A single sleeved card on a desk beside a calculator and receipt under lamplight

● GRADING · CHAPTER 07 — ROUTE 01 · DECIDE

SHOULD YOU
GRADE IT
the honest math.

Before you send a card to be graded, run the numbers. The honest break-even, how to read your own card's flaws, and when a raw card is simply worth more.

▸ THE BREAK-EVEN LEDGER

Before the grade there is a bill. Four lines decide whether a card should ever leave your desk.

THE BILL, LINE BY LINERUNNING TOTAL

$25

The grading fee

PER CARD · CHEAPEST TIER

The lowest common tier, one card. Faster turnaround and a higher declared value both cost more — often several times more.

RUNNING$25

$14

Shipping, both ways

OUT AND BACK

Tracked in each direction, packed properly. It splits kindly across a stack of twenty. On a single card it is brutal.

RUNNING$39

Insurance

DECLARED VALUE

A small percentage to cover the card in transit, on both legs of the trip. Skipping it is how people lose the card and the fee at once.

RUNNING$43

Days of waiting

TYPICAL, NEVER PROMISED

Not money, but a cost all the same. The market keeps moving while your card sits in a queue, and you cannot sell what you cannot hold.

RUNNING$43 + 45 DAYS

$43

Cost in, before a grade exists

+ 45 DAYS

That is what you have spent before anyone has even looked at the card. You still do not know the number that will end up on the label.

RUNNING$43 TOTAL

A card held up to the light while the sums are still on the desk

×3

The multiple a grade has to beat

A slab has to add more than the bill, not just more than nothing. A card near the bottom of the scale has to roughly triple in value just to break even. Cards already worth hundreds clear that easily. Most cards never will.

THE MULTIPLE A GRADE MUST CLEAR, AGAINST THE $43 BILL

UNDER THE LINEWhere nearly every card you own actually sits. The bill eats the gain, and the card is worth more raw — sleeved, readable, in your hands. OVER THE LINEFew cards, real money. Here a grade pays for itself and then some, which is exactly why grading looks so profitable from the outside.

Every figure above moves with the grader, the tier, and the week you send. Run it with your own numbers and the answer usually arrives before you finish. The three steps below are that arithmetic, slowed down.

SHOULD YOU
GRADE IT
the honest math.

Before the grade there is a bill. Four lines decide whether a card should ever leave your desk.

The grading fee

Shipping, both ways

Insurance

Days of waiting

Cost in, before a grade exists

The multiple a grade has to beat

Three steps to a decision.

Run the Break-Even.

Read the Card Honestly.

When Raw Wins.

The whole decision

SHOULD YOUGRADE ITthe honest math.

Before the grade there is a bill. Four lines decide whether a card should ever leave your desk.

The grading fee

Shipping, both ways

Insurance

Days of waiting

Cost in, before a grade exists

The multiple a grade has to beat

Three steps to a decision.

Run the Break-Even.

Read the Card Honestly.

When Raw Wins.

The whole decision

SHOULD YOU
GRADE IT
the honest math.