There is no clean CGC 9.5 vs PSA 9 sale pair to show you: our price research found no Goldin sale of a current-scale CGC Mint+ 9.5 alongside a PSA 9 of the same card. What the data does show is that a CGC 9.5 lines up with PSA 9 on population percentile for most of the cards we checked, that it sold well below a CGC Gem Mint 10 on the one CGC price ladder we have, and that any CGC slab reading Gem Mint 9.5 from before July 11, 2023 is a different grade altogether.
As of October 23, 2026: we checked Goldin lot pages; Heritage and PSA’s own price archive were blocked to us, so a pair may exist elsewhere. We will not invent one. Prices below are all-in Goldin figures including the buyer’s premium, and every ratio is our own arithmetic.
Why the CGC 9.5 vs PSA 9 comparison is hard to pin down
Three things make this pair awkward even before you look for sales.
- PSA has no 9.5. PSA’s half grades stop below its top: “between PSA 2 and PSA 9, may achieve a half-point increase.” So a CGC 9.5 has no PSA twin. A crossover of one lands at PSA 9, PSA 10 or lower.
- CGC’s 9.5 has no centering number for Pokemon. CGC defines it in words: “Mint+ 9.5 A Mint+ 9.5 is a card that displays premium eye appeal for a Mint card.” CGC publishes centering numbers for its sub-10 grades on sports and non-sports cards but not for Pokemon, so a 9.5 here is judged on described defects. PSA 9, by contrast, allows “approximately 60/40 or better on the front and 90/10 or better on the reverse.”
- Two different things have been called a CGC 9.5. Before the 2023 scale change, CGC’s Gem Mint 9.5 was its standard gem grade. After it, 9.5 means Mint+, one step below Gem Mint 10. Mixing those up wrecks any price comparison.
The 2023 relabel: old Gem Mint 9.5s are 10s now
When CGC merged its trading card grading with CSG, it said plainly that “Cards previously graded Gem Mint 9.5 are exactly equivalent to Gem Mint 10 under the updated grading scale”, with the new services and scale “effective July 11, 2023”. A follow-up notice added that “All cards submitted for ReHolder with a Gem Mint 9.5 grade automatically convert to the CGC Cards Gem Mint 10 grade.”
So the $36,600 Thin Stamp 1st Edition Charizard that Goldin sold in a CGC Gem Mint 9.5 holder (auction ending 10/06/22) is not evidence about today’s 9.5 at all. It is a Gem Mint 10 by CGC’s own equivalence. In the same notice CGC promoted a reholdered Shadowless Charizard Gem Mint 10 that “realized an incredible $37,700 on July 23.” That is CGC’s own marketing of the relabel, not an independent price study, and we treat it that way.
The practical rule when pricing a CGC 9.5: read the label wording and check the era. Gem Mint 9.5 on an older holder belongs in the CGC 10 comps; Mint+ 9.5 is the grade this page is about.
The one CGC label ladder in our data
The closest thing to a CGC 9.5 price anchor is a 2025 Japanese card, Mega Charizard X ex (#223, Mega Dream ex), which sold at Goldin in three CGC labels. No PSA sale of it was captured, so this is a ladder within CGC only.
| Grade on the CGC label | Goldin auction end | Buyer paid | Compared with the Gem Mint 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mint+ 9.5 | 9/27/26 | $55 | 58.5% |
| Gem Mint 10 | 9/27/26 | $94 | the baseline |
| Pristine 10, first lot | 6/21/26 | $149 | 158.5% |
| Pristine 10, second lot | 6/21/26 | $171 | 181.9% |
Winning bids for the same four lots were $36, $75, $122 and $140; the percentages are our arithmetic on the paid prices.
On the same September evening the Mint+ 9.5 brought 58.5% of the Gem Mint 10’s all-in price, or 48.0% on winning bids. The gap between those two ratios is the buyer’s premium at work: Goldin lists “Buyer’s Premium 22% ($19 min)”, and on a $36 winning bid the $19 floor, not the 22%, sets the premium. On cheap slabs, compare winning bids.
That ladder tells you how CGC labels price against each other on one card. It tells you nothing direct about a PSA 9, which is the honest limit of this data.
Bracketing sales: where a CGC 9.5 would have to sit
On two cards we can at least see a PSA 9 next to the CGC grades either side of 9.5.
- Van Gogh Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat. In one Goldin auction ending 3/06/25, the promo sold at $275 in CGC Mint 9 and $580 in CGC Gem Mint 10. A PSA 9 sold for $421 on 8/02/25. The CGC 9 brought 65.3% of the PSA 9 and the CGC 10 brought 137.8%. A CGC Mint+ 9.5 would sit somewhere between the two CGC prices, which puts the PSA 9 inside its likely range, but there is no 9.5 sale to say where.
- Base Set Unlimited Charizard. Goldin’s auction ending 2/15/26 had the card at $4,964 in a CGC Gem Mint 10 holder and $2,480 in a PSA 9 holder. No CGC 9 or 9.5 Unlimited Charizard sale was captured, so the lower end of the bracket is missing.
