The dataset
We collected every publicly listed BGS-graded copy of five Pokemon cards from Beckett’s population report (a public database of every card they’ve graded). Each record includes the four subgrade scores (centering, corners, edges, surface) and the final grade.
| Card | Total | BGS 10+ | 9.5 | 9.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mega Charizard X ex SIR | 1,453 | 23.3% | 50.5% | 19.9% |
| Team Rocket’s Mewtwo ex SIR | 1,102 | 25.3% | 48.8% | 16.4% |
| Mega Charizard X ex MHR | 413 | 0.5% | 24.0% | 46.2% |
| Zekrom ex SIR | 320 | 22.8% | 47.5% | 21.6% |
| Victini BWR (White Flare) | 161 | 6.2% | 53.4% | 32.3% |
Most of these cards land at 9.5. About a quarter make it to BGS 10. So which subgrade is holding them back?
Perfect 10.0 rate by subgrade
For each card, we looked at how many graded copies scored a perfect 10.0 on each of the four subgrades. The gap between centering and everything else is huge.
| Card | Corners | Edges | Surface | Centering |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charizard X SIR | ||||
| Mewtwo SIR | ||||
| Zekrom SIR | ||||
| Victini BWR | ||||
| Charizard X MHR |
Look at the centering column. The best card – Mewtwo – only hits 10.0 on centering in 7.7% of copies. The worst card is at 3.2%. Corners and edges, meanwhile, sit above 65% for most cards.
Centering is 10–20x harder to get perfect than corners or edges
Across all five cards, corners score 10.0 in 45–78% of copies. Edges: 21–78%. Centering: 3–8%. Roughly 10x harder. You can handle a card perfectly and still lose the point on centering, because centering happens at the factory when the sheet gets cut.
The Black Label wall
A BGS Black Label needs all four subgrades at 10.0. If centering almost never hits 10.0, Black Labels should be rare. They are.
We took every BGS 10 card where centering was the only thing below 10.0 – corners, edges, and surface all perfect, centering at 9.5. Here’s the breakdown:
| Card | BGS 10 cards | Missed BL (centering only) | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charizard X SIR | 339 | 279 | 82.3% |
| Mewtwo ex SIR | 279 | 214 | 76.7% |
| Zekrom ex SIR | 73 | 64 | 87.7% |
| Victini BWR | 10 | 6 | 60.0% |
| Charizard X MHR | 2 | 0 | – |
For the three cards with enough BGS 10s to mean anything, the pattern holds: 76–88% of BGS 10 cards had 10.0 on corners, edges, and surface – and lost Black Label only because of centering.
Why centering is different
Corners, edges, and surface all come down to how the card was handled after it left the factory. Sleeve it, store it flat, keep your fingers off the front, and you’ve got a decent shot at 10.0 on all three.
Centering is a different story. It gets locked in at the factory when sheets are cut into individual cards. Nothing you do after that changes it. You either got lucky on the cut line or you didn’t.
BGS is also strict about it. For a 10.0, they want an exact 50/50 split left-to-right and top-to-bottom – dead center. PSA is more forgiving: a 45/55 split still clears their Gem Mint 10 bar. That gap in tolerance is a big part of why BGS centering numbers look the way they do.
92–97% of cards score below 10.0 on centering
Across all five cards, 92.3% to 96.8% of graded copies came back with a centering score under 10.0. That’s just how mass print-and-cut production works. Perfect centering is the outlier.
The surface surprise: Gold Charizard and Victini
We expected centering to be the weak spot. We didn’t expect surface to fall apart on specific cards. Look at the perfect surface rates again: Zekrom 64.6%, Mewtwo 55.9%, Charizard SIR 60.3% – all in a normal range. Then Victini drops to 13.2%, and the Gold Charizard crashes to 0.5%.
Thick coating, pimpled surface
Both cards have a thick coating: gold on the Charizard MHR, red on the Victini. Put the gold one under a microscope and it’s straight up acne – bumps and pits all over. The coating also scratches easy and cracks on its own, and BGS flags all that as defects. That one Charizard that did score 10 on surface? Tired grader, no question.
The Mega Charizard X MHR is the extreme case. Out of 413 graded copies, only 2 reached BGS 10. Zero Black Labels. Just 0.5% scored 10.0 on surface – the SIR version of the same card hits 60.3%. Same Charizard, same set. The finish is what makes the difference.
If you’re thinking about grading a gold MHR card, the data says to expect a 9.0. That’s where 46% of them land. Almost a third grade below 8.5.
Victini shows the same thing on a smaller scale: 13.2% perfect surface against 45–55% on corners and edges. It’s not a handling problem. The red coating just doesn’t hold up like a standard finish does.
In conclusion: a few tips from my own BGS grading experience
Check centering first, before anything else. (I actually built a microscope app for measuring centering, but I won’t link it here so this doesn’t read as an ad.)
After centering, focus on whatever’s specific to that card.
For surface and edges, use a blue flashlight. It’s great for catching defects.
Data source
Data pulled from Beckett’s public population report on March 8, 2026. It’s every publicly listed BGS-graded copy of these five cards on that day – 3,449 records in total.