How Centring Is Measured in Pokémon Card Grading

Centring frustrates collectors more than any other grading factor. You can't change it, you can't fix it, and it's entirely determined by how accurately the factory's cutting machines were aligned when your card was produced.

How Centring Is Measured

Centring is expressed as a ratio comparing opposite borders. The border on the left is measured against the border on the right. The border on the top is measured against the bottom. These give you two ratios: left/right and top/bottom.

Perfect centring is 50/50 on both axes, meaning the borders are exactly equal on all sides. In practice, no card achieves mathematically perfect 50/50. The question is how far from perfect it can be while still scoring well.

What Ratios Get What Grades

Different grading companies have different tolerances, but the general ranges are:

Grade 10 (Gem Mint): Up to approximately 55/45 on both front and back. Some companies are slightly stricter at 52/48, others slightly more lenient.

Grade 9 (Mint): Up to about 60/40 on the front, 65/35 on the back. Some leeway is given to the back since it's less visible during display.

Grade 8 (Near Mint-Mint): Up to about 65/35 front, 70/30 back.

Grade 7 and below: Centring beyond 70/30 starts to seriously impact grades regardless of how perfect everything else is.

How to Check Centring at Home

Hold the card at arm's length and look at the borders. If one side is visibly wider than the opposite side, the centring is probably 60/40 or worse. For a more precise check, use a ruler to measure the border widths in millimetres. Divide the smaller measurement by the larger, then convert to a percentage.

For example, if the left border is 2mm and the right border is 3mm, the ratio is 2:3, which converts to roughly 40/60. That's fine for a 9 but probably won't get a 10.

Front and Back Can Differ

A card can have great front centring and terrible back centring, or vice versa. The printing and cutting are separate processes, and alignment can shift between them. Always check both sides. A perfect front with a 70/30 back will still get marked down.

Which Sets Have the Worst Centring?

Certain print runs are known for poor centring. Evolving Skies had widespread issues in specific print runs. Fusion Strike similarly had centring problems. Older sets from the WOTC era vary hugely because quality control standards were different. Japanese cards tend to have better centring overall than English prints.