How to read a verdict page

A verdict page answers one question — should this card be graded? — and every module on it exists to defend that one answer. This guide walks the page top to bottom: what each number is, where it comes from, and which ones do the deciding. Every figure is an observed price from real sales. When the data isn’t there, the page shows an empty state and says so — it never fills the gap with a guess.

The chip — and why it sometimes withholds

At the top sits one verdict chip: worth grading, chase PSA 10, or keep raw. One call per card, computed from the numbers below it — never the other way around. The honest framework explains how those calls are drawn; the short version is that the page compares what graded copies actually sell for against everything it costs to get there, and reads the result off that comparison.

Sometimes there is no chip — the page says verdict under review or live data pending instead. That’s not a bug; it’s the page refusing to publish a call it can’t currently stand behind. It happens for two honest reasons: the card doesn’t have enough recent graded sales to trust the comparison, or the live numbers have moved against an earlier written call and the two now disagree. In both cases the numbers stay visible and the verdict waits. A withheld call is information too: it tells you the data isn’t settled enough to bet a grading fee on.

The three numbers under the chip

The evidence strip carries the three inputs that do most of the deciding. PSA 10 multiple is the top-grade price divided by the raw price — the size of the prize. PSA 9 outcome is what the most common miss pays after the grading cost, shown as a plus or a minus against break-even — the floor. And grading cost is the flat $25 estimate the site uses everywhere: PSA’s bulk rate, fee only, so you can adjust for your own service tier. Below them sits the raw price itself — the card’s current eBay sold basis — with a sample count (n=) so you can see how much data stands behind it, and a 7-day change when a real sale sits close enough to seven days back to compare against. No nearby sale, no percentage: the page would rather show nothing than a number stitched across a gap.

”If you grade it”: the money line

The outcome cards price the three realistic endings — keep it raw and sell as-is, grade it and land the PSA 9, grade it and hit the PSA 10 — each with its payoff after cost. The money line below them draws the same story as a picture: the raw price at one end, the break-even mark (raw plus $25) as a dotted line, and each graded outcome placed where it actually sells. Anything right of the dotted line is profit; anything left of it means you’d have done better selling the card raw. When both graded markers sit right of the line, the downside is covered. When the PSA 9 sits left of it, everything rides on the top grade — that’s what a chase looks like, drawn to scale.

Premium stability: whether the gap holds

A verdict is a bet on a price gap holding, so the page charts that gap over time. The premium-stability chart re-plots roughly ninety days of real sales as multiples of the raw price — the PSA 10 line and PSA 9 line against a dashed break-even multiple, smoothed over a seven-day window so single-sale noise doesn’t read as a trend. A PSA 10 line that rides steadily above break-even is a premium you can plan around; one that sags toward the dashed line is a prize shrinking while your submission would still be in the mail. Cards without enough sold history simply don’t show the chart.

Exit market: who’s buying when you’re done

Grading only pays when someone buys the slab, so the last data section looks at the exit. Exit asks shows the live eBay listings right now — how many copies are listed per grade, and the lowest ask for each — real listings, refreshed from eBay, not estimates. Two neighboring tiles, day-by-day trade flow and the recent-sales grade mix, aren’t live yet; tracking for them begins in a follow-up pass, and until it does the tiles say exactly that rather than showing a modeled stand-in. Below the tiles, the written reasoning is the human layer: a per-card analysis that the live numbers keep honest — when the two fall out of agreement, the verdict is withheld until they’re reconciled, as described above.

The page is a decision, not a dashboard

Everything else — every tracked grade, the full sales history, all live listings — lives on the card’s price page, one link away. The verdict page deliberately keeps only what the grading decision needs, and the last input it can’t see is the card in your hand. The market data assumes a copy clean enough to reach the grades the math is built on; surface wear, soft corners, or centering move your copy down the ladder fast. Read the page, then look at your card honestly. The page gives you the market’s answer; your eyes give you the input.