A bracket is not a price. It only narrows where a CGC 9.5 sale would have to land if it followed the pattern of the grades around it, and five months separate the Pikachu sales.
Population bands: on most cards, CGC 9.5 lines up with PSA 9
The population reports give a better-grounded comparison than prices here, because CGC’s 9.5 counts are large on modern cards. The method: rank each company’s numerically graded copies from best to worst, find the slice that CGC 9.5s occupy, and see which PSA grade fills the same slice. The result is our estimate, not a crossover rate, and it assumes both companies grade similar mixes of cards, which they do not.
| Card | CGC 9.5 slice of CGC’s graded copies | PSA 10 reaches | PSA 9 or better reaches | Which PSA grade fills the CGC 9.5 slice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Base Set Unlimited Charizard | 2.0% to 3.0% | 0.5% | 9.5% | PSA 9 |
| Base Set Unlimited Mewtwo | 2.4% to 3.6% | 2.6% | 22.0% | Mostly PSA 9; 18.0% of the slice at PSA 10 |
| 151 Charizard ex #199 | 34.5% to 48.5% | 32.9% | 80.6% | PSA 9 |
| Van Gogh Pikachu #085 | 53.4% to 68.3% | 44.9% | 90.7% | PSA 9 |
| Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX #215 | 55.9% to 60.0% | 72.5% | not needed | PSA 10 |
CGC slices come from the live CGC reports read October 23, 2026 (for example Base Set Unlimited, Scarlet & Violet 151, the SVP promos and Evolving Skies); PSA columns come from archived PSA pages dated between April 2025 and March 2026, such as the Pikachu population columns. Authentic-only slabs are excluded. The figures are our arithmetic on those counts.
Four of the five cards put the CGC 9.5 slice in PSA 9 territory. The Umbreon is the exception: PSA gives 10s to so much of its population on that card that the CGC 9.5 slice falls inside PSA 10. Population-wise, then, a CGC 9.5 is usually comparable to a PSA 9, and the two might be expected to trade in a similar range. Expected is not observed, and we have no sale to confirm it.
A 9.5 from a different grader matched a PSA 9 exactly
One more adjacent data point, with a big caveat. Goldin sold an Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX #215 in a BGS Gem Mint 9.5 for $2,257 on 10/18/26, and back on 6/28/26 its PSA 9 had made exactly that figure too. Identical to the dollar, four months apart.
That is a Beckett slab, not a CGC one, and Beckett’s 9.5 is a gem grade with its own centering rule: “50/50 one way, 55/45 the other on front.” It says nothing reliable about a CGC Mint+ 9.5. We include it because collectors often lump every 9.5 together, and this pair shows why grade numbers alone do not set prices.
What this means for a CGC 9.5 owner
If you own a CGC Mint+ 9.5 and want a number, the evidence supports a modest set of steps rather than a formula.
- Search sold listings for the exact card in CGC 9.5 first. Our Goldin search found almost none, but other venues may have some.
- Bracket it. Use CGC 9 and CGC 10 sales of the same card from the same weeks. A 9.5 should not sell outside them for long.
- Check the PSA 9 against that bracket. On the Pikachu promo, the PSA 9 sat inside the CGC 9 to CGC 10 range; on a card where the population maps CGC 9.5 to PSA 9, that is the expected shape.
- Ignore old Gem Mint 9.5 sales for this purpose; they are Gem Mint 10 comps.
Crossing a CGC 9.5 to PSA is the other route, and whether PSA 9 or PSA 10 is the realistic target depends on the card, as the table above suggests. The odds and fees are worked out in our pages on CGC 9.5 to PSA 9 and CGC 9.5 to PSA 10. The grade-by-grade scale comparison is in CGC vs PSA grading scale, and centering, the factor that most often separates a 9 from a 10, gets its own treatment in the hidden risk behind card centering. Every crossover guide is listed on the crossover grading hub.
What is missing from this comparison
We would rather list the gaps than paper over them. No Goldin sale of a current CGC Mint+ 9.5 turned up for any card that also had a PSA 9 sale in our research, and the one Base Set Charizard CGC 9.5 lot our price research turned up was an error variant, so it was left out. Heritage lot pages and PSA’s own auction-price archive could not be read when we checked. CGC 9 sales are missing for the 151 Charizard ex and the Umbreon, which leaves those brackets open at the bottom. And the PSA population columns are archive snapshots up to a year and a half older than the CGC counts. When a clean pair appears, it will tell you more than every estimate on this page; until then, the CGC 10 end of the ladder is covered in CGC 10 vs PSA 9 price.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does a CGC 9.5 sell for more than a PSA 9?
Nobody can say from sales yet, because no matching pair turned up in our research. On population percentile a CGC 9.5 usually lines up with PSA 9, and on the Van Gogh Pikachu a PSA 9 sold between the CGC 9 and CGC 10 prices, but no CGC Mint+ 9.5 sale of the same card was available to compare.
Does a CGC 9.5 equal a PSA 10?
Not on the current CGC scale. Today a CGC 9.5 is Mint+, one step below Gem Mint 10. Only older CGC slabs labelled Gem Mint 9.5, graded before the July 2023 scale change, count as Gem Mint 10.
