Ryan Barone (@ballcardgenius, Card Expert) is a lifelong member of the hobby. He has been quoted in PSA Magazine, and his content has regularly been mentioned in âQuick Ripsâ (the Topps RIPPED Newsletter) and across other hobby publications. hello@ballcardgenius.com; Last Time Ago LLC dba Ballcard Genius.
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Letâs say you open a pack of cards and pull something of valueâperhaps a 2020 Topps Chrome Luis Robert Pink Refractor RC. Nice!
Now, âin the old daysâ youâd probably be content putting that puppy into your holder of choice and then stored for safekeeping, or selling, or trading as the raw card that it was.
But today, no no. Everyone would tell you to go the extra step! (Sometimes it you should grade your cards, other times you shouldnât, but just rememberâyour card, your choice, and thatâs all that should matter.)
So letâs say you get your card graded or are thinking about getting your card graded, or, have scrapped the idea altogether and perhaps want to just purchase an already-graded card. Fine. Again, your hobby, your choice.
So, you jump into research and immediately encounter new and confusing terms. âPopâ and ânone higherâ? I thought we were just talking about the good old cardboard hobby. Nope, not any more.
POP is short for âpopulation,â and is used to reference the scarcity of graded cards or how many there are in existence. Therefore, a POP 1 PSA 10 card would mean itâs the only PSA 10 in existence. A POP count of 18 would mean there are 18 that have been graded, and so on.
Thus, âlow popâ means low population, and is a term used when a card is scarce in terms of that particular issue and grade.
âNone higherâ means there are not any cards graded higher than the card being referenced. For example, âPSA 9, none higherâ means there is not a PSA 10 in existence.
Whoa, right?
Read More: Most Expensive Graded Cards
How to check POP Counts
The process is going to be different with every service, but at least among PSA and BGS, the data is available with a few clicks.
PSA
For PSA, head to psacard.com/pop, and youâll see a giant search bar. Start typing in the player and set of the card youâre researching.
From there, youâll see your results begin to populate, and hopefully an exact match of the card in question:
Awesome, numbers! But what do they mean? In this particular case, the main numbers of the above translate to:
- Total cards graded: 78
- PSA 6: 1 card
- PSA 7: 1 card
- PSA 9: 13 cards
- PSA 10: 63 cards
Pretty straightforward, right?
On the flip side, if you are eye an already-graded card and know the certificate number, you can also search for that specific graded card in order to, one, help verify its authenticity, and two, check the POP.
Read More:
To do so, this time go to psacards.com/cert, and then enter the certificate number as shown here:
When you do so, youâll see the following information, which matches up with the previous chart:
To explain further:
- Population is the total population of the card in that grade. So, in this example, 63 is the total population of PSA 10s. Â
- Population W/Qual means population of that card in that grade but with a qualifier (which includes âOCâ for âoff centerâ and others.Â
- Population Higher is the number of cards in a grade higher than the grade youâre currently reviewing. In this case, nothing is higher than a PSA 10, so â0â makes sense. That said, I also graded a George Valera Orange Mojo recently which was deemed to be a PSA 10. The âPopulation Higherâ for this one is â2â meaning there are two PSA 10s that have been graded.Â
BGS
If you have a firm grasp on the above, the process for doing the same with BGS is similar!
Head to Beckettâs Pop Report (you may have to create an account/login) and enter your desired cardâs information. Upon searching, you should see the card and its population displayed:
While Beckett follows a different grading scale than PSA, you can gather the same info from this chart as PSAâs above. Meaning, 17 cards graded in total, 14 as 9.5, and so on.
And yes, can search search for a specific card if you have the serial number. Just go here, enter the serial number, and off you go!
SGC
I wonât dedicate another entire section to SGC, but the process of looking up a particular card is similar.Â
Just go to gosgc.com/auth-code and input the graded cardâs auth code. Once doing so, youâll see the card details appear, along with buttons to âLoad Set POP Report.â When clicked, youâll see the table load each card in the given set and the different populations of each.Â
Read more:Â What is an SGC âAâ Grade?
All in all, not too complicated, but in a sea of other acronyms and many questions, I can see how having to learn another can be confusing. Good luck!