At CGS, we use a handcrafted rubric to grade cards, created with great care after heavy discussion among veterans in the regional card collecting community. A common grading rubric seen nowadays is what we refer to as a “criteria-based rubric”, which scores aspects according to what the “score looks like” i.e. your card corners are awarded a 10 because “that’s what 10 point corners look like”. Our grading rubric is slightly more unique and we refer to it as a “subtractive rubric”. For us, the starting point of the card’s condition is a full mark of 100. However, as we examine your card, if we find any defects, damage or blemishes, points will be subtracted from the full mark according to our rubric so as to arrive at a final score. Naturally, all these reasons will be transparently and succinctly communicated to you in our report at the end of the grading process.
Our grading result categories are shown in the table below:
| Range | Label Color |
|---|---|
| 100 | Gold |
| 95 - 99 | Gold |
| 90 - 94 | Gold |
| 85 - 89 | Silver |
| 80 - 84 | Silver |
| 75 - 79 | Silver |
| 70 - 74 | Bronze |
| 60 - 69 | Bronze |
| 50 - 59 | Bronze |
| 40 - 49 | Wood |
| 30 - 39 | Wood |
| 20 - 29 | Wood |
| 10 - 19 | Wood |
| 1 - 9 | Wood |