One 1–10 scale. Two sets of trained eyes.
Sports cards and TCG cards share the same numeric grading scale, but they're not judged the same way. Print technology, common flaws, and what collectors actually care about differ between the two — so VCG applies category-specific standards under a single, consistent scale.
The VCG 1–10 scale
| Grade | Designation | What it means | Centering Tolerance* |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 | Gem Mint | Essentially flawless under standard review — sharp corners, perfect centering, no visible print or surface defects. | Up to ~55/45 front, 75/25 back |
| 9 | Mint | Only the slightest, often microscopic imperfection keeps this from a 10. | Up to ~60/40 front, 90/10 back |
| 8 | Near Mint-Mint | Minor wear or a slight centering shift visible on close inspection. | Up to ~65/35 front, 90/10 back |
| 7 | Near Mint | Light surface or edge wear, still a strong-looking card overall. | Up to ~70/30 front, 90/10 back |
| 6 | Excellent-Mint | Visible wear on corners or edges; centering may be noticeably off. | Up to ~80/20 front, 90/10 back |
| 5 | Excellent | Moderate wear across multiple areas of the card. | Up to ~85/15 front, 90/10 back |
| 4 | Very Good-Excellent | Noticeable wear, possible minor surface damage. | Up to ~85/15 front, 90/10 back |
| 3 | Very Good | Significant wear; corners and edges show real handling damage. | Up to ~90/10 front and back |
| 2 | Good | Heavy wear, creasing, or other visible damage. | Up to ~90/10 front and back |
| 1 | Poor | Major damage — the card is still authentic and identifiable, but heavily degraded. | No stricter than ~90/10 front and back |
Swipe sideways to see the full table on narrow screens.
* Centering tolerance is expressed as the maximum acceptable image shift within the border — e.g. 60/40 means the image can sit up to 60% toward one edge before it starts working against the grade. As covered above, a card right on the edge of its tolerance is still subject to a grader's judgment call on overall eye appeal, not a strict cutoff.
This scale is a placeholder description written for site launch. Final grading criteria language should be reviewed and refined by VCG's grading team before publishing.
Sports Cards
Sports card grading weighs four core factors:
- Centering — how evenly the image sits within the card's borders, front and back.
- Corners — sharpness vs. rounding, fraying, or whitening at the tips.
- Edges — chipping, roughness, or wear along the card's borders.
- Surface — scratches, print dots, staining, or gloss loss across the card face.
Trading Card Games
TCG cards are judged on the same four factors, with extra scrutiny on issues specific to how these cards are printed and handled:
- Print lines — thin lines from the printing process, more common on TCG stock than sports cardstock.
- Whitening — edge and corner whitening shows more readily on many TCG card borders.
- Surface texture — holo/foil cards are evaluated for scratches and print imperfections unique to foil stock.
- Centering — often a tighter tolerance given TCG border design conventions.
Additional Terms & Info
A few things worth understanding beyond the numeric grade itself.
Qualifiers & Grade Notations
Sometimes a card earns a strong grade overall but has one specific, notable characteristic worth flagging separately — VCG may attach a short notation alongside the numeric grade in these cases so buyers know exactly what they're looking at, rather than folding it silently into a lower number.
- MK — Marks: a scuff, indentation, or surface mark localized enough not to define the overall grade on its own.
- OC — Off-Center: centering that falls outside our standard tolerance for the grade, called out explicitly rather than averaged in.
- ST — Staining: discoloration from moisture, gum, wax, or similar contact staining.
- PD — Print Defect: a factory printing flaw — a fleck, streak, or registration issue from production rather than handling.
- MC — Miscut: a factory cutting error that shifts the card's borders from the intended design.
Qualifier list and exact criteria are placeholders for launch — final wording and codes should be confirmed with VCG's grading team.
Ungradable Cards
VCG will not assign a numeric grade to a card that shows evidence of trimming, recoloring, restoration, or other physical alteration, or where the card's authenticity is otherwise in question. Grading is only meaningful if the card in front of us is exactly what it claims to be — so rather than force a number onto a card we can't stand behind, we'll encapsulate it as "Authentic" or "Authentic Altered," or return it without encapsulation, depending on what we find.
Common reasons a card doesn't receive a numeric grade:
- Trimmed edges, intended to simulate sharper corners than the card actually has
- Rebuilt or restored corners, edges, or surface
- Recoloring or touch-up work on borders, print, or ink
- Chemical whitening, cleaning, or wax/gloss treatment applied after the card left the factory
- Questionable authenticity, including suspected counterfeits
The Importance of Eye Appeal & Subjectivity in Grading
Most of what goes into a grade is objective — a mark is either there or it isn't, a corner is either sharp or it's soft. But grading isn't just a checklist of defects found or not found. It's also a question of how much a given flaw actually costs the card, and that's where a trained eye has to make a call instead of a formula.
Take a small ding on the bottom-left corner of an otherwise pristine card. On its own, that single mark doesn't automatically drop the card a full point — the question our graders are actually asking is whether that specific flaw, in that specific spot, meaningfully hurts how the card presents as a whole. A faint, barely-there corner touch might not move the needle at all. A sharper, more visible ding in the same spot might be exactly what separates an otherwise-clean 9 from an 8, even though every other part of the card checks out identically.
That's the eye appeal component of grading: two cards can have what looks like "one flaw" on paper and still land on different grades, because the size, location, and visibility of that flaw affect the card differently. We'd rather have an experienced grader weigh that than force every minor mark through the exact same fixed penalty regardless of how much it actually detracts from the card.