Grading - your trust is what drives us
Trading cards and autograph cards must be assessed objectively and under the highest standards.
We have set ourselves the goal of taking these areas for granted with additional principles such as neutrality, quality and security.
Our prerequisites for successful grading are to treat your collectibles carefully and under strict standards.
As Europe's largest and most recognized grading company, we know the importance of our evaluations and carry them out according to standardized processes.
Extra service for cards in landscape format
We are the only recognized grading company to offer a special label for cards in landscape format.
When submitting the cards you can choose between the standard label and the landscape label.
Whether grading with subgrades, without subgrades, authentic, custom, exchange or renewal
The cross label can be selected for each service.
Our Cardvention II event card from Topps was even available as a "Special Edition" in landscape format.
Our promise of quality
The assumption
After your shipment has been delivered, it will be checked for external damage.
Any defects are recorded in the presence of the transport person so that you as the sender can assert your claims against the service provider accordingly.
We then carry out a visual inspection of the content to compare your shipment with your order. Your items will remain in their original packaging until our grading process begins.
Die Grading-Cases
We produce our grading cases in Germany. The design is protected and may only be used by us.
They are of the highest quality, scratch-resistant, stable and UV-resistant and offer the best possible protection for your cards. The GSG lettering was incorporated as a special safety feature. This makes it impossible to falsify the cases.
Our cases are closed with ultrasound so that they can only be opened by destroying them.
The grading
We take your collector's item with lint-free cloth gloves and place it on a color-coordinated, soft grading pad.
This pad gives way when the card is turned over. This allows us to rotate the collector's item without having to pick it up again or touch it.
In this way, we avoid abrasion and damage, which are important in the evaluation grade.
Our grading process
The beginning
We check the cards for any visible damage. Among other things, missing or shifted margins, misprints, creases and scratches are easily visible. The centering is then checked with specially developed devices.
The lighting
The object is then examined for possible residues, stains, foreign colors and contamination using light-assisted high-resolution magnifying glasses and a specially adapted digital microscope.
Forensics
In the last step, our special tool is used, a forensic testing device that is perfectly adapted to our needs. This enables us to recognize the smallest hairline cracks, scratches and abrasions as well as the complete documentation of all defects.