The CGC vs PSA grading scale difference comes down to the top end. Both run from 1 to 10, and at 10 both cap centering at about 55/45 on the front and 75/25 on the back. Above and around that, they split: CGC has a Pristine 10 above its Gem Mint 10, a retired Perfect 10, and a Mint+ 9.5; PSA has a single Gem Mint 10 and no 9.5 at all. No company publishes an official CGC-to-PSA conversion, and the population data below shows why one fixed chart would mislead: where a CGC grade ranks on PSA’s scale changes from card to card.
As of October 23, 2026: PSA’s standards give half-point grades only between PSA 2 and PSA 9. CGC’s scale has carried its current labels since July 11, 2023, when an old Gem Mint 9.5 became today’s Gem Mint 10.
CGC vs PSA grading scale: the labels side by side
This table pairs each grade by its number and name. It is a naming map, not a statement that the grades are interchangeable; that comes later.
| Number | CGC Cards label | PSA label | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 (top) | Pristine 10 | none | CGC’s top label; 50/50 centering |
| 10 (retired) | Perfect 10 | none | no longer assigned; still counted in CGC’s population report |
| 10 | Gem Mint 10 | Gem Mint 10 (GEM-MT) | same centering limits at both |
| 9.5 | Mint+ 9.5 | none | PSA has no 9.5 |
| 9 | Mint 9 | Mint 9 (MINT) | |
| 8.5 | NM/Mint+ 8.5 | 8.5 (half point) | PSA half grades are given sparingly |
| 8 | NM/Mint 8 | NM-MT 8 | |
| 7.5 | Near Mint+ 7.5 | 7.5 (half point) | |
| 7 | Near Mint 7 | NM 7 |
The two blank PSA cells are where most confusion starts. A CGC Mint+ 9.5 has nowhere to land on PSA’s scale except 10 or 9, which is why we gave it its own page: CGC 9.5 to PSA 10. And CGC’s Pristine 10 has no PSA counterpart at all.
Centering limits, grade by grade, for five graders
Centering is the only part of the standards written as numbers, so it is the only part that can be compared exactly. Front centering first, with the back limit in brackets where the company gives one.
| Grade | PSA | CGC | Beckett (BGS) | SGC | TAG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Above 10 | no grade | Pristine 10: 50/50 | Pristine 10: 50/50 (back 60/40) | 10 Pristine: 50/50 | Pristine: 51/49 or better |
| 10 | 55/45 (75/25) | Gem Mint 10: 55/45 (75/25) | no plain 10 | 10 Gem Mint: 55/45 | not published |
| 9.5 | no grade | Mint+ 9.5: no number | Gem Mint 9.5: one direction 50/50, the other 55/45 (back 60/40) | 9.5: no number | no grade |
| 9 | 60/40 (90/10) | 60/40 (90/10), sports and non-sports only | 55/45 (70/30) | 60/40 | not published |
| 8.5 | no number | no number | no number | 65/35 | not published |
| 8 | 65/35 (90/10) | 65/35, sports and non-sports only | 60/40 (80/20) | 65/35 | not published |
Three details in that table matter for Pokemon. First, CGC’s numbers below 10 apply to sports and non-sports cards; for trading card games it describes defects instead, for example its Mint 9: “For TCG cards, cards will have only a few minor manufacturing or handling defects.” So for a Pokemon card, CGC and PSA can only be matched number for number at the 10 level. Second, Beckett’s 9 is tighter on the front (55/45) than PSA’s or CGC’s 9 (60/40), so “which grader is harder” has no single answer even on centering. Third, PSA lets graders bend its limits slightly: “At the grader’s sole discretion, a small variance may be permitted on occasion based on the card’s overall eye appeal.”
The Beckett figures come from a Wayback Machine copy of its scale page dated May 2026, since its live site blocked our reader. For a broader look at how each company grades, see our PSA grading guide.
Half grades: who gives them, and where
- PSA gives half points only in the middle of its scale: “Cards that exhibit high-end qualities within each particular grade, between PSA 2 and PSA 9, may achieve a half-point increase.” There is no PSA 9.5. In practice PSA half grades are rare on Pokemon; on Unlimited Charizard the archived population implies a few hundred PSA 8.5s against more than eight thousand PSA 9s.
