# Midpoint - Card Centering Tool — full content reference > Midpoint - Card Centering Tool measures trading-card centering down to the millimeter and returns instant PSA, BGS, CGC, and TAG grade estimates. Built for collectors and resellers who want to know whether a card is worth grading before they pay the $25–50 submission fee. Available as a web app and as a free native mobile app for iPhone (App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/midpoint-card-centering-tool/id6772761539) and Android (Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kolourr.cardcenteringtool), with one account and saved cards synced across all of them. Works on Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, sports cards, and any standard 63×88mm trading card. This file inlines the full text of every public page so LLM-based agents can answer detailed questions about grading standards without crawling the live site. --- ## How analysis works Every measurement runs the same pipeline — there is no longer a "Basic" vs "AI" choice. Pricing is a flat subscription (weekly or semi-annual) for unlimited analyses, with 2 free analyses on signup. Existing users who bought legacy credit packs in the older pricing model keep using those credits before any paywall appears. The pipeline: 1. Custom ML detection — the trained model finds the four outer card corners and the four inner print-frame corners in under a second. 2. AI cleanup — background removed, card automatically straightened on a clean canvas, ready for a listing photo. 3. Surface scan — edges, corners, print, holo, mis-registration; flagged at NONE / MINOR / MAJOR. 4. Card name auto-fill — the vision model reads the card name and set straight off the photo. 5. Drag-to-align editor — eight edge handles (four outer, four inner) for fine-tuning on every card; pinch-zoom + rotate available on mobile and web. Bulk upload: drop a folder of card photos and every card runs the same pipeline in sequence, in the background. Paired front/back matching by filename is supported. Best for: collectors, resellers, store owners, anyone deciding whether to pay the $25–50 grading submission fee. --- ## Grading standards ### PSA — Professional Sports Authenticator PSA is the largest grader by volume. They use a 1–10 grade with no published subgrades. The final grade equals the worst-scoring attribute (centering, corners, edges, surface). Front centering tolerances (worst-axis max): - PSA 10 (Gem Mint): 55/45 - PSA 9 (Mint): 60/40 - PSA 8 (NM-Mint): 65/35 - PSA 7 (Near Mint): 70/30 - PSA 6 (Excellent-Mint): 75/25 - PSA 5 (Excellent): 80/20 Back centering tolerances (looser): - PSA 10: 75/25 - PSA 9 / 8 / 7: 90/10 A 55/45 measurement on a 63×88mm Pokemon card with ~3mm borders means the wider border is ~1.65mm and the narrower is ~1.35mm — a 0.3mm difference, visible if you know to look. The PSA 10 vs PSA 9 gap is the most expensive in card grading; a vintage card often trades 3–10× higher as a 10 than as a 9. ### BGS — Beckett Grading Services BGS publishes four subgrades on every slab (Centering, Corners, Edges, Surface) on a 1–10 scale. The final grade is the lowest subgrade rounded per Beckett's published rules. Front centering tolerances: - BGS Pristine 10 (Black Label): 50/50 - BGS Gem Mint 10: 55/45 - BGS 9.5: 60/40 - BGS 9: 65/35 - BGS 8.5: 70/30 - BGS 8: 75/25 The "Black Label" requires all four subgrades to equal 10. Statistically fewer than 1 in 200 modern packs produce a Black Label candidate — centering is usually the blocker because Pristine demands exactly 50/50. ### CGC — Certified Guaranty Company CGC tolerances are essentially identical to PSA's, with one important addition: a separate Pristine 10 tier above the standard Gem Mint 10. Pristine requires near-perfect 50/50 centering plus all other attributes perfect. Front centering tolerances: - CGC Pristine 10: 50/50 - CGC Gem Mint 10: 55/45 - CGC 9.5: 60/40 - CGC 9: 65/35 CGC vs PSA: same grade ~95% of the time on typical cards. CGC turnaround is faster (4–6 weeks vs PSA's 6–10) and CGC is more forgiving on holo glare in borderline 9-vs-10 calls. PSA still commands a higher market premium on popular cards. ### TAG — Technical Authentication & Grading TAG uses computer vision plus machine learning to grade cards on a 1–1000 numeric scale, mapped to letter grades. They publish actual measured centering values on every slab. Numeric → letter mapping with front centering tolerance: - 950–1000 (Pristine 10): ~53/47 - 900–949 (10): ~55/45 - 850–899 (9.5): ~58/42 - 800–849 (9): ~62/38 - 700–799 (8): ~68/32 - 600–699 (7): ~74/26 TAG's algorithm accounts for era-specific print variance, so vintage cards (pre-1999 Pokemon, 1989-era sports) often score one full grade higher at TAG than at PSA. Drawback: TAG is unforgiving on holo micro-scratches that human graders would let slide, and PSA 10s still trade higher than TAG 10s in the current market. --- ## Guides ### What is card centering? Centering is the ratio of border width between opposite sides of a trading card's printed frame. A perfectly centered card has equal border on left/right (50/50) and top/bottom (50/50). A 60/40 card has 60% of total border width on one side and 40% on the other. Centering is the only one of the four grading attributes (corners, edges, surface, centering) that's purely binary against a published threshold. A card with otherwise-perfect corners, edges, and surface gets capped at a lower grade if centering exceeds the next tier's threshold. Grade caps for PSA: past 55/45 = max PSA 9; past 60/40 = max PSA 8; past 65/35 = max PSA 7; past 70/30 = max PSA 6. A pack-fresh card with 65/35 centering is a PSA 7, not a 9 or 10 — even with perfect corners. The human visual system makes objects look more symmetric than they are. A 56/44 card looks centered without a ruler. By the time a card looks obviously off, it's usually past 60/40. That's why measuring is the single highest-leverage thing you can do with a grading budget. ### How to photograph a card for accurate centering Five rules: 1. **Flat surface, neutral background.** Phone camera, card on a desk or dark mat. Card must lie completely flat (no curl, sleeve, or bend). 2. **Shoot straight down.** Phone parallel to the card, lens directly above center. Tilting by 5° introduces perspective distortion that biases the measurement by 1–2%. 3. **Even, diffuse light.** Avoid direct sunlight or single point sources. Window light bounced off a wall or overhead room light works well. 4. **Fill the frame.** Card should fill at least 70% of the photo width. More pixels per millimeter = more accurate measurement. Don't digitally zoom — move the phone closer. 5. **Tap to focus on the card.** Sharp card edges are critical for both auto-detection and manual handle alignment. Four things that ruin measurement: card-in-sleeve (adds 0.5–1mm phantom border), glare on the print frame (shifts auto-detected edges), bent/curled cards (breaks the geometric model), and heavy crop/digital zoom (noisier edges). ### Should I send this card to be graded? The grading decision is a math problem. You pay a fixed cost (grading fee + shipping + insurance) for an uncertain outcome (the grade you get back). Positive-EV when: P(10) × (10-price − raw-price) > cost × certainty-factor. Decision table for modern Pokemon and sports cards: - 50/50 to 55/45 + clean condition: SEND. Strong 10 candidate at any grader. - 55/45 to 60/40 + clean: SEND. Solid 9 floor, 10 possible. - 60/40 to 65/35 + clean: BORDERLINE. Cap is PSA 9; consider TAG for a 9.5 shot on vintage. - 65/35 or worse: SKIP. Centering caps you at 8 or below. Sell raw. - Any centering + visible corner wear or edge whitening: SKIP. Caps at 7-8 regardless. Grader matching: PSA for default popular cards and vintage Pokemon (highest premium on 10s, slowest turnaround). BGS when you want subgrades on the slab — especially for Black Label attempts. CGC for faster turnaround on less-popular sets. TAG for borderline-centered vintage where the AI is more forgiving on era-specific print drift. Common mistakes: sending bulk to PSA Economy (prices can move against you during the long queue); sending obviously off-center cards hoping for a 10; not photographing the card before shipping (you need pre-grade evidence in case the slab returns damaged). --- ## Reference - Main site: https://www.cardcenteringtool.com - Sitemap: https://www.cardcenteringtool.com/sitemap.xml - Blog: https://blog.cardcenteringtool.com (separate subdomain, separate sitemap at /sitemap.xml) - Contact: https://www.cardcenteringtool.com/contact - Privacy: https://www.cardcenteringtool.com/privacy - Terms: https://www.cardcenteringtool.com/terms - Brand disclaimer: Midpoint - Card Centering Tool is an independent project. Not affiliated with PSA, BGS, CGC, TAG, Nintendo, Creatures Inc., GAME FREAK Inc., The Pokémon Company, Wizards of the Coast, Konami, or any trading-card publisher or grading service. All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners.