At Rare Edition, our grading process is at the heart of our grading service. How we grade and what comes back to you for your collectibles is critical for us to get right. Read on for more insight into how we grade every item that comes through our doors.
Our system tracks every item as it moves through our grading flow, letting us know when our team members have scanned each item as well as where it sits in our process. Our customers get updates over email letting them know the status of their order, including when it’s begun grading, but we know not everyone checks their emails often. That’s why our customers can also view every item they’ve submitted in their profile, letting them watch as it moves from received, to grading, to graded, to shipped, and finally to arriving at your door.
When an order arrives at our warehouse, it’s carefully unpackaged and reviewed by our operations team. Our operations team checks the order to make sure the contents match the packing slip, notifying our customers if a wrong item was sent or if an item was incorrectly packaged. If everything matches the packing slip, the items are then stored in our vault until it’s time to grade them.
Once it’s time to grade an item, it’s taken out of our vault and taken to the Scanning station. Scanning is critical at Rare Edition, since it’s this high-resolution scan that allows us to evaluate the card at a per-pixel level. Our computer vision technology allows our algorithms to review each and every pixel, determining whether it’s damaged or pristine. Don’t worry - our scanning team members are trained to be exceptionally careful when taking a card out to be scanned!
After scanning, our researchers review the card and update any card information so it’s completely accurate on the label. At this step, our researchers review the scanned images and determine what set it’s from, specific details about the card like it’s refractor or parallel, and update the card information so our graders know exactly what type of card it is. This way we can maximize the amount of time our graders have to review a card rather than having them research and investigate every card that comes their way.
After scanning and researching, our graders review all of the information we’ve compiled on the card and begin grading. Using our proprietary tech as well as their own expert eye, they review 20 distinct areas of the card: Front and back, corners, edges, and surface. They also measure the card for centering, and record everything in our database. Whatever our graders find is shown to you, from the exact pixels of damage to the rubbing on the edges. It’s all present in our grading report for each card.
After our grading team finishes their work, the card is moved to our encapsulation station. At this station, our team carefully removes any dust and places the card in the case. The card’s label is printed out and placed in the top of the case, and a NFC antenna is placed in the label that directs any modern smartphone to the card’s grading report just by placing the phone next to the card. We also include several additional security checks at this time to help ensure the security and authenticity of the card. Finally, the case is ultrasonically welded and the card is moved to the Quality Control station.
Attention to detail is another core component of our grading process. After each card has completed grading and encapsulation, our Quality Control station checks for any issues. In addition to checking that the label is correct and the card is seated correctly, they also review the grade and perform a final check that the card matches the grade it was given. If anything is incorrect or missing, the card is sent back and graded again.
Lastly, every card is packaged up and sent back for you to enjoy. Each order gets a shipping ID and tracking number so you know exactly when your cards are arriving. Once you receive them you can review each card’s grading report, compare them to other people’s cards, and brag about how great your collection is.
Everything we do at Rare Edition is about raising the bar for everything worth collecting. Got questions? Reach out to us on social media or join our Discord community!
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