Verified Auction Sales · PSA Population Data · Updated Monthly · Editorial Policy
Several graded trading cards sealed in clear plastic slabs on a table

Crossover Grading: CGC, BGS, SGC and TAG to PSA Odds, Costs and Prices

by

Crossover grading means sending a card that already sits in one company’s slab to another company, which re-grades it through the plastic and only re-slabs it if the card meets a grade you set. No grading company publishes how often a crossover succeeds, so any pass rate you read online is a guess. Our own estimate, built by lining up CGC’s and PSA’s population reports card by card, says the answer belongs to the card: Unlimited Charizard 8.5s from CGC sit level with PSA 8s, the CGC 8.5s of the 1996 Japanese Charizard sit level with PSA 9s, and Japan’s Eevee Heroes Umbreon VMAX leans that same hopeful way.

As of October 23, 2026: PSA keeps its full tier fee on a miss as well as a pass. With the Value tiers on pause, Standard at $59.99 per card is the cheapest PSA tier taking orders. CGC crosses PSA, Beckett and SGC slabs at its normal tier fees. TAG offers no crossover at all. On the Goldin sales we gathered, a vintage Charizard in a PSA 10 holder sold for about seven times the same card in a CGC Gem Mint 10, while two modern cards sold for more in CGC holders than in PSA ones.

This page is the map for our crossover grading series: one row per grade pair you are likely to be holding, the fees each company charges, the sale prices that make the attempt worthwhile or not, and links to the 27 detailed guides behind every row.

What crossover grading is, and what nobody publishes

PSA describes the service in one line: “Crossover grading is for cards previously graded by other companies that you wish to cross over into a PSA holder.” You fill in a minimum grade on the form. The grader examines the card through the old case and only cracks it if the card earns that number or better. PSA’s crossover page sets out both halves of the deal: “If PSA deems the card worthy to cross over at the customer’s specified minimum grade or higher, the card will be removed from its holder and placed into a PSA holder. Regardless of the result, the grading price will be charged.”

That last sentence is the cost of a miss. The card itself is never at risk from a failed attempt, because PSA states plainly that “If your item doesn’t meet the minimum grade, it is returned to you in the original holder.” What you lose is the fee and the months of waiting.

What you will not find, at PSA, CGC, Beckett, SGC or TAG, is a published success rate. We looked through each company’s crossover pages, price lists, FAQs and news posts for this series. The only official statements are rules about when a grader agrees to crack a slab. Beckett’s archived FAQ says “BGS will not grade or remove a card from the submitted case unless we are reasonably confident that the card will reach the minimum grade you have requested.” CGC’s rule is that it re-slabs only when it expects the same grade or higher. None of them say how often that happens.

How our crossover odds estimate works

Since the graders keep the real numbers to themselves, every odds figure in this series is a Pokemon Pricing estimate, and it is labelled as one wherever it appears. We call the method a population-percentile comparison. Pick a card, open CGC’s live population report, and mark the band of numerically graded copies held by one CGC grade. Mark that identical band on PSA’s report for that card, then read off whichever PSA grades fill it.

A worked case shows it best. On the Unlimited Base Set Charizard 4/102, CGC copies graded 9 or better make up 9.9% of the numerically graded slabs on CGC’s report read October 23, 2026, and copies graded 8.5 or better make up 21.2%. So a CGC 8.5 Charizard ranks inside a band running from 9.9% to 21.2% of CGC copies, counted from the top. On PSA’s archived report from March 2026, PSA 9s and 10s together make up only 9.5% of PSA’s numeric slabs. The whole CGC 8.5 slice therefore ranks below where PSA 9s begin, and it lands almost entirely among PSA 8s.

Repeat those steps for the Japanese Charizard printed in 1996 and the direction flips. CGC 8.5s there rank between the top 11.5% and the top 19.1%, while PSA 9 or better covers 27.7% of PSA’s numeric slabs in the June 2025 archived report. Every copy in the CGC 8.5 slice ranks inside PSA 9 territory.

This is a ranking exercise, not a prediction for your copy. Several things pull real results away from it:

  • People who pay for a crossover pre-screen their cards. A collector only sends the CGC 8.5 that looks like a 9, which should help the odds.
  • PSA and CGC draw different crowds of submitters, and those mixes are not measured anywhere.
  • CGC publishes no numeric centering limits for Pokemon below its Gem Mint 10, so the 60/40 front centering PSA allows on a Mint 9 cannot be matched against a CGC number.
  • PSA counts in this series come from dated archive snapshots, because PSA’s live population pages sit behind a login.
  • The minimum-grade rule caps the damage of a miss at the fee, which changes the maths of trying more than the odds themselves do.

