How crossover grading works at CGC and SGC

A crossover asks a second grading company to grade a card that already sits in another company’s slab, and to move it into its own holder. At CGC Cards, the card is evaluated in its old slab. CGC removes it from that holder only if it believes the card will get the same grade or a higher one. If not, the card comes back in the slab it arrived in, and you still pay the full fee. CGC takes slabs from PSA, Beckett and SGC, and it charges by the same tiers as raw grading. SGC prices crossovers on the same grid as raw cards, and crossovers sent without a minimum grade take longer there.

What happens to a card during a CGC crossover?

1. You send the slab as it is. CGC accepts cards in PSA, Beckett and SGC holders for its CrossOver service.
2. CGC evaluates the card in its old holder. It judges the grade it expects to give, with the card still inside.
3. The card crosses only if the grade would be the same or higher. Then CGC removes it from the old holder and seals it in a CGC holder.
4. Otherwise it stays put. A card CGC would grade lower goes back to you in the slab it came in, and CGC still charges the whole grading fee.

Two rules change that outcome. If you specify CROSS AT ANY GRADE, CGC will move the card into its holder even when its grade is lower than the old one. And CGC treats cards in Beckett’s BCCG holders as raw cards: it removes them and crosses them at any grade.

Signed cards follow their own route. A crossover cannot put a card into CGC’s Signature Series, a label kept for autographs a CGC or JSA representative witnessed. Witnessed autographs can instead go through the CrossOver service for a CGC x JSA label. JSA checks the autograph, and if it is judged authentic, CGC grades the card and seals it under that label.

What does a crossover cost?

At CGC, a crossover is priced “according to tier”, the same service levels used for raw cards. The tier depends on the declared value. For a graded card, CGC asks you to base that value on an equivalent card in the same grade.

CGC takes PSA, Beckett and SGC holders and counts BCCG as raw, and if the new grade would be lower the card comes back in its old holder with the full fee charged.

Add the extras. CGC generally sends finished orders back by FedEx, at $25 for one to five cards when the declared value is $5,000 or less (rates effective August 5, 2025). It also charges $5 a card for any card not fully described on the form. If CGC judges a card’s fair market value to be higher than you declared, it moves the card to the matching tier and charges the difference. Rip.fan’s grading cost calculator shows each level for every company it covers, with the day each price was read. Its totals do not include shipping both ways, insurance or membership fees.

Crossover, reholder or regrade: which one do you need?

The services sound alike but do different things.

• Crossover. A card graded by one company gets a fresh grade from another, and moves to its holder only on the terms above.
• ReHolder at CGC. A card still sealed in the CGC or CSG holder it was first graded in moves to a new CGC holder, and its grade does not change. CGC charges $10 a card, with an estimated 20 working days, and may correct a clerical error on the label.
• Regrade at CGC. A card submitted for regrading with its original label is not guaranteed to receive the same grade.
• Reholders and reviews at SGC. SGC prices reholders separately and puts reviews on the same grid as crossovers. Check with SGC for how either service works.

One more path is taking the card out of its slab yourself and sending it raw. Removing a card from a CGC holder voids CGC’s guarantee, and for CGC to seal it again the card would have to be submitted as a raw card. You can also send the old label back, so the card stops counting in CGC’s population report. Sent raw, a card has no floor: it gets whatever grade it gets.

Is a crossover worth the fee?

Plan on the same grade. A standard request at CGC is built around it: the card moves only at that grade or higher. The move makes sense only when the same grade in the new company’s holder sells for more than the current slab by more than the full cost. Take a worked example with made-up card values and these assumptions:

• The card is in another company’s 9 holder, and recent sales in that holder are about $150.
• The same card has sold for about $190 in a CGC 9 and $110 in a CGC 8.
• It goes at CGC Economy, declared at $150, the same-grade value.
• Five cards share the box. It goes out in a USPS Priority Mail Small Flat Rate Box at $14.65, the retail price effective October 4, 2026, and comes back for $25. Each card’s cost, its $20 fee plus a fifth of the box’s $39.65, is $27.93, or $59.65 if it goes alone.
• The card then sells on Whatnot’s US standard tier, where commission (8%) and payment processing (2.9%) take about 10.9% of any change in price, ignoring tax and the fixed $0.30.

Three rules follow from the table:

• The standard request protects the grade, not the fee. If the card does not cross, it keeps its value and you lose the cost.
• Share the box. Sent alone, even a clean crossover in this example costs more than it adds.
• Choose Cross at Any Grade only if you want the card in the new holder whatever the grade. It removes the floor that makes a crossover safer than sending the card raw.

Our guide to whether a card is worth grading sets out the same arithmetic for raw cards, and finding what a card sold for shows how to price each slab.

How do you send a card for a crossover?

1. Price both holders. Look up sold prices for the card in its current slab and in the new company’s slab at the same grade.
2. Declare the current value. For CGC, base it on the card in its present grade.
3. Pick the level and the floor. Choose the tier that covers the declared value. At CGC, decide between the standard terms and Cross at Any Grade. At SGC, give a minimum grade if you want to avoid the longer wait.
4. Describe the card fully. It saves CGC’s $5 charge.
5. Pack and check before it ships. An order cannot be changed or cancelled once it is on its way to CGC. Our guide to shipping a graded card yourself covers packing a slab.
6. Check the new slab. CGC images every card it grades after sealing it, and the images can be viewed on its verification page. Look the card up there by its new cert number.

When the card is back, our guide to storing graded cards covers what comes next, and the CGC glossary entry describes the company.

Frequently asked questions

Can you cross a card over to TAG?

No. TAG offers no crossover service and will not crack a PSA, CGC, SGC or BGS slab for an order, so a card has to reach it raw, in a penny sleeve and semi-rigid shield.

Does TAG offer a minimum grade?

No. TAG has no minimum grade service, so you cannot ask it to slab a card only if it scores above, say, an 8.

What happens at CGC if a card misses its minimum grade?

On a CGC x JSA or Signature Series order, a card that misses the minimum gets an Authentic designation in place of a number, and the full fees still apply.

What happens if CGC finds a crossover card is fake?

CGC returns a card that appears counterfeit as Questionable Authenticity and still charges the grading fee.