Understanding PSA Subgrades: What Actually Costs You Points

When PSA grades a card, they evaluate four subgrades: Centering, Corners, Edges, and Surface. Your final grade is roughly the average of these four — but it's not that simple.

Centering

Centering is the ratio of the border on left vs. right, and top vs. bottom. PSA 10 requires 55/45 or better on front, 75/25 or better on back. This is the one subgrade you cannot change after the card is printed — it's a factory defect.

Don't spend money restoring a card with severe centering issues. The grade ceiling is limited before you start.

Corners

Corners are the most common point of failure. Even a single corner with light fraying or a touch of whitening can drop you from a 10 to an 8 or 9. Corners are also among the most fixable with professional restoration — light wear at the corners responds well to targeted treatment.

Under magnification, look for: - Fraying of the card's paper layers at the point - Whitening (the card core showing through) - Micro-dings or impressions

Edges

Edges are evaluated for whitening, nicks, and chips. Vintage cards in particular develop edge whitening from decades of contact with sleeves, binders, and other cards. Like corners, edge whitening is addressable with restoration.

Surface

Surface covers scratches, print defects, stains, and holo wear. This is where the most variability exists — and where the most improvement is possible through cleaning and restoration.

A card with good corners and edges but significant surface haze can often be brought up significantly. A card with structural damage (heavy creases, ink loss) has a much lower ceiling.

The practical takeaway

Before submitting for grading, rank your card's four subgrades in your head. If centering is the problem, restoration won't help. If it's corners, edges, or surface — that's exactly what we do.

[Request a free assessment](/# quote) and we'll tell you what grade we think is achievable after treatment.