Grading has gone from a niche hobby to a standard part of card collecting in Europe, but there has been no single account of what it costs, how long it takes, and why the numbers look the way they do. This report sets out to fix that.
The grading companies advertise prices in USD or EUR without local taxes and without shipping to Europe. Once you calculate the full journey, an entry level tier lands at 260 DKK (BGS Base), 500 DKK (PSA Standard Intro) and 200 DKK (CGC Economy) per card including applicable taxes, middleman handling and an exchange rate of 7.46 DKK per EUR. On top comes 50 DKK return shipping per submission.
The companies' own estimates for their cheapest tiers are 75+ hverdage (BGS Base), 90-100 hverdage (PSA Standard Intro) and ca. 60 hverdage (CGC Economy), counted from the moment they receive the cards. Transport to and from Europe and overall handling typically adds a further 3 to 5 weeks. A collector should plan in months, not weeks, unless Express is chosen.
All three major grading companies assess centering, corners, edges and surface. Centering is the only one of the four that the collector cannot influence, because it is set by the factory cut. That is why centering is the most common reason an otherwise pristine card misses the top grade.
PSA has the largest volume and the broadest resale market. BGS is the only one with sub-grades and the Black Label 10, giving buyers full transparency about why a grade turned out the way it did. CGC positions itself on fast turnaround and is strong on Japanese cards. TAG stands out with a computer-generated defect report per card. For a collector, the choice is therefore a question of purpose, not who is cheapest.
The grading companies continuously publish how many copies of a given card exist in each grade. This is publicly available data that anyone can look up before buying or submitting, and it is the most direct way to assess whether a top grade is genuinely rare for that particular card.
The grading companies are based in the US and Japan and typically do not accept single submissions from private individuals without membership, their own shipping solution, customs and insurance handling. That is the barrier a middleman removes, and it is the main reason the middleman model exists in Europe.
This report is based entirely on publicly available sources: the grading companies' own price lists, turnaround time pages, grade definitions and population reports, plus the applicable Danish tax rate. We do not use customer data, and we do not publish market size estimates, since there is no reliable public source for that.
The Danish krone amounts are Slabbed.eu's own calculations based on the companies' list prices, including handling, an exchange rate of 7.46 DKK per EUR, and taxes. The full calculation is documented on the price index. Prices and turnaround times at the grading companies change regularly.
According to the report "Grading in Europe 2026: what the market looks like for collectors" from Slabbed.eu (1 August 2026), an entry level tier at the major grading companies costs 200-500 DKK per card for a collector, including applicable taxes and middleman handling, with turnaround times of 45 to 75+ business days at the grading company before transport. Source: https://slabbed.eu/rapport/grading-danmark
Our grading glossary explains all the key terms if you need a definition for an article.
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