Crossover grading odds by grade: start here

Find the slab you hold in the left column. The middle column is our one-line read from the detailed guide, and every read is an estimate or a reading of published standards, not a pass rate.

Your slab PSA target Our read (estimate) Full guide
CGC 8.5 PSA 9 Swings with the card: none of the slice reaches PSA 9 on Unlimited Charizard, all of it does on the 1996 Japanese Charizard CGC 8.5 to PSA 9 odds
CGC 9 PSA 9 The closest to a like-for-like swap: on each of the nine cards we compared, nearly all of the CGC 9 slice ranked at PSA 9 or better CGC 9 to PSA 9 odds
CGC 9 PSA 10 Two rungs up; for four English holos from 1999, that CGC 9 band ranks wholly under PSA 10s, while on Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX about 46% of it ranks with PSA 10s CGC 9 to PSA 10 odds
CGC 9.5 PSA 10 Read the label date first; a pre-July 2023 Gem Mint 9.5 is a 10 under CGC’s own rule, while today’s Mint+ 9.5 mostly ranks with PSA 9s CGC 9.5 to PSA 10 odds
CGC 9.5 PSA 9 PSA grades jump from 9 straight to 10, so the card lands on one of those; on six of the nine cards the Mint+ 9.5 slice lines up with PSA 9s CGC 9.5 to PSA 9 and the minimum grade
CGC Gem Mint 10 PSA 10 Same written centering limits at both companies; on Unlimited Charizard about one in four of the CGC 10 slice ranks with PSA 10s, more on most modern cards CGC Gem Mint 10 to PSA 10 odds
CGC Pristine 10 PSA 10 The Pristine slice ranks inside PSA’s 10 share on every card we checked; what matters more is whether the Pristine label is worth more than a PSA 10 CGC Pristine 10 to PSA 10
CGC 8 PSA 8 (or 9) One number, three outcomes: split between PSA 7 and PSA 8 on Unlimited Charizard, PSA 8 on most cards, PSA 9 on the Japanese Charizard CGC 8 to PSA 8 odds
CGC 7.5 and lower PSA 8 Mostly a fee problem; the PSA 7 to PSA 8 price step is small next to the tier price on most cards CGC 7.5 and mid-grade crossovers
BGS 9.5 PSA 10 Beckett’s 9.5 already demands tight front centering, so the weakest of the four subgrades decides it BGS 9.5 to PSA 10 odds
BGS 9 PSA 9 Centering rarely blocks it (Beckett’s 9 is stricter on centering); small surface marks Beckett tolerates are the risk BGS 9 to PSA 9 odds
SGC 10 PSA 10 Check which SGC 10 you have: the Pristine 10 needs perfect centering, the Gem Mint 10 matches PSA’s limit SGC 10 to PSA 10 odds
SGC 9.5 PSA 10 SGC’s own 9.5 wording admits a tiny flaw; the bet is whether PSA forgives it SGC 9.5 to PSA 10 odds
TAG 10 PSA 10 No published route: TAG has no crossover, and PSA names no list of accepted holders TAG 10 to PSA 10

Two of those rows carry figures worth spelling out. On the Unlimited Charizard, every CGC 10 label together covers the top 2.0% of CGC’s numeric slabs, while PSA 10s fill just the top 0.5% of PSA’s. About 26% of the CGC 10 slice therefore ranks in PSA 10 territory, which is our estimate of roughly one in four. For Eevee Heroes Umbreon VMAX 095/069 from Japan, CGC 9s rank between the top 74.4% and 93.4% of CGC copies, and PSA 10s fill the top 87.0% of PSA’s report, so about 66% of that CGC 9 slice ranks with PSA 10s: roughly two in three, again our estimate.

The CGC grading scale change that trips up crossover sellers

A CGC slab with 9.5 on it can mean two different grades. When CGC merged its trading card arm with CSG, it said that “Cards previously graded Gem Mint 9.5 are exactly equivalent to Gem Mint 10 under the updated grading scale”. The new scale took effect with “New CGC Cards services and fees, effective July 11, 2023”. So an older label reading Gem Mint 9.5 is a CGC 10 today, and the newer Mint+ 9.5 is the step below.

For crossover purposes, that older Gem Mint 9.5 belongs in the Gem Mint 10 row of the table, not the 9.5 row. PSA itself has no 9.5: its standards allow half-points only “between PSA 2 and PSA 9”, so any 9.5 from any company has to come out as a PSA 9 or a PSA 10. The full side-by-side lives in the grading scale chart listed in the series directory below.

