Grading Preparation
What graders look for, and how to prepare and pack a submission that survives the courier.
Grading rewards preparation, not optimism. Centering, surface, edges and corners are assessed independently, and a card that fails on one of the four caps the whole grade — so check all four before paying for a slot.
Handle a submission candidate by its edges under a bright, angled light. Surface scratches and print lines are invisible under flat overhead lighting and obvious at 30 degrees.
Use a penny sleeve and a semi-rigid holder, in that order, and never a toploader. Graders reject toploadered submissions, and forcing a card into a semi-rigid without the sleeve is the most common source of self-inflicted corner damage.
Pack the holders back-to-back in a snug stack, tape the stack shut without tape touching a card, then box it with at least an inch of fill on every side. A submission that rattles has already lost the grade it arrived with.
