FAQ

Cardscore FAQ

What is Cardscore?

Cardscore is a company that brings crowdsourcing to the grading (scoring) of trading cards and other collectibles.

How is a Cardscore determined?

The Cardscore is an average of 4 scores that are based on the following criteria: Corners, Edges, Centering, and Surface. Each card is scored by 100 collectors prior to the official Cardscore being finalized.

Is Cardscore a competitor with Professional Grading companies?

Cardscore is not meant to replace professional grading. It simply provides an online crowdsourced metric for often used terms such as "great eye appeal", "nicer", or "undergraded" to differentiate between cards of the same professional grade. For example, a card could be a PSA 8 and a Cardscore 81, vs. another card that is a PSA 8 and a Cardscore 86. They were both graded an 8 by PSA, but 100 collectors on average viewed one of them better.

How can I signup to score cards?

We accept signups to be one of our card scoring collectors. This is meant as a service to the hobby, however, we have begun compensating Scorers for their time! Scorers can be removed from the system at any time and outliers will be removed from the averages at our discretion.

Commissions will be sent through PayPal to the email Cardscore has on file for your account. When a payout arrives, users will be notified via email and have the option to transfer money into their bank account through PayPal, or direct the money to their PayPal account.

Scorers must have at least $4 in their commission balance to trigger a payout. After the payout is processed the commission balance will go back to $0. A balance will not be erased if it is under $4 when the payout occurs. It will simply continue to remain active, and be paid in a future period after the scorer has reached the $4 threshold.

Signup on app.cardscore.com!

How do I know what to score a card?

The beauty of our system is that we’re using the wisdom of the crowd to determine the condition of cards. Some scorers will value certain attributes over others, and that’s ok. Here are some general guidelines to point you in the right direction.

You will have the ability to score a card based on the categories of corners, edges, centering, and surface. You will be scoring on a scale of 1-100. A Cardscore 100 would be a near-perfect card, and in the range of a professionally graded 10. A Cardscore 90 would be in the range of a professionally graded 9. A Cardscore 80 would be in the range of a professionally graded 8… and so on. A recommended range for scoring is highlighted in GREEN on the scoring bar of each card.

Corners: Quality of each of the four corners. Cards with excellent scores in this category should have 4 corners that are all very sharp and undamaged.

Edges: Quality of each of the four edges. Cards with excellent edges should have 4 edges that are all very sharp and undamaged.

Centering: How the image aligns with the border of the card. Cards with excellent centering should have equal spacing between the image and the border and should not be lopsided.

Surface: Cards with an excellent surface should have a bright, flawless color and be free of any scratches, fading, creases, and smears.

Do you have to mail in your card to be scored?

No! With Cardscore your card never leaves your possession. Our patent-pending technology includes a scanner and a scorekey, which allows you to submit a high resolution image to our application to be viewed and scored by our community of collectors. It’s currently available at select card shows, but will soon be available for collectors to use at card shops across the country and purchase the technology to have at their homes as well.

How do you know a card’s image is not being manipulated prior to uploading?

Our patent-pending technology prevents the potential for manipulation because it sends the image directly to our server, so it is never saved on a user's device locally.

How much does it cost to get a card scored?

Cardscore’s pricing model is simple! You pay based on how quickly you would like to receive your results. We have 3 different levels. You can see current pricing below.

Priority: $30 (Current Estimated Completion Time 1-2 Days)

Standard: $20 (Current Estimated Completion Time 3-4 Days)

Economy: $10 (Current Estimated Completion Time 7-10 Days)

**There is a $5 fulfillment fee for professionally graded cards and a $6 fulfillment fee for raw cards.

Our pricing will be updated over time based on the number of cards in the queue so that we can continue to offer a quick and reliable service. However, we are committed to continuing to keep pricing affordable and available to all collectors. We recommend looking at the pricing and estimated turnaround times at check out for the most up to date information.

Based on the pricing level you select, your order will be prioritized in the queue accordingly. Cards submitted at the higher levels will be shown to more collectors and earlier in their scoring queue, which will result in a quicker turnaround time.

What is the primary purpose of Cardscore?

Cardscore is the world’s first crowdsourced card grading (scoring) platform! For the first time ever, card collectors have a chance to take part in the card grading process. It allows collectors to give their perspective on the condition of cards, and it allows card owners to have a specific metric provided for commonly used terms such as “great eye appeal”, “nicer”, or “undergraded” to differentiate between cards of the same professional grade.

What kind of cards can be submitted for scoring?

Cardscore accepts all standard sized raw cards and encapsulated cards that have been professionally graded by one of the major grading companies. Additional offerings and products will be available in the future.