Grade chances and uncertainty
Every grading decision rests on a guess about which grade will come back. Treating that guess as a range, not a fact, leads to better decisions.
Where your chances come from
Nobody outside the grading company can tell you the grade in advance, including TH3 COLL3CTIV3. A centering measurement can rule some grades out, and a close look at corners, edges and surface can narrow things down. The rest is judgement: yours, built from the card in your hand and the grades similar cards have received.
Write the chances down
- Give every plausible grade a chance, and make them add up to 100%.
- Include the grade you’d be disappointed with. Leaving it out makes every plan look better than it is.
- If centering already rules a grade out, set it to 0%. Grade Check can pass that across for you.
What “expected” means
The expected result is an average across your chances. One card gets one grade, so you will never actually receive the expected figure. It’s useful for comparing options and for batches of many cards, where results tend to average out. For a single card, look at the worst likely outcome as well.
Test your assumptions
The Grading Lab shows what happens if you move ten points of chance from the best grade to the worst, and back. If a small shift turns a profit into a loss, the decision is fragile. Track your guesses against the grades you actually get in the Submission Tracker; over time you’ll learn whether you tend to be optimistic.