What do y'all think about this "Should you grade your card?" chart?

Grading
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It’s originally made for sports card collectors, but I feel like it can be tweaked for Pokemon:

RDT_20250128_2120352352573155459384026
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EDIT: I found it here

I think that for Pokemon, we’d place less emphasis on c/N prints since those are considered “trophy” cards in this hobby. Also, PSA vs BGS vs CGC is a legitimate market battle that would need inclusion here. A third thing to look at IMO is Pokemon autos (PSA being the only option IMO).

What do you think?

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Wording Issues

  • There’s too much emphasis on ‘grading’. Perhaps ‘slabbing’ might be a better theme as auth only is very much a use case and it’s completely ignored here.
  • Refers to USD prices rather than simply, the cost of grading, which in itself, can vary from company to company, country and the card’s value

Contextual Issues

  • It’s almost entirely focused on the monetary aspect. Slabbing a personal collection can have more emotional implications. E,g Would they like the look of the slab? Would they be comfortable with cracking a slab if they changed their mind or the card didn’t get the grade they were looking for?
  • Grading benchmarks can vary. Not everything needs to be 8, 9, 10.
  • “Is your card IMMACULATE” → Anyone who needs this chart is unlikely to be able to answer this question anyway.

Maybe in the USA. Noone cares about CGC in Japan, I’ve seen them sit on shelves for months on end and shops not accepting them for trade-in. Even BGS barely has any traction here.

For collectors who don’t care about reselling their cards, local grading companies such as ACE grading in the UK or ARS in Japan provide incredibly well designed slabs for people who are more interested in protecting and displaying their card than selling it

Again, if we are talking about money, PSA carries some weight. However,

  1. They start becoming less relevant for higher value cards
  • The number of forgeries has dramatically increased as of late.
  • Provenance is everything for high end. PSA, BGS and more recently, CGC have been been under fire for authenticating fakes.
  1. I personally slab my autos with ARS because
  • I want to protect the card
  • They make great displays
  • As the person who got the card signed, I already own all provenenace and that trumps anything a third party can assume about the signature.
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I also agree that some of the wording seems of for the layman, also your value of $20 difference between graded and ungraded seems really low. Maybe also include a point for having to wait 1-2months for the card to be graded.

Part 2 should be how to choose who you grade with.

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With the amount of DM’s I get asking “should I grade my cards” something simple like this would go a long way to help answer that

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It’s baffling to me just how often someone pulls out a childhood collection after like 20 years and the first thought is to post online “should I grade these?” How are people that havent collected since they were kids even aware of grading?

I agree, this chart really does answer that question far better than exhaustingly explaining the entire process and purpose of grading cards.

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Youtube, Tiktok, Vine, Reels, Stories, Whatever else comes around. The algorithms are good at what they do.

Linking this picture really helps on reddit.

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Took it upon myself to make a (heavily plagiarized) Pokemon version of the chart linked above. Maybe I’ll make some more but I hope this helps!

whatshouldigrade
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Why dont the line colors match the bubbles on the bottom right? Im now confused and Ive graded all my cards at your suggestion.

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I should probably add more clarifications, but red lines are supposed to mean “no” and green lines are supposed to mean “yes.”

So at the bottom, if you would be upset at the card receiving a 9 and losing money, then you shouldn’t grade it. But I can see how this could be confusing, especially for the intended audience.

I fixed it and reposted it above @lyleberr!

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Simple and adapted, I like it! :+1: