern Pokémon cards land on, so the differences are worth knowing in plain terms.

A PSA 10 needs everything at once: sharp corners, full gloss, no stains and tight centering on both sides. One small print dot can be forgiven; almost nothing else can.

A PSA 9 is a card with exactly one small problem, such as slightly off-white borders, a tiny printing flaw or a faint wax stain on the back.

A PSA 8 can have a couple of those small problems together, such as a hint of corner fraying plus a minor print mark, or centering out to about 65/35 on the front.

Below that, grades track visible wear: surface scratches and corner rounding for PSA 7 to 5, creases and heavy wear for PSA 4 and lower.

PSA centering standards: how does PSA measure centering?

PSA compares the width of the borders from left to right and from top to bottom. The centering grade is the percentage difference at the most off-center part of the card, so a card that’s perfect side to side but badly off top to bottom is judged on the top-to-bottom measurement.

PSA also builds in a little tolerance. For cards that grade PSA 7 or better, it gives a 5% leeway on the front centering minimum. PSA’s own example: a card that meets every other PSA 9 requirement and measures 60/40 on the front meets the PSA 9 centering standard. If it measures 65/35, it may still be accepted as a 9 when the card’s eye appeal is good.

You can measure your own cards before sending them. Our free card centering checker works out the left/right and top/bottom ratios from a photo and shows which grades they fit.

PSA half grades: what is a PSA 8.5?

PSA uses half-point grades to reward cards that sit at the high end of a grade. In PSA’s words, cards that “exhibit high-end qualities within each particular grade, between PSA 2 and PSA 9, may achieve a half-point increase”, and graders put “a clear focus on centering” when deciding.

So you’ll see labels like PSA 8.5 or PSA 6.5. There is no PSA 9.5 on the published scale: the next step up from a 9 is Gem Mint 10. PSA 1.5 is a separate case. It isn’t a half grade but its own named grade, Fair.

PSA qualifiers: OC, ST, PD, OF, MK and MC

A qualifier tells you that one specific flaw kept a card below the grade it would otherwise get. PSA lists six:

Qualifier	Meaning	How PSA applies it
OC	Off center	Either the OC qualifier or a lower numeric grade that reflects the card’s centering
ST	Staining	Either the ST qualifier or a lower grade that reflects the staining
PD	Print defect	Either the PD qualifier or a lower grade that reflects the print defects
OF	Out of focus	Either the OF qualifier (out of focus or out of register) or a lower grade
MK	Marks	Applied to any card with writing, ink or pencil marks, or the impression left by writing
MC	Miscut	Applied to cards with an atypical cut, such as part of the card cut off or part of another card visible

PSA marks the first four as optional, which is why the same flaw can show up either as a qualifier or simply as a lower number.

When does PSA refuse to give a grade?

Some cards come back without a number. “Authentic” means PSA certifies the card as genuine but gives no grade, for example because of an alteration or a major defect. “Authentic Altered” means the card is genuine but shows trimming, recoloring, restoration or cleaning.

Other cards are returned in a card saver with an “N” code. The most important for collectors are N1 (evidence of trimming), N4 (questionable authenticity, which is never encapsulated), N5 (altered stock, including cleaning sprays or wax on the surface), N7 (evidence of cleaning) and N8 (miscut). PSA still charges the grading fee for most of these; it waives it for N6 (undersized), N8 (miscut) and N9 (items PSA doesn’t grade).

What grade do most Pokémon cards get?

Higher than you might expect. According to PSA’s getting-started guide, about 90% of modern trading card game cards (2003 to today) that PSA has graded since 2018 came back PSA 8 or higher, and about 80% of vintage trading card game cards (before 2003) graded PSA 7 or higher. PSA notes that these figures are approximate and that each card is graded on its own.

In other words, a PSA 8 is common for a modern Pokémon card, so the grades that set a modern card apart are 9 and 10.

How does the PSA scale compare to CGC’s?

CGC, another major grader of Pokémon cards, uses a similar 10-point scale with a few extra steps at the top. According to CGC’s published scale:

PSA	CGC
No equivalent	Pristine 10: virtually flawless, 50/50 centering, special label
PSA 10 Gem Mint (about 55/45 front, 75/25 back)	Gem Mint 10 (about 55/45 front, 75/25 back)
No 9.5	Mint+ 9.5
PSA 9 Mint	Mint 9
PSA 8.5 (half grade)	NM/Mint+ 8.5

The practical difference is that CGC separates its best cards into Pristine 10 and Gem Mint 10, while PSA puts every top card into a single Gem Mint 10.

How to pre-grade a card against the PSA scale

You can’t predict a grade with certainty, but a five-minute check at home covers the same things graders look at:

1. Centering first. Measure the borders on both sides. If the front is worse than about 60/40, a PSA 10 is off the table before anything else is judged.
2. Corners under a bright light. Any white fraying pushes a card toward PSA 8 or lower.
3. Edges, especially on the back. Whitening along the blue border is easy to miss and easy for a grader to see.
4. Surface at an angle. Tilt the card under a lamp to catch scratches, print lines and dents, especially on holo and full-art cards.
5. Stains and marks. Anything written on the card, even a pencil impression, earns the MK qualifier.

If a card fails the first two checks, it’s rarely worth paying to grade unless it’s valuable in any condition.

Is your card worth grading?

Grading costs real money, and it’s only worth it when the graded card is worth clearly more than the raw one plus the fee. As of September 15, 2026, PSA had paused its lower-priced Value tiers, making Standard at $59.99 per card the cheapest option on its pricing page.

Run your numbers through our PSA grading cost calculator first, and use our step-by-step guide on how to grade Pokémon cards when you’re ready to submit. To see what a card is worth ungraded, scan it with TCG Vault: it shows the current TCGplayer market price for the card in a few seconds.