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The 2025 Topps Chrome products have been tricky for us this year. The TC Football set has just a 30% Gem Rate in spite of being a brand new product, while TC Basketball is just a touch better at 34%.
Still, this is a very buyable product from a grading perspective, as PSA 10s generally earn a significant premium over raw cards.
With all that said, this post is meant to focus specifically on one issue: how to measure the centering of these cards. The design this year features no clear border which makes it tricky to figure out what you should be looking for while grading.
As you can see below, there are two plausible ways you could measure both top/bottom and left/right centering.
Left/Right Centering
Method 1 (Black): The left border is measured from the edge of the blue and white panel to the left edge of the card. The right border (same for Method 1 and 2) is just the silver panel on the right portion of the card.
Method 2 (Red): Left border measured from the edge of the team name to the left edge of the card.
Top/Bottom Centering
Method 1 (Black): Measured based on the silver portion of the top and bottom borders, on the left part of the card.
Method 2 (Red): Measured based on the silver portion of the top and bottom borders, on the right part of the card.
What Rectifi Found
Rectifi already dug into this problem in detail, measuring 54 PSA 10s and 50 PSA 9s across 2025 Topps Chrome Basketball, Baseball, and F1 to figure out what PSA is actually doing. You can read the full breakdown here.
Essentially, they found that PSA will accept centering based on either Method 1 or Method 2. If both the TB and LR centering are in range by either measure, the card has the potential to grade as a PSA 10. They call this the “Flex Rule”.
For the record, I agree with this opinion. We’ll look at three example cards that illustrate this nicely.
Example Cards
To keep this concrete, we’re looking at three PSA 10 Cooper Flagg #251 cards. The centering between them varies a lot: notice how large the top border looks on the first card compared to the others, and how large the right border looks on the second. All three graded PSA 10.
Read our Complete Guide to PSA Grading for a refresher on how to measure centering.
Example 1
Left/Right:
Method 1: 59.6 / 40.4
Method 2: 49.8 / 50.2
Top/Bottom:
Method 1: 54.1 / 45.9
Method 2: 58.9 / 41.1
Notes:
As you’ll see, it’s common that on PSA 10s, the left/right centering is significantly out of range for one of the two measurement methods (and in range for the other). In this case, we have a PSA 10 with a relatively small right border, meaning that L/R centering is nearly perfect based on Method 2.
Additionally, this card has a relatively large top border, which is helped by using Method 1 for the TB centering, where this card falls just in range at 54.1 / 45.9, while Method 2 is well out of range.
Example 2
Left/Right:
Method 1: 49.0 / 51.0
Method 2: 35.2 / 64.8
Top/Bottom:
Method 1: 47.8 / 52.2
Method 2: 54.1 / 45.9
Notes: The LR centering is the exact opposite of the card above, with a relatively large right border leading to the centering being significantly out of range using Method 2 but almost perfect with Method 1. You’ll notice TB centering is within range with either method.
Example 3
Left/Right:
Method 1: 63.7 / 36.3
Method 2: 54.0 / 46.0
Top/Bottom:
Method 1: 44.7 / 55.3
Method 2: 50.7 / 49.3
Notes:
Like Example 1, this card also has a small right border, although this one takes it to a further extreme, making LR centering narrowly in range for Method 2, and well out of range using Method 1.
Additionally, this is the only card of the three that is technically out of range for TB centering using Method 1, although it’s close enough that this could just be human error in the measurement (and PSA sometimes gives 10s to cards slightly out of range). But it is worth noting that TB centering is perfect by Method 2.
Takeaways
To reiterate, I agree that the flex method is accurate for these 2025 Topps Chrome cards, and this means that there are a significant number of raw cards that are within PSA 10 range for centering, in spite of the massive variance from card to card. This makes this product line significantly more buyable for card graders.
It’s also worth mentioning that it seems the most common PSA 10 centering varies from card to card. For example, it seemed that for this specific Flagg card, the majority of PSA 10s had nearly perfect TB centering based on Method 1. But when I was looking at 2025 Topps Chrome Roki Sasaki autos today, they seemed to more commonly have nearly perfect TB centering based on Method 2. I’m not sure what to make of this, other than that it is an interesting pattern to be aware of.
Additionally, this sort of changes my view more generally on how to handle ambiguous borders. Going forward, I will be more open to the possibility that cards with undefined borders could be considered as PSA 10 centering if the visual appeal looks reasonably good, in spite of what Topps’s original design for the card may have been (which we obviously never know for sure).
Most Profitable To Buy & Grade Now
These are a few of our favorite cards to buy, grade, and sell now. With TCG markets slow and other sports out of season, baseball is the theme of the day.
1. 2023 Shohei Ohtani All Aces
This is our most bought card of 2026 by a lot. These go for around $1,000 as PSA 10s and have a Gem Rate north of 50%.
2. 2025 Topps Chrome Cosmic Sun LeBron / Curry / Flagg
We’ve combined three separate cards into the link below. Each has strong Expected Profitability, with the Flagg card being the most expensive of the three. This set also has a Gem Rate above 50%.
3. 2020 Bowman Chrome Pete Crow-Armstrong Refractor
Great cheap card to get some exposure to the MVP favorite. Raw cards go for around $150, while PSA 10s are over $600.
4. 2022 Bowman Chrome Sapphire Jacob Misiorowski
Like the PCA above, this is a cheap way to buy the Cy Young favorite. You can find raw cards for as low as $200, while PSA 10s go for around $800.