Pokémon Card Centering, Explained
What centering ratios like 60/40 actually mean, how to measure them yourself, and the thresholds that decide a PSA 10 from a PSA 8.
Updated September 1, 2026
Centering is the one part of a card's condition you had nothing to do with. It was decided the moment the print sheet went through the cutter, years before the card reached you. You can't improve it, and you can't hide it — but you can learn to read it in about five minutes, and it's often the single factor standing between a card worth $80 and the same card worth $800.
The 30-second version
Centering describes how evenly the artwork sits inside the card's borders, written as a ratio like 60/40.
- 50/50 is perfect: both borders identical.
- 55/45 is the practical ceiling for a PSA 10.
- 60/40 is fine for a PSA 9 and invisible to most buyers.
- 65/35 starts to look wrong at a glance.
- 70/30 and worse is obvious even through a sleeve.
Measure both axes — left/right and top/bottom — and check the back separately. The worst of the four measurements is the one that decides your grade.
What it is and how to measure it
Two things to get straight before the examples: what the number actually describes, and how to read it off a card in your hand.
What centering actually means
Cards are printed on large sheets and then cut apart. If the cutting blade drifts even slightly, every card in that column comes out shifted — more border on one side, less on the other.
The ratio describes how the total border is divided between two opposite sides. If the left and right borders together add up to 2mm, and the left one is 1.2mm, that's 60/40 — the left side holds 60% of the available border.
Two things follow from that, and both surprise people:
It's a ratio, not a measurement. A card with hairline borders and a card with fat borders can both be 60/40. What matters is the proportion between opposite sides, not the absolute width.
Each axis is measured independently. A card can be a flawless 50/50 left-to-right and a dismal 70/30 top-to-bottom. Graders take the worse of the two.
How to measure it yourself
You don't need special equipment. You need good light and a consistent reference point.
- Put the card in a penny sleeve and lay it flat on a dark surface. The sleeve stops you handling the edges.
- Pick your reference line and stick to it. Measure from the outside edge of the card to the start of the inner art frame. The mistake almost everyone makes is measuring to a different landmark on each side.
- Compare left to right. You're looking for a proportion, not a millimetre reading. If one border is half again as wide as the other, you're at roughly 60/40. If it's twice as wide, you're at roughly 65/35.
- Now do top to bottom. Vintage cards fail here more often than people expect, because the eye is trained on the side borders.
- Flip it over and do both again.
Note
If you want a number rather than an estimate, photograph the card flat-on — directly overhead, not at an angle — and measure the borders in any image editor. Shooting at an angle introduces perspective that makes the near border look wider, which is the single most common way people mis-measure their own cards.
What each ratio looks like
These are three real cards from our own stock, photographed and then measured. Nothing here is a mock-up — the borders are what came out of the factory.
The gap between the first and last of those is the whole game. It's the difference between a card that grades at the top of the scale and one capped several grades down — and in the hand it's a sliver of yellow perhaps a millimetre wide.
The full scale
Real cards rarely land on tidy round numbers, so here is the scale drawn precisely. The border widths are computed from the ratios, which makes these exact in a way a photograph can't be:
The same scale applies top-to-bottom, which is the axis people forget to check:
The grading thresholds
PSA publishes centering tolerances for each grade. These are the front-of-card limits, and the reverse is graded far more leniently:
| Grade | Centering limit |
|---|---|
| 10 — Gem Mint | 55/45 front · 75/25 back |
| 9 — Mint | 60/40 front · 90/10 back |
| 8 — NM-MT | 65/35 front · 90/10 back |
| 7 — Near Mint | 70/30 front · 90/10 back |
| 6 — EX-MT | 80/20 front · 90/10 back |
A card is capped by its worst measurement. Perfect corners, flawless surface and a 70/30 front means a 7 — everything else you did right is irrelevant once centering caps you.
What trips people up
Centering is a cap, not a score. Hitting 55/45 doesn't earn a 10; it only means centering isn't what stops you getting one. Corners, edges and surface still have to hold up.
Where cards go wrong
Two things people consistently miss — the reverse of the card, and which print runs were worst.
Don't forget the back
Fronts and backs are cut in the same pass, but the artwork on each side wasn't necessarily registered identically to the cut. A card can be beautifully centred on the front and visibly off on the reverse.
The good news is the tolerance is much looser — 90/10 on the back still permits a PSA 9. The bad news is that people rarely check, then get a grade back they can't explain. If you're paying to grade a card, spend ten seconds on the reverse first.
Sets that are notoriously bad
Some print runs are simply worse than others, and knowing which ones sets your expectations before you pay for grading:
- Base Set and the early WOTC sets — cutting was inconsistent throughout. A genuinely well-centred Base Set holo is uncommon, which is exactly why the ones that exist carry such a premium.
- Jungle and Fossil — better than Base Set on average, still highly variable.
- Team Rocket and the Gym sets — frequently drift top-to-bottom rather than left-to-right, which is the axis people forget to check.
- Modern sets — cutting is far more consistent, so centering is much less often the limiting factor. On a modern card, surface and edges are usually what cap the grade instead.
Note
On vintage cards the yellow border makes centering easy to see but easy to misjudge — it's tempting to measure to the edge of the coloured art frame rather than the edge of the card. Pick one landmark and use it on all four sides.
Is it worth grading?
A blunt rule that will serve you well: if the centering caps the card below the grade that makes grading profitable, don't grade it.
Work out what the card is worth in a PSA 9 versus a PSA 7. For most cards outside the top tier, a 7 is worth barely more than a clean raw copy — and once you've paid grading fees and shipping both ways, you're behind. Centering tells you the ceiling before you spend anything.
Before you send a card for grading:
The most common mistakes
Photographing at an angle. Perspective widens the near border. Shoot directly overhead or your measurement is fiction.
Measuring to inconsistent landmarks. Outside edge to inner frame, every time, all four sides.
Only checking left/right. Top-to-bottom is where a surprising number of vintage cards fail.
Ignoring the back. Looser tolerance, but not no tolerance.
Assuming a thin border means bad centering. A card can have narrow borders on both sides and be a perfect 50/50. The ratio is what counts.
What to do next
Centering is one of four factors. Once you've read it, check the rest of the card properly — corners, edges and surface are graded just as hard.
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