What Is a CGC Pristine 10?

CGC Pristine 10 is Certified Guaranty Company's top grade for trading cards, requiring all four subgrade axes (centering, corners, edges, surface) to score a perfect 10. It is materially stricter than a PSA 10, which evaluates only a composite without published subgrade floors. CGC's standard 10 (one step below Pristine 10) is roughly equivalent to a PSA 10.

Detailed explanation

CGC entered TCG grading in 2020 from a comic-grading background and built a tighter ladder than PSA from day one. The CGC scale runs 1.0 to 10 in 0.5 increments, with Pristine 10 (P10) as the top award. Like BGS Black Label, CGC Pristine 10 requires all four subgrades at 10 — no averaging, no rounding.

CGC also issues CGC 10 Gem Mint for cards that hit composite 10 but have one or more subgrades at 9.5. This intermediate tier is positioned as a direct equivalent to PSA 10. The CGC ladder reads roughly: CGC 9.5 ≈ PSA 9, CGC 10 Gem Mint ≈ PSA 10, CGC Pristine 10 ≈ BGS Black Label.

Common misconception: CGC is easier or harder than PSA. The two are not directly comparable because they evaluate different axes. A specific card might receive CGC 10 Pristine and PSA 10 simultaneously, or CGC 9.5 and PSA 10 (subgrade floor missed but composite met).

Worked example

A 2023 Charizard ex submitted to CGC with subgrades 10/10/10/9.5 returns CGC 10 Gem Mint, not Pristine 10. The same card submitted to PSA returns PSA 10 because PSA does not enforce a surface-axis floor at the composite level. Same physical card, two different top-tier labels.