- CGC uses halves all the way up, including Mint+ 9.5.
- Beckett says it “provides final grades in half-point increments”, and its 9.5 is called Gem Mint.
- SGC has a 9.5 and halves below it.
- TAG skips only one: “Half points are included on every grade level except for between 9 and 10.”
The same number therefore means different things. A 9.5 is the second-highest Beckett grade, a step under CGC’s two 10s, and does not exist at PSA or TAG. Beckett’s 9.5 and its subgrades are covered in BGS 9.5 to PSA 10.
The three kinds of CGC 10
When someone says a card is a CGC 10, ask which one. CGC’s own launch line describes its scale as “topped by a Gem Mint 10 and, for the best of the best, a Pristine 10.”
- Pristine 10. “A Pristine 10 is a virtually flawless card to the naked eye. The centering is 50/50”. It gets its own label. Its crossover case is on CGC Pristine 10 to PSA 10.
- Gem Mint 10. A 10 that misses one Pristine requirement, with PSA’s centering limits.
- Perfect 10. Retired. CGC’s merger notice said “The Perfect 10 grade, which was seldom used, will no longer be assigned.” Existing slabs keep the status.
On top of those, there is the label history. Slabs from before July 2023 carry Gem Mint 9.5 on the label for what is now a Gem Mint 10; CGC says “Cards previously graded Gem Mint 9.5 are exactly equivalent to Gem Mint 10 under the updated grading scale”. CGC’s population report already counts those older slabs under the current labels.
The split matters on modern cards. On Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX 215, CGC had 35 Perfect 10s, 422 Pristine 10s and 1,286 Gem Mint 10s on October 23, 2026: 1,743 slabs at some kind of 10, or 55.9% of 3,120 numerically graded copies.
Beckett subgrades and TAG scores
Two graders add another layer. Beckett grades four areas and derives the overall grade from them, and the overall is “not a simple average of the four report card grades”; in Beckett’s words, “the lowest grade is the most heavily weighted in determining the overall grade.” TAG attaches a score out of 1,000 to every grade. On its scale a Gem Mint 10 covers scores of 950 – 989 and a Pristine 10 covers 990 – 1000; TAG says its Pristine “represents less than 1% of the cards TAG’d.” Neither layer has a CGC or PSA counterpart.
A CGC vs PSA equivalency chart: our estimate from population ranks
Here is the equivalency chart, built as our reading of the data, not a published conversion. Card by card, we put CGC’s numeric slabs in rank order (counts read October 23, 2026), did the same with PSA’s archived counts, then asked how much of each CGC grade’s slice ranks alongside PSA 10s, and how much alongside PSA 9s or better. We chose one vintage card and one modern card because they disagree.
| CGC grade | Base Set Unlimited Charizard (PSA snapshot March 2026) | Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX 215 (PSA snapshot June 2025) |
|---|---|---|
| CGC Pristine 10 | all at PSA 10; all at PSA 9 or better | all at PSA 10; all at PSA 9 or better |
| CGC Gem Mint 10 | 22.8% at PSA 10; all at PSA 9 or better | all at PSA 10; all at PSA 9 or better |
| CGC Mint+ 9.5 | none at PSA 10; all at PSA 9 or better | all at PSA 10; all at PSA 9 or better |
| CGC Mint 9 | none at PSA 10; 94.7% at PSA 9 or better | 46.4% at PSA 10; all at PSA 9 or better |
| CGC NM/Mint+ 8.5 | none at PSA 10; none at PSA 9 or better | none at PSA 10; 81.0% at PSA 9 or better |
The difference comes from how many 10s each grader has given on each card. On Unlimited Charizard, PSA 10s are 0.5% of PSA’s 93,488 numeric slabs while CGC’s 10s of all kinds are 2.0% of its 14,779. On the Umbreon, PSA 10s are 72.5% of 23,709 against CGC’s 55.9%. So on the vintage Charizard a CGC grade tends to rank with a lower PSA number, and on the modern Umbreon with a higher one.
