Welcome to Rare Candy's "Collector's Guide" series, where we help collectors of all experience levels learn and grow.
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Previously, we scratched the surface of the card grading world with a rough overview of why grading matters, what to expect when you grade, and some of the major players involved.
Even before it actually got into grading, Beckett was already one of the best known and trusted names in baseball card collecting. As the hobby has grown to include other sports, non-sports and trading card games like Pokémon, Magic The Gathering and YuGiOh, so too has Beckett evolved to incorporate these new kinds of collectibles into their grading system.
Company History
While many professional card authentication services can trace their origins to previously existing coin graders, Beckett has always been about the cards—although it started out as a publication rather than a grade provider.
The company was founded by statistician Dr. James Beckett III, who started writing guides while working as an associate professor at Bowling Green State University. His first official publication, the Sport Americana Baseball Card Price Guide, was printed in 1979; five years later, he launched the first Beckett Baseball magazine in 1984, which is still being printed today.
These days, Beckett now publishes almanacs for practically any category you can think of including hockey, basketball, football, wrestling, non-sports, gaming and even Star Wars. Each issue includes current pricing for recent and popular collectibles, a “Hot List” that tracks the top items on the market, features, reviews, collector interviews and more.
Eventually Beckett got into the card grading game itself in 1999 with the aptly named Beckett Grading Services (BGS). Another offshoot called Beckett Vintage Grading (BVG) was founded in 2001 and generally deals with cards printed before the 1970s; a third, Beckett Collector Club Grading (BCCG), was initially offered to casual collectors who wanted a cheaper alternative to PSA for lower-value cards, but was quietly sunsetted at some point.
What Beckett Offers
As far as prices go, Beckett is closer to CGCs submission rates than PSA’s. Basic grading starts $14.95 per card for a 45+ business day turnaround, although it’ll cost you an extra $3 for subgrades (more on that in a bit). At the higher end, “priority” cards will run you $124.95, but reportedly only take two to three business days. Unlike CGC and PSA, there currently isn’t any deal for bulk submissions.
In addition to grading, Beckett’s Certified Appraisal service will send you a certificate verifying the expected value of your card or collectible, for a one-time fee between $10–18.
Beckett is the only service to offer subgrades for different categories; centering, corners, edges, and surface. The final grade the card receives is averaged from these four subgrades.
Beckett has its own in-house trading marketplace where you can buy and sell cards, primarily in sports categories.
The Beckett online price guide features pricing checklists for over 11 million sports and non-sports cards, as well as organization tools for appraising your own collection, a mobile app, and six free graded card submissions with a one year “Total Access” subscription.
Beckett is one of the only card grading services that offers gift cards, which the recipient can put towards submission fees when sending in their own cards.
Beckett’s population report is divided into categories based by sport, “set name,” and “player name,” which admittedly makes searching for non-sport cards like Pokémon a little more difficult unless you know the exact terminology to use.
Luckily, Beckett’s graded registry system allows collectors to upload a listing for their own BGS-graded cards and sets, which makes for easier searching
Similar to CGC and PSA, there’s also a verification database that allows you to look up cards based on their serial numbers.
The Beckett Grading Scale
Like CGC, Beckett’s grading scale operates mostly on a half point system, although only the highest one (9.5) has its own separate grade. Otherwise, cards assigned a half-point grade are considered to be somewhere in between, sharing characteristics “from both the level above and the level below the actual grade given.”
Similar to the way that CGC has a separate version of CGC 10 (Pristine) on its own scale to designate exceptionally high-quality cards, Beckett has a rating above the highest possible BGS 10 (Pristine), known more colloquially as a “Black Label 10”.
BGS 10 / “Black Label” Pristine: This card’s corners and edges are “perfect to the naked eye and virtually flawless under intense scrutiny.” There are no print spots, imperfections, or scratches on the surface of the card, and the image is perfectly centered on its front (50/50) and nearly perfectly-centered on it back (55/45). If there are subgrades on this card, all of them are a 10.
BGS 10 / “Gold Label” Pristine: This card is similarly perfect to the naked eye, but the gold label allows for one small imperfection under magnification, essentially bumping one of the four possible subgrades down from across-the-board 10s to three 10s and a 9.5.
