What Is PSA Grading?

PSA is a third-party authentication and grading company founded in July 1991 by David Hall, who also founded the coin grader PCGS — a sister brand that grades coins, not cards, despite the name similarity. PSA introduced the 1-10 numeric grading scale that became the industry standard, and by the late 1990s it controlled the large majority of the sports card grading market. The company operated under parent Collectors Universe until February 2021, when a group led by Nat Turner took it private as Collectors Holdings; PSA is headquartered in Santa Ana, California. See how grading actually works for what centering, corners, edges, and surface mean generally — this guide covers PSA specifically.

• Scale— 1 (Poor) to 10 (Gem Mint), plus an Authentic designation (no numeric grade) for cards that are altered, trimmed, recolored, or otherwise disqualified from a numeric grade but still verified genuine.
• Label— a single overall grade only, no sub-grade breakdown by default. The red-label PSA holder is widely recognized on sight, which is a large part of why PSA slabs are easy to resell.
• No half-point gradeson the standard label — unlike BGS, SGC, CGC, and most newer graders, PSA's main scale moves in whole numbers only.
• Every graded card gets a certification number you can look up on PSA's website to confirm the grade and card details, and most cards feed into PSA's public population report— the count of every card ever graded at each grade level. See how to read print runs and population reports for how to use that data.
• A grade can also carry a qualifier— a letter code like (OC) or (ST) — when one specific defect, not overall condition, is capping the number. See What Is a PSA Qualifier Grade? for what each code means and why it trades below an unqualified grade at the same number.

PSA prices submissions in tiers by card value and turnaround speed, from a slow bulk/value tier priced per card, up through faster Regular and Express tiers, to a same-week Super Express/White Glove tier that costs far more per card. PSA periodically changes tier names, pricing, and card-value caps, so check PSA's site directly for current tiers before submitting. See how to submit cards for grading for the general submission process and fee math.

• PSA/DNAis PSA's separate autograph authentication service — a different process from grading a raw card's condition. See PSA/DNA vs JSA vs Beckett for how the major autograph authenticators compare.
• The PSA Set Registryis PSA's free leaderboard for collectors building complete graded sets, ranked by grade. See What Is the PSA Set Registry? for how it works and why some collectors chase it specifically.

1. Check sold comps for that exact card in a PSA holder first.For most modern and vintage cards, PSA carries the deepest buyer pool and the highest resale premium of any grader — but that premium isn't universal, so confirm it for your specific card.
2. Weigh turnaround against price. The cheapest bulk tier can take months; if you need cards back quickly for a sale, a faster (pricier) tier or a different grader may make more sense.
3. Compare against the alternatives in PSA vs BGS vs SGC vs CSG — BGS's sub-grades and Black Label, SGC's strength on vintage, and the newer, cheaper entrants all trade off differently by card type.

Confirm the exact card with Identify & Research — free-path first (on-device OCR, catalog match, and fingerprints). For the full comparison against the other major graders see PSA vs BGS vs SGC vs CSG: Which Grading Company Should You Use?, for PSA's collector leaderboard see What Is the PSA Set Registry?, for autograph-specific authentication see PSA/DNA vs JSA vs Beckett, for the company that owns PSA — and, since 2024 and 2025, SGC and BGS too — see What Is Collectors (Collectors Holdings)?, for newer computer-vision and sensor-based alternatives see What Is TAG Grading? and What Is HGA Grading?, for what the grade itself measures see How to Grade Sports Cards, and for the submission process and fee math see How to Submit Cards for Grading.