That is a useful test of a common collector rule of thumb, that a CGC grade comes in at or below what PSA would give the same card. On the Umbreon the population ranks agree with it; on the Charizard they point the other way. The rule depends on the card.
Why no single CGC to PSA conversion holds
- Different submitters. Collectors choose a grader for reasons of price, speed and resale, so each grader sees a different mix of copies of the same card. The mix is not measured anywhere.
- Different standards in words. Outside centering at 10, CGC and PSA describe flaws differently, and CGC gives Pokemon no centering numbers below 10.
- A rank is not a grade. The chart says where a grade sits in each population. It does not say what PSA would give one particular card; for that, only a PSA crossover or a raw submission answers.
- Dates. The PSA counts are archived snapshots, older than the CGC read.
For using the chart on your own card, read the population report for that exact card number and variant (our guide to reading a population report shows how), find where your grade sits, and compare. If you are weighing an actual crossover, PSA grades the card in its old holder and returns it if it misses your minimum grade, charging its fee either way; the grade-by-grade odds pages, starting with CGC 8.5 to PSA 9, are indexed on our crossover grading hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is CGC grading harder than PSA?
It depends on the card. At 10 the two have the same written centering limits. In the population reports, a CGC grade ranks with a lower PSA grade on Base Set Unlimited Charizard and with a higher one on Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX 215.
Does PSA have a 9.5?
No. PSA gives half points only between PSA 2 and PSA 9, so it has 8.5 but no 9.5. CGC, Beckett and SGC all have a 9.5; TAG does not.
What is the difference between CGC Pristine 10 and Gem Mint 10?
Pristine 10 needs 50/50 centering and a card that is virtually flawless; Gem Mint 10 allows up to about 55/45 and misses at least one Pristine requirement. Both are 10s, with different labels.
Does a legacy CGC Gem Mint 9.5 match a PSA 10?
An old CGC Gem Mint 9.5 label from before July 2023 counts as a CGC Gem Mint 10 today. Whether a given card would grade PSA 10 is up to PSA; the centering limits for the two 10s are the same.
Is there an official CGC to PSA conversion chart?
No. Neither company publishes one. Any chart, including ours, is a reading of population data or of the written standards, and it changes from card to card.
What centering does a CGC Mint 9 need on a Pokemon card?
Its 60/40 front figure for Mint 9 is limited to sports and non-sports cards. For trading card games it describes the grade by defects and gives no centering number.
Sources
- PSA Grading Standards — PSA, read October 23, 2026
- CGC Cards Grading Scale — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- CGC Trading Cards and CSG merge into CGC Cards — CGC Cards, 2023, read October 23, 2026
- CGC Cards launch — CGC Cards, 2023, read October 23, 2026
- CGC Cards launch (services and grading scale) — CGC Cards, 2023, read October 23, 2026
- Beckett Grading Scale — Beckett, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of May 3, 2026
- Beckett Grading FAQ — Beckett, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of March 26, 2025
- SGC Grading Scale — SGC, read October 23, 2026
- TAG Grading Scale — TAG Grading, read October 23, 2026
- How do I get a Pristine 10 grade? — TAG Grading, read October 23, 2026
- CGC Cards Population Report: Base Set Unlimited — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- CGC Cards Population Report: Evolving Skies — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- 1999 Pokemon Game Charizard-Holo #4 (Auction Prices Realized, population columns) — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of March 2, 2026
- 2021 Pokemon Evolving Skies Full Art Umbreon VMAX #215 (Auction Prices Realized, population columns) — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine capture of June 26, 2025
- Crossover Service — PSA, read October 23, 2026
No grading company publishes crossover pass rates. Any crossover odds on this page are Pokemon Pricing’s estimate, labelled as one, built from the published grading standards and population reports on the dates shown. Fees, populations and sale prices change; check the grading company’s current price list before submitting. This article is collector information, not investment advice. Pokémon and all card names are trademarks of Nintendo, Creatures Inc. and GAME FREAK inc.; Pokemon Pricing is not affiliated with them or with any grading company.