Does PSA have a 9.5 grade?
No. PSA half-point grades run from 2 up through 9, so the step above a PSA 9 is a PSA 10.
What did an old CGC Gem Mint 9.5 become?
A Gem Mint 10. CGC stated in 2023 that cards previously graded Gem Mint 9.5 are equivalent to Gem Mint 10, and Gem Mint 9.5 slabs sent for reholder convert to Gem Mint 10 labels.
How much less is a CGC 9.5 than a CGC 10?
On the one ladder we have, a Japanese Mega Charizard X ex, a CGC Mint+ 9.5 sold for 58.5% of a CGC Gem Mint 10 all-in, or 48.0% on winning bids, in the same Goldin auction. One card is not a rule.
Will a CGC 9.5 cross over to PSA 10?
No grader publishes crossover rates. By our population-percentile estimate, a CGC 9.5 maps to PSA 9 on most cards checked and to PSA 10 on the Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX, so it depends on the card.
Sources
- CGC Cards grading scale — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- PSA grading standards — PSA, read October 23, 2026
- CGC Trading Cards and CSG merge as CGC Cards — CGC Cards, 2023, read October 23, 2026
- CGC Cards launch — CGC Cards, 2023, read October 23, 2026
- CGC Cards website updates complete — CGC Cards, 2023, read October 23, 2026
- Beckett grading scale — Beckett, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine copy from May 2026
- 2025 Pokemon Japanese Mega Evolution Mega Dream ex Mega Attack Rare #223 Mega Charizard X ex – CGC PRISTINE 10 — Goldin (lot page), auction ending 6/21/26, read October 23, 2026
- 2025 Pokemon Japanese Mega Evolution Mega Dream ex Mega Attack Rare #223 Mega Charizard X ex – CGC PRISTINE 10 — Goldin (lot page), auction ending 6/21/26, read October 23, 2026
- 2025 Pokemon Japanese Mega Evolution Mega Dream ex Mega Attack Rare #223 Mega Charizard X ex – CGC GEM MINT 10 — Goldin (lot page), auction ending 9/27/26, read October 23, 2026
- 2025 Pokemon Japanese Mega Evolution Mega Dream ex Mega Attack Rare #223 Mega Charizard X ex – CGC MINT+ 9.5 — Goldin (lot page), auction ending 9/27/26, read October 23, 2026
- 2023 Pokemon SVP EN Black Star Promo Pokemon X Van Gogh #085 Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat – CGC GEM MINT 10 — Goldin (lot page), auction ending 3/06/25, read October 23, 2026
- 2023 Pokemon SVP EN Black Star Promo Pokemon X Van Gogh #085 Pikachu with Grey Felt Hat – CGC MINT 9 — Goldin (lot page), auction ending 3/06/25, read October 23, 2026
- 2023 Pokemon Scarlet & Violet Promo Pokemon x Van Gogh #85 Pikachu With Grey Felt Hat – PSA MINT 9 — Goldin (lot page), auction ending 8/02/25, read October 23, 2026
- 1999 Pokemon Base Set Holo #4 Charizard – CGC GEM MINT 10 — Goldin (lot page), auction ending 2/15/26, read October 23, 2026
- 1999 Pokemon Base Set Holo #4 Charizard – PSA MINT 9 — Goldin (lot page), auction ending 2/15/26, read October 23, 2026
- 2021 Pokemon Sword & Shield Evolving Skies Alternate Art SCR #215 Umbreon VMAX – BGS GEM MINT 9.5 — Goldin (lot page), auction ending 10/18/26, read October 23, 2026
- 2021 Pokemon Swish Evolving Skies-Secret Full Art #215 Umbreon Vmax – PSA MT 9 — Goldin (lot page), auction ending 6/28/26, read October 23, 2026
- 1999 Pokemon Base 1st Edition Thin Stamp Rare Holofoil #4 Charizard – CGC GEM MINT 9.5 – Pop 5 — Goldin (lot page), auction ending 10/06/22, read October 23, 2026
- About Goldin (buyer’s premium table) — Goldin, undated page, read October 23, 2026
- CGC Cards Population Report: Base Set Unlimited — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- PSA Auction Prices Realized: 1999 Pokemon Game Charizard-Holo (population columns) — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine copy from March 2026
- PSA CardFacts: 1999 Nintendo Pokemon Game Mewtwo-Holo (population columns) — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine copy from June 2025
- CGC Cards Population Report: Evolving Skies — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- PSA Auction Prices Realized: Full Art / Umbreon Vmax #215 (population columns) — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine copy from June 2025
- CGC Cards Population Report: Scarlet & Violet 151 — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- PSA Auction Prices Realized: Charizard Ex #199 (population columns) — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine copy from April 2025
- CGC Cards Population Report: Scarlet & Violet Black Star Promos — CGC Cards, read October 23, 2026
- PSA Auction Prices Realized: Pikachu With Grey Felt Hat (population columns) — PSA, archived by the Internet Archive, Wayback Machine copy from January 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.