TCG Grading 101: How I Decide What to Grade

What card should I grade? That's the most important question, and it's the one I ask myself every time. In this final episode of The Collector's Framework, I walk you through the questions I ask before I send anything in: is there a grading play here, what's the gem rate, where am I sourcing from, and what does pre-grading actually look like on my desk. I also cover the real risks — subjectivity, wait times, and how to think about scaling. Grading is the path I enjoy the most and it's the most profitable part of my business right now. But every decision still comes back to the same framework: demand, supply, and price. This is episode 8 of The Collector's Framework — and the finale. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro 0:23 What card should I grade? 3:16 Gem rate 4:41 Sourcing 7:29 Pre-grade 9:05 Risk 12:26 Recap ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ▶ Watch the full series (playlist):    • The Collector’s Framework   Episodes in order: 1. The First Question Every Collector Should Ask →    • The First Question Every Collector Should Ask   2. Understanding Demand in Trading Cards →    • Understanding Demand in Trading Cards   3. Understanding Supply in Trading Cards →    • Understanding Supply in Trading Cards   4. Understanding Price in Trading Cards →    • Understanding Price in Trading Cards   5. When To Buy Pokémon Cards (Before Rotation) →    • When To Buy Pokémon Cards (Before Rotation)   6. When To Sell Your Pokémon Cards (Without Losing Money) →    • When To Sell Your Pokémon Cards (Without L...   7. Finding Your Path in the TCG Hobby →    • Finding Your Path in the TCG Hobby   8. TCG Grading 101: How I Decide What to Grade (you're here) →    • TCG Grading 101: How I Decide What to Grade   ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎯 Save 10% on your next order → https://bangforyourbucktcg.com (code: YOUTUBE10) 📸 Instagram →   / bangforyourbucktcg   Bang For Your Buck TCG — value first, data over noise, collector-focused. #PSA #GradedCards #TCG