The question lands in the inbox about once a week, usually worded the same way: can I make my own grading label? The answer splits in two, and the split is the whole post. You can print a display sticker that carries your own opinion of a card under your own name. You cannot print something built to read as a grading company's label, and we will not print one.
Those two objects look similar from six feet away and are completely different in what they say. Here is what belongs on a custom display sticker, what does not, and how to word a listing so nobody confuses the two.
Our layouts carry the line Custom collector display sticker. Not affiliated with or certified by any third-party grading company. It is printed on the sticker itself, not buried in a policy page.
Two different objects
What real grading is
A third-party grading company takes custody of the card, applies its own standards, encases it in its own holder, and records the result against a number in its own database. The opinion is theirs. The holder is theirs. The number resolves on their site, not yours. Nothing you order from a printer produces any part of that.
What a custom grading sticker is
A die-cut printed holographic foil label you design and we print. It carries what you put on it: your shop mark, a card line, a grade you are willing to display under your own name, and a number from a sequence you set. It goes on the plastic — a top loader, a one-touch, a slab shell, a bag or a box. It is a label about the object it is stuck to, and it speaks for nobody's standards but yours.
What you can put on a display sticker
- Your shop name or logo. The strongest thing on the sticker, because it is the part that compounds across every card you sell.
- Your own displayed grade. RAW 9, NM-MT, "our call: 8.5", "sharp, see photos" — whatever your shop already says out loud when someone picks the card up.
- Card lines. Player or character, set, year, collector number.
- A number from your own sequence. Your prefix plus a running count.
- A date. When you graded it, or when it shipped.
- A QR, if you want one. Ours points at the seal record: a page showing the design, the number and the date it was logged — it says nothing about the card.
Everything on that list is a statement you are making in public with your name attached. A condition call signed by a shop is worth more than the same call written in marker, and worth exactly as much as the shop is.
What you cannot put on it
Not a grading company's name. Not their logo. Not their colour scheme, their type, their label proportions, or a number styled to read like one of theirs. Not the words "graded by" anyone other than you. Not any wording that suggests a third party handled the card.
We do not print lookalikes, we do not sell layouts modelled on any grading company's label, and we are not going to walk anyone through building one. Our five layouts were drawn to look like display stickers, because that is what they are.
There is a practical reason on top of the obvious one. Sellers in this hobby report lookalike labels to the grading companies and the marketplaces, loudly and often, and a listing photographed with something that reads as a grader's label draws that attention whether the seller meant it to or not. Your own mark on the same die costs you nothing and still belongs to you next year.
Display grade vs. graded card, in a listing
A buyer scrolling a feed sees the photo before the words, and text rarely catches up with a picture. So do both jobs at once.
On the sticker: leave the mandated line where it is. Custom collector display sticker. Not affiliated with or certified by any third-party grading company. It is on every layout for a reason.
In the listing: describe the grade as yours, in plain words. Something like: "Raw card. The grade shown is our own display grade, printed on a custom sticker. It is not a third-party grade." A line of housekeeping at the bottom of a listing settles the question before a buyer has to ask it.
If you also number what you ship, keep that wording just as narrow — the number, the photo and the log, nothing else: "Each package ships with a numbered sticker. The number is photographed and logged against the order on the day it ships." That stays accurate no matter what happens after the parcel leaves.
Where the sticker goes
On a top loader, the two placements that work are the front lower third, below the card art, or the back, centred. Front suits camera-facing inventory: streams, show cases, marketplace photos. Back keeps the display side clean. The walkthrough is in how to seal a top loader, and the top loader page covers sizing.
On a slab, the sticker goes on the shell and never across the grade label, the grading company's number or the barcode. That label is their statement about the card; putting yours over it is the lookalike problem in adhesive form. How to seal a graded slab has the edge-by-edge detail, and graded slab seals has the placement notes.
Never on the card. Never on factory-sealed wax. Never on a holder headed to a grader — they set their own submission rules, and a sticker on the shell is your problem to undo, not theirs.
What it costs
Custom Grading Stickers run $6.00 per pack of 12, which is 50c a sticker, stepping down to 40c each at 600 and above. That buys five layouts, ten holographic backgrounds, your own displayed grade, and your text on every one. Pick a layout at custom grading stickers and set your lines in the tag builder.
At 50c a sticker you are labelling inventory that faces a camera or a case light, not a 5,000-count box of bulk — under two percent of a thirty-dollar sale, and the only part of the presentation carrying your name.
If you also number what ships, that is the seal side of the shop. Standard seals are 1.77 x 0.75 in, $6.00 per pack of 12, with a 60-seal minimum at $30.00 — 50c each — then 45c at 120 and 40c at 600. Same die, different job: the sticker presents the card while you own it, the seal numbers the package when it goes out.
What a seal will not do
Read this before you build a workflow on it.
- It peels. A seal or a sticker is a printed holographic foil label with adhesive. It can be peeled off and replaced. Any plan that leans on it staying put is a plan with a hole in it.
- It says nothing about the card. Not the grade, not the print run, not the condition, not who owned it. A number on a holder is a number on a holder.
- It has no standing with any marketplace or grading company. No platform treats a numbered sticker as a special kind of record, and no grader recognises your sequence.
- It does not decide a return. If a buyer opens a case, the outcome comes out of eBay's own buyer claim process or the platform's equivalent, weighing whatever both sides submit.
What is left is narrower and more useful. You get one object with a number you set, logged with a date and photographed on the way out, which helps document what was shipped. Kept consistently, that record helps deter swaps and return fraud. The number and the log are the durable part; the film only carries them.
Frequently asked questions
Can I make my own grading label?
You can make your own display sticker, and it can carry your own displayed grade under your own name. What you cannot make is a third-party grade — that takes a grading company holding the card and recording the result in its own database. Our stickers carry the line "Custom collector display sticker. Not affiliated with or certified by any third-party grading company." so the difference sits on the object itself, not only in the listing.
Is a display grade the same as a graded card?
No, and the listing should say so. A display grade is your shop's condition call, printed on a sticker you designed, sitting on a holder anyone can buy. A graded card was assessed by a third party, encased in their holder, and logged under their number. Both can be honest, but only one of them is a third-party opinion, and buyers are entitled to know which one they are looking at.
Can I put a grading sticker on a top loader I am shipping?
Yes, that is the common use. Put it on the plastic, clear of the card window, and photograph it with the card before it goes in the mailer. Card shops covers running one design across a whole counter case.
What if a customer thinks my sticker is a real grade?
Fix it at the source rather than in the reply. Keep the mandated line on the sticker, write the display-grade sentence into your listing template, and say it once on stream if you sell live. If someone still asks, answer plainly that the grade is your own call and the card is raw.
Do the stickers and seals share numbering?
Only if you want them to. The prefix and the starting number are fields you set per order, so a shop running stickers as TAG001 upward can run its seals in a separate sequence or carry one count across both. Within a single order, no two seals share a number. You can look up a number later, and your own log lives at my seals.
The short version: print your own name, print your own grade, and let both be obviously yours. That is a sticker you can stand behind in a message thread, in a listing, and in a year. Pick a layout in the tag builder, or start a numbered run at the builder.
Serial Seal is an independent printer. Not affiliated with or certified by any third-party grading company. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by PSA, Beckett, CGC, SGC, eBay, Whatnot, TikTok or any card manufacturer or publisher. Brand names are used only to describe the products they make. Shop and card names used as examples are invented. Nothing here is legal advice.