Given all four subgrades, how well do you think you can guess the overall grade? I created a little quiz, where I show you the four subgrades and you have to guess the overall grade. Check out the quiz here. Let me know what you got.
Does anyone know the definitive formula for CGC’s grades? I have my own theory, but I’m not sure if it’s 100% accurate. Let me know what you think the formula is!
Here’s the answer sheet if you don’t wanna take the quiz and just wanna see the answers:
Has to be stolen
You’re saying the formula is stolen from someone like BGS?
8/8 I think it’s .5 higher than the lowest UNLESS there are 2 identical of the lowest then it’s capped at the lowest sub. Then if there is one that is low (say 4.5) and the rest are more than one full grade higher it can be one full grade higher than the lowest overall (so 5.5). I don’t know if that covers every condition but I think that’s it. There might be a separate clause for centering but I’m not 100% sure.
It’s 8.5 for all of them
At some point in this video, the head CGC grader clarifies how the subgrades are weighted in the formula. The only issue is I don’t remember the exact point in the video where he speaks about it lol, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in the first third of the video. Sorry I can’t be more specific 
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2/8… I get so thrown off sometimes when 3 grades are relatively high and one is in the 4-6 range
8/8
I’m like 95% sure they have changed their formula since first launching because I tried figuring this out around a year ago and then also a few months ago, and cards with identical subgrades had different overall grade. If people care enough I can try to re-do the data. So it’s either human error or a formula change. IIRC a Centering OC grade is interpreted as Centering 8.5 when weighed in their formula.
I’m people and I care enough
A card with a big sample size for the 8.5 Centering is the Corocoro Shining Mew. I was scrolling through eBay the other day looking at the CGC listings for it and seeing the range of centering that all received 8.5s.
Here’s a quick example of a change:
Dragonite: O/C 8.5 9.0 9.0
O/C is interpreted as 9.0 to receive this overall 9.0 grade
Slowbro: O/C 8.5 9.5 9.5
O/C is interpreted as 8.5 to receive this overall 8.5 grade
Scyther: O/C 8.5 10 9.5
O/C is interpreted as 8.5 to receive this overall 8.5 grade
Could also be formula differences for Japanese vs English and Error vs Non Error
@qwachansey When I went to the CGC Trading Cards Academy in July, they told us OC centering was weighed as an 8.5 for the overall grade.
OK. In that case, I think the few examples I’ve seen have just been human error. Another question is whether subgrades can be weighed differently (for example BGS weighs corners higher than surface) or if this is a mistake:
As far as I’m aware, the Charizard is misgraded and the Squirtle is correct. Both should be an 8.5 overall.
I don’t think there are any circumstances where sub grades are weighed differently.
One exception they mentioned was centering, though; something where a card with 8 centering can still receive a 9 overall grade if it has two other sub grades at 9.5 or higher.
I think the quiz needs a sig-fig update. 8.0 =/= 8
Please ask permission before using photos of MY holy grails, thank you. Seriously though idk what this is. This is the only card that would have gotten below 9 in the whole bulk sub so they had to be homies and round it up for me.
I’m actually surprised human error can even be a factor. Graders should just input values for centering, surface, corners, & edges into an algo and it should spit out an overall grade. Don’t turn humans into calculators, for time and consistency sake >_<
I recall reading that you cant grade more than 1 point higher than your lowest score
6/8 - the low numbers got me.
If their grading is a lot like their label centering, then there isn’t much hope.
AT.
