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The Under Glass

Methodology

How a guide on The Under Glass is made, where its numbers come from, and how we compare two products or services side by side.

How a guide is made

  1. Start from one question and one rung. Each guide answers a question a collector actually has (which holder, whether to grade, which price tool) and sits on one rung of the protection ladder: penny sleeve, toploader, semi-rigid, grading submission, slab or display case.
  2. Collect the primary sources. Manufacturer spec sheets and product listings for supplies; the grading companies’ own published policies, fees and FAQs for grading; public sales data as shown by named price tools for prices.
  3. Write the answer, with its sources. Drafts are produced with software assistance. Every figure in the article carries a named, dated source, listed at the end of the article.
  4. Check against the sources before publishing. Each figure is checked against the source it cites. A figure we cannot source is removed rather than estimated.

Sourcing rules

  • Any figure (a grading fee, a turnaround time, a dimension, a population count, a price) carries a named, dated source on the page, or it is not printed.
  • Unknowns are stated as unknowns.
  • We do not claim hands-on testing unless an article says exactly what was handled and how.
  • Sales figures describe what cards have sold for, as reported by the named tool on the date given. We do not predict card prices or promise investment returns.

How comparisons are structured

A comparison names both sides in the title (for example, Card Ladder vs Market Movers, or PSA vs SGC) and is built from the same three parts every time:

  1. What each one is for. The job each product or service does, taken from its own published description.
  2. Where they differ. Only on points we can source, each with its source listed at the end of the article.
  3. What we don’t know. Anything we could not confirm is listed as open rather than guessed.

Money and independence

Some links can earn us a commission; commissions never change what we recommend, and many articles carry no buy links at all. See our affiliate disclosure and our editorial standards.

Found a problem?

If a figure is wrong or a source has changed, email support@merchant-dash.com with the page address and what you found.

Last updated: September 2026