ReGrade — A Technology-First Approach to Card Grading
This is a part of a challenge I’m doing, 28 concepts in 28 days. If you want to read about it head over to the Introduction.
This year has inspired many new hobbies, I’ve built a new computer, gotten into random trick shots, fell into youtube holes of people finding 100-year-old Levis jeans, and now trading cards. Specifically Pokemon cards.
It seems like a popular quarantine activity, prices have been skyrocketing. Logic recently purchased a Charizard for over $200,000.
If you want to get the most value for your card, you need to get them authenticated and graded, there are two main players in this space.
Both of these services will look at your card and judge them based on a few factors such as the corners, surface, centering, and edges. Scaling it from 1–10, with BGS having subscales on the card.
There is a lot of variability going into grading these cards, even if you pull that brand new 1st-edition Charizard out of the pack, it’s not guaranteed a 10. In fact, it’s highly unlikely. There are only 120 PSA 10 Charizards in existence.
The current process involves people reviewing the cards by hand and determining the grades, and there are countless stories about folks sending in their cards to get graded, receiving a lower grade than they expected, and after sending it in again they receive a higher grade.
The difference in grade 8,9 or 10 could be tens of thousands of dollars. There is no room for error or misjudgment.
Introducing ReGrade, a technology-first approach to grading.
If offers a few major advantages over the traditional grading services:
- Automated Grading — The cards are placed in a robot that handles the cards with extreme care and takes high-resolution photos of the entire card, both with a camera and under a microscope. Taking photos of the entire card.
- AI Grading — Using accurate and robust models of the cards, we ingest the photos to calculate a constant grade.
- Detailed Information — As opposed to other grading services ReGrade provides detailed information explaining why cards got a certain grade and subgrade. Cards will be broken
- Fast Turnaround Times — Because the system is automated, this allows us to work through the backlog of cards at a quick pace.
Regrade will also offer some additional services, such as:
- Storage Facility — If you would like to keep your cards safe and secure, you can utilize our storage facility.
- Ability to Trade & Sell — If your cards are stored with ReGrade you will have a digital version of that card in our app, which allows you to trade or sell these cards with other people who store their cards in the vault.
- Smart Case — ReGrade has a connected case allowing you to configure an e-ink display giving you some customization options to best show your score. Configuration options such as market value or population report, etc… all can be displayed atop the card.
- Kiosks — Because ReGrade has automated the process of getting your cards graded, we will have Kiosks set up in Malls, Card shops, and Trade shows allowing you to get your cards graded quickly!
