This Privacy Policy explains how Golden Grading LLC (“Golden Grading,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, and shares information about you when you visit goldengrading.com (the “Site”) or submit cards to us for grading (our “Services”). By using the Site or our Services, you agree to this Privacy Policy.

Golden Grading is a sports and trading card grading company. We do not operate online customer accounts, and we do not sell your personal information. This Policy was last updated on October 14, 2026.

1. Information We Collect

Information You Give Us

When you submit cards, contact us, or check your order status, you may provide:

  • Contact and shipping details — your name, business name (optional), mailing address, phone number(s), and email address.
  • Order information — the cards you submit, the service tier you choose, return-shipping and insurance preferences, and any notes you include.
  • Order-status lookups — when you check an order online, you enter your invoice number and the email address on that invoice. We use these only to locate and return the status of your order.
  • Communications — the content of emails or messages you send us.

Payment Information

We invoice and collect payment through PayPal. Payments are processed on PayPal’s systems under PayPal’s own privacy policy. We do not collect or store your full card or bank-account numbers on our Site.

Information Collected Automatically

Like most websites, our host and security tools automatically receive basic technical data — such as your IP address, browser type, the pages you view, and the date and time of your visit — to keep the Site running, secure, and reliable. We do not use Google Analytics, advertising pixels, or social-media tracking pixels on the Site.

2. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use a small number of cookies and similar technologies for essential purposes only:

  • Strictly necessary cookies that allow the Site and its forms to function and help keep them secure.
  • Google reCAPTCHA, which we use on our forms to prevent spam and abuse. reCAPTCHA collects hardware and software information and sends it to Google for analysis. Your use of reCAPTCHA is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

We do not use analytics or advertising cookies. Most browsers let you refuse or delete cookies; note that disabling strictly necessary cookies may prevent our forms from working.

3. How We Use Your Information

  • To receive, process, grade, and return your card submissions.
  • To create and send invoices and process payment through PayPal.
  • To ship your cards back and provide tracking, including optional return-shipping insurance.
  • To respond to your questions and provide customer support.
  • To operate, secure, and improve the Site and our Services, and to prevent fraud and abuse.
  • To comply with our legal, tax, and record-keeping obligations.

We rely on these uses to perform our Services for you, to pursue our legitimate interests in running a secure and reliable business, and to meet our legal obligations. Where the law requires your consent (for example, for certain non-essential communications), we will ask for it, and you may withdraw it at any time.

4. How We Share Your Information

We share personal information only as needed to run our business:

  • Service providers who work on our behalf, including our payment processor (PayPal), our shipping and tracking tools (such as ShipStation) and shipping carriers (such as USPS, UPS, FedEx, and DHL), Google reCAPTCHA for spam prevention, and our website host. These providers may use your information only to perform services for us.
  • Legal and safety — when required by law, subpoena, court order, or other legal process, or when we believe disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, property, customers, or safety, to enforce our agreements, or to prevent or investigate wrongdoing.
  • Business transfers — if Golden Grading is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, customer information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will provide notice before your personal information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

No Sale of Personal Information. We do not sell, rent, lease, trade, or license personal information to any third party for monetary or other valuable consideration, and we have never done so. We do not share personal information for cross-context behavioral (targeted) advertising, and we do not disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct-marketing or advertising purposes. Should this practice change, we will first amend this Privacy Policy, and we will not sell or share personal information collected before that amendment without your prior consent. A transfer of customer records in connection with a business transfer described above does not constitute a sale.

5. Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, as described in this Privacy Policy. Because the authentication and provenance of graded cards remain relevant for as long as those cards remain in circulation, certain records may be retained indefinitely. In determining the appropriate retention period, we consider, among other factors:

  • the purposes for which the information was collected and whether those purposes remain ongoing, including our continuing business relationship with you;
  • the ongoing authentication, provenance, and certification significance of grading records, including our ability to verify cards we have graded, respond to inquiries regarding a certification, and detect counterfeit or altered cards, holders, and labels;
  • the resolution of disputes, the administration of our guarantees, the handling of claims (including shipping, insurance, and lost or damaged item claims), and the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims;
  • the prevention of fraud and abuse, and the security of the Site and our Services;
  • retention periods required or permitted by applicable tax, accounting, commercial, and other laws, and applicable statutes of limitation; and
  • any litigation hold, audit, investigation, or other legal requirement.

