Across 2,550 Pokémon cards graded on TCGAI.PRO between December 2025 and October 2026, the average TCGAI Score was 8.23 and 16.7% of cards scored a perfect 10. The era of the card matters more than anything else in this data: cards printed from 1999 to 2002 averaged 6.42, while cards from 2023 onwards averaged 8.79.
Key numbers
- 2,550 Pokémon cards from 430 different sets
- 8.23 average TCGAI Score
- 16.7% scored a perfect 10; 25.4% scored 9.5 or higher
- 58.5% scored 9 or higher
- 15.1% scored below 7
Vintage versus modern
| Card year | Cards | Average | Scored 10 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 to 2002 | 325 | 6.42 | 5.2% |
| 2003 to 2016 | 192 | 6.81 | 7.8% |
| 2017 to 2022 | 451 | 8.18 | 12.2% |
| 2023 to 2026 | 1,571 | 8.79 | 21.5% |
Every step towards the present raises the average and the share of perfect scores. Out of 75 Base Set cards, none scored a 10 (average 6.32), against 31% of 145 cards from the modern 151 set (average 9.14). Vintage cards have been handled, stored and traded for decades, and edge wear, corner whitening and surface marks add up. If you collect vintage, pre-grading is how you avoid paying to grade a card that will come back a 6.
By language
| Language | Cards | Average |
|---|---|---|
| English | 1,824 | 8.09 |
| Japanese | 480 | 8.54 |
| German | 54 | 8.35 |
| Korean | 39 | 8.79 |
| Chinese | 37 | 9.09 |
| Spanish | 35 | 8.69 |
Japanese cards averaged almost half a point more than English ones in this data. The smaller languages have too few cards to read much into their averages.
Sets to check most carefully
Among Pokémon sets with at least 30 graded cards, the lowest shares of perfect 10s were Base Set (0%), Perfect Order (2.7%), Ascended Heroes (4.9%), Jungle and Celebrations (6.7% each), Mega Dream EX (8.7%) and Crown Zenith (8.8%). Crown Zenith is the telling one: it averaged 9.09, so its cards are clean, yet fewer than one in ten reached a 10. The full list, with sports and One Piece sets, is in the Card Grading Trap Index.
What usually holds a Pokémon card back
- Edges and surface are the sub-grades most often at the bottom across all games in our data: whitening on dark borders, and scratches or print lines on holo foil.
- Centering has the lowest average sub-grade, and it is the one flaw that can never be improved.
- Corners: one soft tip is often the whole difference between a 9 and a 10.
Pre-screen your collection with AI Pokémon card grading, or see the cross-game numbers in the State of Pre-Grading 2026 report.
About this data
Every Pokémon card graded on TCGAI.PRO (web and Android app) from December 20, 2025 to October 22, 2026, excluding test gradings; extracted October 23, 2026. Year and language come from the card identification; 11 cards with no year are left out of the era table. Cards graded before October 21, 2026 used the previous version of our grading pipeline; see the methodology for the current one. Collectors choose what to scan, so the figures describe the cards people pre-grade. The TCGAI Score is an AI estimate, not an official grade, and TCGAI.PRO is not affiliated with any grading company or with The Pokémon Company.
Every set with at least 30 graded cards has its own page with the full numbers and its top public certificates: grading data by set.