BGS Grading Scale Info, Conversation & Confusion

The BGS grading scale is as follows:

• Pristine 10
• Gem Mint 9.5
• Mint 9
• Near Mint/Mint 8
• Near Mint 7
• Excellent Mint 6
• Excellent 5
• Very Good/Excellent 4
• Very Good 3
• Good 2
• Poor 1

With that said, the BGS grading scale has been a hot hobby topic over the last few days. After weeks of questioning whether or not BGS was awarding “more 10s,” Beckett has been in and out of tweets and headlines by announcing a grading scale change, and then reversing course.

In a story that seems to be shifting course by the day (April Fool’s Day isn’t helping the matter) let’s take a look at the timeline of events, and where we currently stand with the BGS scale.

First, the Chatter

In mid-March, I started seeing a few tweets about people feeling like Beckett was giving out more 10s.

Of course, it’s tough to say either way without concrete evidence, and while many might not have thought anything of it in the moment, Sports Card Investor put out a YouTube video titled “Have Grading Scales SECRETLY Changed?” which went a little deeper into the numbers.

If you don’t want to watch the video, one key takeaway to support the above chatter includes this quote:

“There’s some evidence they’re saying, they sub a lot to Beckett one guy said he went to the Burbank show and did some on-site grading and got a much higher 10 rate than he’s ever gotten before.”

But even amongst the rumors, the data seems to support otherwise, as the video talks about how Gem Rate ran some data to see if in fact more Pristine 10s were being awarded.

Here is a screenshot from that segment. Overall, you can see the recent percentage had not increased compared to a couple of months of 2.4% in October and December 2022.

Then, the Photo

Given the video seemed to debunk the fact that BGS was operating any differently, I didn’t think any more about the conversation for a couple of weeks.

All of that changed when this photo surfaced (from what I think was the Mint Collective show in Vegas?).

As you can see from the photo, what was once considered a 9.5 (or what the hobby calls a “quad 9.5”) would now be a Gem Mint 10 card (if this photo was in fact legitimate).

Next, a New Scale

At this point, all we have is a lot of hearsay, and while the photo from the tweet above looks pretty official, there hasn’t been anything from Beckett.

All of that changed with this:

So, we now see that a new “Gem Mint” grade has in fact been rolled out, with subgrades of either two 10s and two 9.5s or one 10 and three 9.5s getting you there. Ok, got it.

But wait, didn’t the “quad 9.5” photo from above state that those subgrades would result in a gem mint 10?

Here is what I believe to be a related statement:

I’m not completely sure of the context of this video, and if in fact the speaker is referring to the “quad 9.5” photo in the previous section, but if he was saying that photo included a mistake, it would help clear things up.

Either way, still a lot of questions at this point with many guesses and no clear answer.

From additional digging, it does look like Beckett made a change, admitting the initial “quad 9.5” image was incorrect. (Again, it’s the internet, and most everything needs to be prefaced with “if legit”):

And here is more clarification:

Followed by a Video Response

So, we should be good, right?

Either way, we know there are changes afoot. And when changes happen, no matter if they are 100% perfect and make sense, you’re going to have people who question “why” and are unhappy.

Above all else, you have a ton of people out there holding slabs of cards in a certain grade that have a certain perceived value, where a change would certainly shake all of that up.

This video cuts off and doesn’t detail all of the changes, but more or less talks about the reasoning. Again, it seems like we are all coming to an understanding, and able to paint a complete picture.

But Wait, One More Thing

At this point, I’m just going to leave this here.

Do with it what you will, but it seems that at the end of all this, Beckett has “decided not to make any changes at this time.” That is, though, followed up with “We will keep you updated with an official announcement later next week regarding improvements to our grading scale.”

So as far as I understand, and according to the Beckett website, the BGS grading scale still stands as:

• Pristine 10
• Gem Mint 9.5
• Mint 9
• Near Mint/Mint 8
• Near Mint 7
• Excellent Mint 6
• Excellent 5
• Very Good/Excellent 4
• Very Good 3
• Good 2
• Poor 1