How we score a re-grade
Every listing gets a 0–100 confidence score — our estimate of how likely the card is to grade Gem Mint if cracked out and resubmitted. We only show cards that score 70 or higher; anything below that is filtered out automatically.
| Score | Label | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 88–100 | CONTENDER | Strong odds of Gem Mint — the clearest plays |
| 70–87 | MAYBE | Worth a look, but there's real risk |
| Below 70 | (hidden) | Not shown — too risky to surface |
The score starts at 100 (93 for limited-data cards — see below) and loses points for anything a Gem Mint grade can't have: off-center printing, corner wear, edge wear, and surface flaws. The worse the defect, the more it costs.
Two levels of detail
Not every grading company gives us the same amount of data, so not every card is scored with the same visibility:
- Full analysis A complete defect report: front and back centering, plus a count of dings on the corners, edges, and surface. Centering on the front matters most; a slightly off-center back is tolerated far more than an off-center front. Centering is strict: a front worse than 56/44 or a back worse than 76/24 is an automatic disqualifier — no Gem Mint grade survives it, so we don't show the card at all.
- Rear-corner scan only (more data sources coming soon) For some grading companies we currently only have a corner-damage scan, with no centering data at all. Since that's a meaningfully smaller picture of the card's condition, these cards start from 93, not 100 — even a perfectly clean corner scan can't earn a top score without knowing the centering.
Every card shows which of the two it got, right on the listing.
The slab's own grade counts
We also weigh the grade already on the slab. A card the grading company judged an 8 or a 7 has already been marked down for something, so the same defect costs more the lower the grade. For full-analysis cards the ding penalties scale up smoothly with each half-grade below a 9 — but a clean, well-centered lower-grade card can still earn a top score, because there the measurements speak for themselves. For rear-corner-scan cards, where we can't see most of the card, the grade weighs heavier: any slab below a 9 is capped out of the CONTENDER band entirely (an 8 or 8.5 can show at most 87; a 7 or lower at most 80).
We also apply a reality check on the payout: if a sub-9 slab shows a huge gap between its asking price and the Gem Mint comp, that gap itself is a warning — the market has looked at the card and priced it as unlikely to cross. The bigger the spread and the lower the grade, the more points it costs. A modest-upside 7 can still surface as a MAYBE; a "too good to be true" one won't.
What you'll see on a listing
- Score ring — the 0–100 number and Contender/Maybe label.
- "Full analysis" or "Rear-corner scan only" — how much of the card was actually checked.
- Centering flag — centering 🫤 (borderline) or baka centering (clearly off) when centering is a concern.
- Ding/dent count — how many flaws were found, when any exist.