Crossover fees at PSA, CGC, Beckett, SGC and TAG

Every company that offers the service prices it like a normal grading order, and a miss is not free anywhere. Fees below were read on the companies’ own pages on October 23, 2026, except Beckett, whose site blocked us, so its terms come from archived copies with the capture date shown.

Company Crossover offered? Price If the grade is not met
PSA Yes, minimum grade required Normal tier price: Standard $59.99 (up to $1,000 value), Priority $79.99, Express $199.00, Super Express $349.00; Value tiers paused since June 2, 2026 Card returned in its old holder; full fee charged
CGC Yes, for PSA, Beckett and SGC slabs Tier fee: Bulk $17 (25-card minimum, up to $500), Economy $20 (up to $1,000), Standard $55 (up to $3,000) Returned in its old holder; full fee applies, unless you ask CGC to cross at any grade
Beckett Yes, through its graded card review Review fee equals the grading fee for the level, plus $3 per card to crack (March 2025 capture) Returned in the submitted holder; review fee charged
SGC Yes Same table as raw grading: $50 Standard for cards valued up to $1,500 Not stated on SGC’s pages
TAG No Not offered TAG does not crack other companies’ slabs

Two PSA details catch people out. First, the tier you pick is tied to the card’s value, and PSA’s FAQ warns that “If PSA determines, after grading, that your item’s value exceeds the Max Insured Value for your selected service level, PSA will upgrade the service level for that item (not your entire order).” A card that would be worth a few thousand dollars as a PSA 9 does not stay on the $59.99 tier. Second, PSA says the Minimum Grade box “is only available on select service levels”, without listing which. Confirm before you choose a tier.

The PSA and CGC service guides in the directory below walk through each form step by step. If you want the bigger picture of PSA pricing across all its tiers, we keep a separate PSA grading cost breakdown for 2026.

What the price gap between holders looks like

The reason anyone pays to cross a slab is that the same card can sell for very different money depending on whose label sits above it. These pairs come from Goldin’s own lot pages. Every price includes Goldin’s buyer’s premium, listed on its site as “Buyer’s Premium 22% ($19 min)”, and each date is when that lot closed. The ratio column is our arithmetic.

Card Lots closed Other label Sold PSA label Sold Other as % of PSA
Base Set Unlimited Charizard 8/16/26, same auction CGC 8.5 $808 PSA 9 $3,386 23.9%
Base Set Unlimited Charizard 2/15/26 and 3/08/26 CGC Gem Mint 10 $4,964 PSA 10 $34,770 14.3%
Base Set 1st Edition Charizard 10/18/25, same auction CGC 8.5 $18,605 PSA 9 $37,820 49.2%
Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX 215/203 8/21/25 and 8/02/25 CGC Gem Mint 10 $3,050 PSA 10 $2,684 113.6%
Scarlet & Violet 151 Charizard ex #199 2/08/26 and 2/15/26 CGC Gem Mint 10 $1,476 PSA 10 $1,178 125.3%
Obsidian Flames Charizard ex #223 8/09/26, same evening CGC Pristine 10 $610 PSA 10 $1,220 50.0%
Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX 215/203 5/17/26 and 4/26/26 TAG 10 $5,063 PSA 10 $5,491 92.2%

Single auctions are noisy, so treat each line as one data point rather than a market rate; no one publishes a standard PSA premium. The pattern across these sales is still clear enough to act as a first filter. On vintage English holos the PSA label carried a large premium. On the two modern cards with CGC sales above PSA ones, crossing to PSA would have bought nothing. For Beckett, the same Goldin data includes an Unlimited Charizard in BGS Gem Mint 9.5 at $8,540 (9/20/26), well above both CGC 10 sales and far below the PSA 10.

Three deeper price guides, listed in the directory below, break these pairs out by grade. For a card’s full sales record, the Base Set Unlimited Charizard price history pulls verified sold listings across eBay, TCGPlayer, Goldin, and Fanatics Collect.

Break-even math: the fee against the gap

A simple way to frame any attempt is to divide the fee by the price gap. The answer is the share of attempts that would need to succeed just to pay for the ones that fail. These are our worked examples using PSA’s published tier prices and the Goldin sales above, and shipping, insurance and seller fees are not included.

