Cards & Collectibles · Guides
How to check a graded card.
Plain steps for the checks a collector can make alone: the grader’s own record, what a failed lookup means, and what to ask before a slab changes hands. Methods only, with the sources dated.
Check a cert
Each grader’s own record, step by step.
Where the number is, where to look it up, what should match, and what a failed lookup can mean.
- 01
How to check a PSA cert
Look the number on the PSA label up on PSA’s own cert verification page, then match the record to the slab in hand: the card, the grade, the label and any images.
- 02
How to check a CGC cert
Look the number on the CGC Cards label up on CGC’s own cert lookup, then match the record to the slab in hand: the card, the grade, the label and any images.
- 03
How to check a Beckett (BGS) cert
Look the number on the Beckett label up on Beckett’s own card lookup, then match the record to the slab in hand: the card, the grade, the subgrades and the label.
- 04
How to check an SGC cert
Look the code on the SGC label up on SGC’s own cert code lookup, then match the record to the slab in hand: the card, the grade and the label.
- 05
What a deactivated cert means
When a grader deactivates a cert, its lookup stops showing the record and gives no reason. Here is what that does and does not tell you, and what to do next.
- 06
What a PSA, CGC, BGS or SGC cert number does and doesn’t prove
A cert number is an index into the grader’s own database. Looked up on the grader’s page, it returns what the grader recorded under that number, and nothing more. Here is the full list of what it does and does not prove.
The slab in hand
When the lookup passes and the slab still has to match.
The images, the holder, the label and the card itself: the checks a number cannot make for you.
- 01
Is the card in this slab the one that was graded? How to match it to the grader’s images
Where the grader shows images of the card it graded, set them beside the slab and compare the card itself, not only the label: centring, corners, surface marks, print features and where the card sits in the holder.
- 02
Resealed slab: what to look at
Graders seal their holders so that opening leaves a mark. The check is the seam, the corners, the fit and the label, read under a low light and against a holder you know, then written down.
- 03
Swapped card in a genuine holder: the checks
The pattern: a genuine holder and label with a different card behind them. The holder passes and the lookup passes. The only check that catches it is matching the card itself to the grader’s record.
- 04
Cert reused on a fake: the mismatch tells
A cert number is printed on every label and shown in every listing, so it can be copied onto a label the grader never issued. The lookup passes because the number is real. What fails is the match between the record and the slab.
Before a slab changes hands
What to ask, and what to keep.
The questions a cert cannot answer on its own, and the record that answers them.
- 01
Buying a slab: the five questions to ask
Five questions to ask before you pay for a graded card: what the grader’s record shows, whether it matches the slab, where the card has been, how it ships, and what is in writing.
- 02
Chain of custody for cards, in plain words
Chain of custody is the dated list of who has held a card, where, and how it moved between them. Here is what it is, why a cert cannot carry it, and how to keep one.
- 03
Buying a slab after a theft: what a deactivated cert means for you
When graded cards are reported taken, the grader can switch off their cert numbers. For a buyer, that means the record no longer shows the card, and a sale that rests on the record cannot be completed on it. Here is what to do, before and after you pay.
Beyond the slab
Packs, patches and watches.
Things with no cert of their own, or with a record that speaks to only part of them.
- 01
How to tell a resealed box or pack (what the record can and can’t show)
A sealed box or pack has no cert of its own until an authenticator gives it one, and even then the record speaks to the seal, not the contents. The check is the wrap, the seal, the weight and the history, and the record is what you write down.
- 02
Patch and relic cards: what a swapped patch looks like and what the record should hold
A patch card is a card with a window and a piece of material behind it. The card and the grade can be genuine while the material has changed. Here is what a swapped patch looks like, and what the record should carry.
- 03
Redialed and franken watches: what the serial and papers can and can’t tell you
A redial is a dial repainted or replaced; a franken watch is one assembled from parts of more than one watch. The serial and the papers say what the maker delivered. They do not describe the dial or the parts as they are today.
- 04
Pulling a card on a rip or pack platform: what to record
On a digital pack platform the card you pull sits in a vault, and the platform’s own terms say what happens next: ship it, sell it back, or wait. The record is the pull, the value shown, the terms as they stood, and who held the card until it reached you.
- 05
A card you never touch: the record for a vault-held card
When a platform or vault holds your card, the record you keep is the cert, the grader’s images, the holder’s own statement of custody and the withdrawal terms, each dated. A chain entry, where there is one, proves the token and not the card.
Your collection’s record
The list, the photographs and the count.
How to keep one record for many items at once, and what a buyer will ask to see.
- 01
Chain of custody for a collection, in plain words
For one card, chain of custody is the dated list of who held it and how it moved. For a collection it is the same list for every item at once, plus a count. Here is how to keep one.
- 02
How to photograph a card for your own record
A record photograph is for matching, not for selling: flat, square, in even light, front and back, with the label readable and the surface visible, dated. Six photographs per card is enough.
- 03
Selling a collection: the record a buyer will ask for
A buyer of a collection asks, item by item, what a buyer of one slab asks once: what is there, what each item is, where it has been, and what is in writing. Build the record before the first conversation.
The guides describe how records work; they are not an authentication, grading, appraisal or valuation of any item, and they describe patterns, never a particular cert, card or seller. Grader names belong to their owners, who do not endorse these pages.
Field notes