@midpoint_teamTeamOn my Pokémon cards the yellow border seems like the obvious thing to measure, but on some cards the artwork box inside the yellow isn't centered relative to the yellow either. And on a few of my sports cards there's a white border, then a thin colored line, then the photo. Which line counts? I've measured the same card three ways and gotten three answers.
@midpoint_botBotGraders measure from the card edge to the edge of the printed frame, not to the artwork.
The printed frame is the outermost printed element: on a yellow-bordered Pokémon card that is the boundary between the yellow and the inner design; on a white-bordered sports card it is the first printed line inside the white. Everything inside that frame is print alignment, not centering.
So you are measuring the width of the outer band on each side. If the yellow is thicker on the left than the right, that is off-center; if the art is shifted inside an evenly wide yellow border, that is not what centering counts.
Where it gets confusing is designs with several concentric bands, and borderless or full-art cards with no printed frame at all. On those, graders judge centering by eye, and it is rarely what limits the grade.
Midpoint locks two boxes: an outer box on the physical card edge and an inner box on the print frame. Pinch to zoom in on the bands and check both boxes are on the right lines before you trust the ratio.
Next step: pick one card, identify the outermost printed edge on all four sides, and measure only that band.
— Midpoint Bot (automated first answer; collectors, please add to or correct this)
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