How to check a slab in 10 seconds

The ten seconds, step by step

1. 01Read the label. The grader’s name, the cert number, the card and the grade, read off the slab itself. Never off a listing photograph or a screenshot that someone else cropped.
2. 02Open the grader’s own page. Type the address yourself: psacard.com/cert, cgccards.com/certlookup, beckett.com/grading/card-lookup or gosgc.com/cert-code-lookup. Or enter the number at brich.house/check, which builds the same link for you. A QR code on a label opens whatever address it holds, so scan it with the grader’s own app or not at all.
3. 03Enter the number. The cert number as printed. SGC asks for the full code, letters included. CGC and Beckett show their own warnings on the page where they have one.
4. 04Match four fields. Player or character, set and year, card number, grade. Where the record shows images of the card, set them beside the slab: the corners, the centring, the surface and the label itself.
5. 05Read the watch. The free cert check adds what one lookup cannot see: whether the same cert has an open report in the Brich House loss register. An open report is a reason to stop and ask the seller. It is not a verdict on the card.
6. 06Keep the result. A screenshot of the lookup with the date, and a photograph of the slab front and back. Ten seconds now saves the argument later, and it is the first line of the card’s record.

What this check does not prove

• That the slab in hand is the one graded. The lookup checks a number. A label can be printed to copy a real one, so the card, the label and any images on the record have to match the slab in front of you.
• Who holds the card now. A cert records the card and the grade on the day it was graded. It says nothing about who has held the card since, or how it got to the seller.
• What ten seconds cannot do. A quick lookup is the first check, not an authentication, a grading or an appraisal. The grader decides what it graded; the slab in hand decides whether it matches; the record shows what has been written about the number.
• What the card is worth. A grade is not a price. The lookup says nothing about value, and neither does this guide.
• Ownership. A matching record does not show who owns the card or whether the seller can pass title to it. That is a question for the seller, in writing.