Glossary
The vocabulary of card protection, defined plainly. Every entry cites where its facts came from — including the ones where the industry’s favourite words turn out to mean less than they suggest.
All terms
- Acid-free
- Acid-free means a material has a neutral pH and will not release acids that yellow, embrittle or stain a card over time.
- Archival safe
- "Archival safe" is a marketing description, not a measurable standard — conservation bodies treat the word "archival" as having no fixed definition.
- PVC-free
- PVC-free means a sleeve or holder contains no polyvinyl chloride, a plastic that releases acids as it ages and can bond to the surface of a card.
- Penny sleeve
- A penny sleeve is a thin, soft, clear polypropylene sleeve that fits a standard card and is sized to slide inside a 3 × 4 toploader.
- Semi-rigid holder
- A semi-rigid holder is a flexible plastic card holder, stiffer than a sleeve but bendable unlike a toploader, and it is the format PSA requires for grading submissions.
- Point (pt)
- A point is a unit of card thickness equal to 0.001 inch (0.0254 mm), so a 35 pt card is 0.035 inches thick.
- Inner sleeve
- An inner sleeve is a snug, thin sleeve sized close to the card itself, worn underneath a normal deck sleeve to seal the card in from both ends.
- Double-sleeving
- Double-sleeving means putting a card in a thin inner sleeve and then a second outer sleeve, so that no opening in either sleeve is left exposed.
- Whitening
- Whitening is the pale line that appears along a card's edges or corners when the printed surface layer wears away and exposes the lighter core beneath.
- Gem Mint
- Gem Mint, graded PSA 10, is the top grade on PSA's ten-point scale: four sharp corners, full original gloss, and front centering no worse than about 55/45.