BGS 9.5 / Gem Mint: Virtually flawless to the naked eye, with just a few slight specs of wear or imperfections that are only visible when magnified. The image of the card must be almost perfectly centered with only a 5% allowance — or 55/45, in other words — and at least 10% allowance, or 60/40, on the back.
BGS 9 / Mint: “Mint” cards should appear virtually flawless upon close inspection, but slight wear, including slight chipping on the boarding and one or two tiny scratches, is allowed. The front should be centered 55/45 on the front, and 70/30 or better on the back.
BGS 8 / Near Mint/Mint: The edges and corners of a near mint card should be sharp and smooth to the naked eye, but some slight imperfections are allowed. So are a few minor print spots or scratches on the gloss, which should otherwise be solid. Centering is allowed to be 60/40 or better on the front and 80/20 or better on the back.
BGS 7 / Near Mint: Minor notches, chipping, print spots or speckling, and minor wear on two or three corners is allowed. With baseball cards, a minor wax stain on the back may also be visible. Centering should be 65/35 or better on the front and 90/10 on the back, possibly with a very slight diamond cutting (which is a type of cutting error done in the factory).
BGS 6 / Excellent Mint: At this grade, you might start to see the corners getting fuzzy, but otherwise free of dings. There will likely be noticeable print spots, color or focus imperfections, border discoloration, and wax stains or ink marks. Minor scratches may appear on the gloss, but not scuffing. Centering should be 70/30 or better on the front and 95/5 on the back, with slight diamond cutting.
BGS 5 / Excellent: This card will have fuzziness on all four of its corners, as well as a minor ding or notch. The edges will be rougher, and more print spots or discoloration will be noticeable. There may also be gloss lost from the surface, but still no scuffing. Centering should be 75/25 or better on the front and 95/5 or better on the back
BGS 4 / Very Good/Excellent: Notching, dings, chipped edges, and layering (which is when the layers of a cardboard card stock start to separate and wear down) are all visible on this card, along with moderate wax stains, ink marks, scuffing, print spots, and even hairline creases. Centering should be 80/20 or better on the front and 100/00 or better on the back, with some moderate diamond cutting allowed.
BGS 3 / Very Good: Minor creases, noticeable print or color imperfections, border discoloration, and wax stains will be present. The corners are slightly rounded or layered, or noticeably notched, and there’s definitely layering present on the edges. Centering should be 85/15 or better on the front and 100/0 or better on the back.
BGS 2 / Good: The surface will have no floss left, as well as noticeable scuffing and even tears, creases, print spots, notches, latering, and rounded corners. Centering should be 90/10 on the front and can be offcut (meaning the image itself is cut-off and not printed correctly) on the back.
BGS 1 / Poor: The best way to describe the damage done to this card is “severe.” There will likely be heavy creases, large stains and print spots, heavy scuffing, and no original gloss left. The corners are heavily rounded or notched, and the edges demonstrate “destructive chipping, notching or layering.” The image on both front and back may be so far off-center that it’s cut off with heavy diamond cutting.
What to Look for When Buying Beckett Cards
Modern BGS-graded cards will be given different color labels depending on the final grade. The highest form of BGS 10 (Pristine) will feature a “Black Label,” while lesser 10s and 9.5s (Gem Mints) will be printed on gold; everything 9 (mint) and below will be silver.
The front label will include:
The Beckett logo etched straight into the plastic case to the left if the label
The card’s official name among collectors on the left, along with any other varietal or pedigree details underneath (for example, what promo series it falls under)
Under that, the subgrades for each category: centering, corners, edges, and surface. (Some card labels will not include these subgrades if they weren’t included in the card submission package; when you look up the card in Beckett’s database, these will be listed as “Not Available)
The card’s final grade on the right
Under the final grade, a serial number that can be used to research the card in the Beckett Verification database
On the back, you’ll see:
The reverse side of the etched Beckett logo, this time on the right
The company’s motto, “The World’s Most Trusted Source in Collecting,” with a trademark (™) following it
A full horizontal version of the Beckett logo on the bottom
Make sure all these details are cleanly visible, particularly the serial number -- you’ll need to look that up to ensure the card is an authentic BGS-graded item!