Take the Unlimited Charizard pair. The PSA 9 sold for $2,578 more than the CGC 8.5. A card worth that much as a PSA 9 sits above Express’s $2,500 insured limit, so Super Express at $349.00 is the realistic tier, and $349.00 divided by $2,578 is 13.5%. Our population estimate, though, puts none of that card’s CGC 8.5 slice in PSA 9 territory. A pre-screened copy may beat the population, but this is the clearest case in the series where the data argues against the attempt.

The 1st Edition Charizard pair is larger in every way. The gap was $19,215 in the same October 2025 auction, the PSA 9 price lands in Premium 2 territory at $1,999.00 per card, and the break-even share works out to 10.4%. The break-even guide in the directory below runs this sum for more cards and grades.

Every guide in the crossover grading series

The fourteen grade-pair guides are linked in the start-here table above, grouped as CGC odds (8.5, 9, 9.5, Gem Mint 10, Pristine 10, 8 and mid grades) and other graders (BGS 9.5, BGS 9, SGC 10, SGC 9.5, TAG 10). The rest of the series is grouped here.

Services and how the process works

Prices and whether it pays

By card type

For the raw counts behind the Charizard rows, our Charizard population report across graders pulls every version together, and the walkthrough on how to read a population report explains the columns. General submission advice sits in the PSA grading guide.

Centering: where the scales line up and where they split

Centering is the one standard most graders publish as numbers, so it is the cleanest place to compare. At the top, PSA’s Gem Mint 10 requires front centering “not to exceed approximately 55/45 percent on the front, and 75/25 percent on the reverse”, and CGC sets identical limits for its Gem Mint 10. CGC’s Pristine 10 asks for 50/50. SGC also splits its 10 in two, with a Pristine 10 at 50/50 and a Gem Mint 10 at 55/45 or better.

Beckett runs tighter lower down. Its archived scale asks for 50/50 one way and 55/45 the other on a Gem Mint 9.5, and 55/45 both ways on a Mint 9, while PSA’s Mint 9 allows 60/40 on the front. That is why the BGS rows in the table turn on surface and corners rather than centering. TAG publishes no 9.5 at all: its scale says half points apply “on every grade level except for between 9 and 10.”

Centering is only one of four things a grader weighs, though. Beckett’s own FAQ notes that “the lowest grade is the most heavily weighted in determining the overall grade”, which is the core of our BGS 9.5 guide, and a card with perfect centering can still miss on a single whitened corner.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is crossover grading for Pokemon cards?

Crossover grading is sending a card that is already in one grading company’s slab to a different company, which grades it through the old case and moves it to its own holder only if it meets the minimum grade you set. If it falls short, the card comes back in the original slab.

What are the odds of a CGC to PSA crossover?

No grading company publishes crossover pass rates. Our estimate compares where a CGC grade ranks in CGC’s population report with the same rank on PSA’s report, and it varies by card: on Unlimited Base Set Charizard the CGC 8.5 band lines up with PSA 8s, yet on the 1996 Japanese Charizard that band lines up with PSA 9s.

Does PSA charge if a crossover fails?

It does. PSA bills its whole tier price whether or not the card crosses, and returns a card that misses the minimum grade in its original holder. CGC also keeps its full fee when it declines to cross a card.

Can you cross over a TAG slab to PSA?

Not through TAG, which runs no crossover program and will not open slabs from rival graders. PSA publishes no list of the holders its crossover desk takes, so ask PSA directly before sending a TAG slab, or take the card out and send it in raw.

Is a pre-2023 CGC Gem Mint 9.5 treated as a 10 for crossover?

A CGC slab labelled Gem Mint 9.5 from before the July 2023 scale change counts as a CGC Gem Mint 10 under CGC’s own rule. That puts it in the same written centering band as a PSA 10, but PSA still grades the card itself and may disagree.

Why do PSA slabs sell for more than CGC slabs?

On the vintage Goldin sales we gathered, PSA-graded Charizards sold well above the same grade in CGC holders, but no company publishes a standard premium, and on some modern cards, including Evolving Skies Umbreon VMAX and the 151 Charizard ex, CGC 10s sold above PSA 10s.

Sources

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.

Owed money from a settlement? Check what is open at OpenClassActions.com. Caring for someone with dementia? Find practical guides at HelpDementia.com. Working out a skin routine? Evidence-based answers at AcneAdvocate.com. Forgot the name of a movie? Identify it at FindThisMovie.com. Was your data exposed? Track active breaches at DataBreachRadar.com.

We use cookies to run this site, measure how it’s used, and show ads. Choose “Essentials only” to limit cookies to what the site needs to work. Privacy Policy. Cookie Policy.