PSA vs BGS vs CGC vs SGC Centering Standards Chart

1. Measure the borders

   Measure left, right, top and bottom from the cut edge to the printed frame, in millimeters or pixels, on a flattened photo or with a caliper.

2. Divide each pair

   Divide the left border by left plus right, and the top by top plus bottom. A 3.2 mm and 2.8 mm pair gives 53.3/46.7.

3. Compare with the chart

   Take the larger share of the worse axis and find the highest grade whose limit it meets, then repeat for the back against the back column.

The chart lists each company's grades from 10 to 5 with the front and back worst-axis limits. PSA runs 55/45, 60/40, 65/35, 70/30, 80/20 and 85/15 on the front, with a 75/25 back for 10 and 90/10 for 9 through 5. Beckett starts at 50/50 front and 55/45 back for BGS 10.

A dash means the company publishes no number for that cell, and dashed cells are left out of every calculation. BGS 8.5 and 7.5 have no figures. CGC states none for 9.5, 8.5 or 5, and no back figure for Pristine 10 or grades 8 through 6. SGC lists nothing for 9.5, and its back column is all dashes.

Sources: PSA's grading standards page, grade 10 from the copy archived 2026-10-18 and grades 9 to 5 from the 2026-04-25 copy; Beckett's grading page as archived 2026-07-14; CGC's grading scale read live; SGC's card grading scale as archived 2026-09-10. All four were checked on 2026-10-31, and the same figures drive the lamp matrix on every tool page.

The same front reading lands differently at each company because their steps sit at different numbers. At 51/49 and 54/46 a card reaches PSA 10, BGS 9.5, CGC 10 and SGC 10. At 56/44 and 58/42 it falls to PSA 9, BGS 8, CGC 9 and SGC 9. At 62/38 it is PSA 8, BGS 7, CGC 8 and SGC 8.5.

BGS drops two steps at 56/44 because its 9 shares the 55/45 front limit with 9.5 and its 8.5 publishes no number, so the next listed step is 8 at 60/40. SGC 8.5 shares 65/35 with SGC 8, so a 62/38 card reaches the half grade. Each row has an Open in tool link that pre-fills Manual mode on the home page.

These ceilings come from the front alone. Add a back measurement and the result can fall further: a 71/29 back keeps PSA 10 and CGC 10 open but exceeds the 70/30 back Beckett lists for BGS 9, so a 53/47 front card tops out at BGS 8 on centering while still passing PSA 10.

Numbers hide how small the gaps are. On a standard card with borders adding up to 6 mm across, 55/45 is 3.3 mm against 2.7 mm and 60/40 is 3.6 mm against 2.4 mm. The overlay draws one outline at each split, so you can see 55/45 already shifted next to 50/50, while 58/42 and 60/40 sit in PSA 9 range.

That is also why eyeballing fails near a boundary. A 58/42 card, like the off-center trap specimen at 58.1/41.9, can pass a quick look in a sleeve, yet it sits 3.1 points past the PSA 10 line. Measuring to one decimal turns a judgment call into a lookup against the chart, and the 0.3 mm shift at 55/45 is the line to watch.

Back limits are looser than fronts at every company that publishes them. PSA and CGC allow 75/25 for a 10, while Beckett allows 55/45 for BGS 10, 60/40 for 9.5 and 70/30 for 9. A 71/29 back therefore passes PSA 10 and CGC 10 but limits BGS to 8. SGC states no back figure, so SGC is judged on the front.

CGC Pristine 10 also has no published back figure, so its lamp applies the 50/50 front rule and leaves the back out. Measure the back anyway: in the P10 model the back factor falls from 1 at 70/30 to 0.5 at 75/25, so a back that passes still lowers the expected value of a PSA submission.

PSA writes “approximately” for grades 10 through 7 and notes that a small variance may be allowed for eye appeal, so a 55.3 front is not an automatic 9. The tool applies the published number strictly and marks anything less than one point over as amber borderline, which shows that gray zone without pretending it away.

Where a rule is written as applying “both ways”, read it as left-right and top-bottom; the tool applies every limit to the worse of the two axes, so a 52/48 by 56/44 card is a 56/44 card. CGC publishes its grade 9 and lower figures for sports and non-sports cards. SGC gives one number per grade and never says which side it means.

Read the chart as each company's published ceiling for centering. Centering estimate only, not a grade: corners, edges and surface can pull any card below its centering ceiling, and the final call belongs to the card grader handling the slab. Use the ceiling to sort cards before you spend a $15 to $25 fee on each one.

A ceiling is only half of a submission decision. A card capped at PSA 9 can still pay: the vintage specimen at 56/44, raw $150 with a $260 PSA 9, nets +$91.00 after a $19 fee. A card capped at 9 with a $45 PSA 9 and a $44 raw price, like the trap specimen, loses $18.00 instead.

The PSA 10 centering calculator runs that math for front and back together, the BGS calculator checks the 50/50 tiers to 0.1%, and the borderless guide covers fronts with no printed frame. All of them read the same data file as this chart.