What you’re actually looking at
A PSA slab is a tamper-evident plastic holder, sealed at the factory by PSA after the card inside has been authenticated and graded. The label across the top is the important part. It carries every piece of information PSA has decided to put on the card’s permanent record.
There are five things every PSA label tells you. And three things it quietly leaves out. If you’re going to buy a graded card, you should know both halves.
The five things on the label
1. The description line
PSA writes out what the card is, in PSA’s own standardized language. 2018 Topps Chrome Update HMT32 Shohei Ohtani RC. That’s the card’s name, set, card number, player, and the RC flag that means “rookie card” by PSA’s definition.
Why it matters: the language is specific. If the label says HMT32 and the set checklist calls that same card Update #HMT32 Shohei Ohtani, those are the same card — PSA just uses a shortened reference. But if the label says Update #HMT32 and the back of the card itself says #HMT33, something is wrong, and you should stop and ask before you buy. (The card number printed on the card itself must match what PSA wrote on the label. If they don’t match, PSA graded the wrong card — which almost never happens, but it’s the first thing we check.)
2. The grade
The big number. PSA grades on a scale from 1 to 10, in half-point increments at the high end:
- PSA 10 — Gem Mint. Sharp corners, centering within PSA’s tolerances, no print defects visible to the grader.
- PSA 9 — Mint. One minor flaw from a 10.
- PSA 8 — Near Mint to Mint. Normal for a well-kept modern card.
- PSA 7 — Near Mint. Light surface wear or a minor corner issue.
- PSA 6 and below — Excellent down through Good, Poor, Fair. Increasingly well-loved cards.
There’s also a PSA 10 with a qualifier — PSA will sometimes attach a one-letter code like (OC) for off-center, (PD) for print defect, (MK) for minor mark. A qualified 10 is not the same as a clean 10, and the market prices it accordingly.
3. The cert number
A unique eight-digit identifier, printed in the corner of the label and machine-readable by PSA’s system. This is the most important number on the slab, and it’s the one nobody talks about enough.
Every PSA-graded card has one. Every cert number is unique, permanent, and tied to that specific card for PSA’s entire retention history. If the slab is cracked open and the card re-encased without going through PSA, the cert number becomes a dead letter — it still exists in PSA’s database, but it no longer matches a sealed case.
4. The date or year codes
PSA labels include small identifiers — a “series” or generation code — that tell you roughly when the grading happened. PSA has changed label designs several times. Collectors call these out as “old label,” “new label,” “Mk1,” “Mk7,” and so on. For our purposes on this site: the label generation mostly matters to advanced graders and Pop Report diggers. For a buyer, the cert number does the same job better.
5. The grading company and authentication mark
The PSA logo and holograms. The holograms are a multi-layer anti-counterfeiting feature — they shift when you tilt the slab. On a legitimate PSA slab, the logo sits consistently in the same position, the hologram catches light as you move it, and the label does not peel. If any of those things look wrong, stop and verify.
How to verify any card — the part that actually matters
The whole PSA system is built on one simple idea: you don’t need to trust the seller, because you can look up the card.
Here’s how:
- Take the eight-digit cert number from the slab label.
- Go to psacard.com/cert/ in your browser.
- Paste the cert number into the lookup field.
- Press search.
PSA shows you its own record of that card — the card identification, the grade, the date graded, and (for most cards) the Population Report: how many other copies of the exact same card PSA has ever graded at that same grade, and at every higher grade.
If PSA’s record doesn’t match what the seller is telling you — the card, the grade, or anything else — stop and ask. That’s what the lookup is for.
On this site, every single product page lists the cert number. You never have to take our word for it. That’s the whole point. If something ever doesn’t line up, tell us, and we’ll make it right.
You can find a full walkthrough with screenshots at How to Verify Any Card.
The three things the label quietly leaves out
The label doesn’t lie. But it also doesn’t tell you everything.
What PSA doesn’t put on the label
1. Centering data. PSA’s grade of 10 implicitly means the card is centered within PSA’s tolerance for a 10. But PSA does not print the actual centering percentage (e.g., 55/45 left-right, 52/48 top-bottom) on the slab. Two PSA 10s of the same card can look meaningfully different side by side. For high-end cards, advanced buyers sometimes pay a premium for a “perfect centering” 10 — which is a market-made distinction, not a PSA one.
2. Print defects that passed. A card can be a PSA 10 and still have small print dots, minor color inconsistencies, or a slight focus issue on the image itself. These are defects that came from the printing process, not from handling, and PSA’s grading looks past most of them at the 10 level. Examine a card’s photos before you buy a high-value slab. If the seller (us or anyone) hasn’t shown you high-resolution photos of the front and back, ask.
3. Sub-grades. PSA grades the overall card. BGS (Beckett) assigns sub-grades for centering, corners, edges, and surface — you’ll see a BGS slab with “9.5, 9.5, 9, 10” across the bottom. PSA does not publish sub-grades. A PSA 10 is a single number. That’s part of why PSA has become the dominant grader in some markets (simpler resale narrative) and part of why BGS is preferred in others (more information for the buyer).
What this means for buying
When you’re looking at a graded card — on this site or anywhere else — here’s our short list:
- Does the cert number on the slab resolve to the same card at psacard.com? Yes means proceed. No means stop.
- Does the seller show you high-resolution front, back, and slab photos? Not showing the back is a red flag.
- Is the asking price defensible against recent comparables? If a PSA 10 of this card sold for $500 on average over the last 90 days and the asking price is $1,200, there should be a reason.
- Will the seller answer a question before you buy? If you can’t get a direct answer about the card, you probably don’t want to own the card.
On this site, every one of those is a yes by design. That’s the promise. Our name is on it.
Related reading
- Walk through a live cert lookup with screenshots → How to Verify Any Card
- The four rules we use to decide what gets bought and sold → How We Collect
- Why we sell from here instead of a marketplace → Why We Didn’t Build This on eBay
— John Phillips
Jacksonville, Florida
Published April 2026