On the basis of these criteria, we retain the following categories of information as indicated:

  • Customer, submission, and order records (including contact and shipping details, order and payment history, the items submitted, and associated grading results, notes, and images) — for as long as we provide grading and certification-verification services, which may be indefinitely.
  • Certification records (including card descriptions, grades, certification numbers, and images) — indefinitely. Our public certification lookup relies on these records and does not display customer names or contact information.
  • Customer support correspondence — for as long as it remains relevant to an order, a certification, or a potential future inquiry, which may be indefinitely.
  • Automatically collected technical data and server logs — for as long as reasonably necessary for security monitoring and troubleshooting by us and our hosting and security providers.
  • Financial and tax records — for no less than the period required by applicable tax and accounting laws.
  • De-identified and aggregated information (such as population reports and grading statistics) — indefinitely. We do not attempt to re-identify such information.

We may retain personal information after our relationship with you has ended. Personal information that we retain remains subject to this Privacy Policy, including the safeguards described in Section 7 (Security), for as long as it is retained. The retention of personal information does not mean that it is sold; as stated in Section 4, we do not sell personal information.

Deletion Requests. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may request the deletion of your personal information as described in Section 9, and we will respond to such requests in accordance with applicable law. Where we honor a deletion request, we may nonetheless retain information to the extent permitted or required by law, including certification records for cards we have graded (without associated contact information), records required for tax, accounting, or legal purposes, information necessary to complete a pending order or to resolve a dispute or claim, records maintained for fraud prevention, and a record of the request itself. Residual copies may persist in backup systems until they are overwritten in the ordinary course of business.

6. International Data Transfers

Golden Grading operates in the United States, and our service providers are generally located in the United States. If you access the Site or use our Services from outside the United States — including from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland — your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, where data-protection laws may differ from those in your country. Where required by law, we rely on appropriate safeguards for these transfers. By using the Site or our Services, you understand that your information will be processed in the United States.

7. Security

We use reasonable administrative and technical safeguards to protect your information. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, however, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

8. Children’s Privacy

Our Site and Services are not directed to children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe a child has provided us personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

9. Your Privacy Rights

California Residents (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, you have the right to:

  • Know and access the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected, the sources, the purposes for collecting it, and the categories of third parties with whom we share it;
  • Delete personal information we collected from you, subject to legal exceptions;
  • Correct inaccurate personal information we maintain about you;
  • Opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information — though, as stated above, we do not sell or share your personal information; and
  • Non-discrimination for exercising any of these rights.

The categories of personal information we collect are identifiers (such as name, address, email, and phone), customer-records and commercial information (your submissions and transactions), and internet or network activity (basic technical data). To make a request, contact us using the details below; we will verify your request against information we already hold. You may use an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf, subject to our verification of their authority. Under California’s “Shine the Light” law, we do not disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct-marketing purposes.

EEA, UK, and Switzerland (GDPR / UK GDPR / FADP)

If you are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, Golden Grading is the controller of your personal data, and you have the right to:

  • Access your personal data and receive a copy of it;
  • Rectify inaccurate or incomplete data;
  • Erase your data, subject to certain conditions;
  • Restrict or object to our processing of your data;
  • Data portability — receive your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format; and
  • Withdraw consent at any time where we rely on consent.

We process your personal data to perform our contract with you (grading and returning your cards), to comply with legal obligations, and for our legitimate interests in operating, securing, and improving our Services. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data-protection supervisory authority.

How to Exercise Your Rights

Email us at grade@goldengrading.com with your request. We may need to verify your identity before acting.

10. Do Not Track

Some browsers offer a “Do Not Track” (DNT) signal. Because there is no common industry standard for DNT, our Site does not currently respond to DNT signals. As noted above, we do not track you across other websites for advertising.

11. Third-Party Links

Our Site may link to third-party sites, including our social-media pages (such as Instagram, Facebook, and X/Twitter). We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites; please review their own policies.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do so, we will revise the “last updated” date above and post the revised Privacy Policy on this page. If we make a material change to the manner in which we use or share personal information that we have previously collected, we will provide notice before the change takes effect and, where required by applicable law, obtain your consent.

13. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or your personal information, contact us at:

Golden Grading LLC
4700 Millwood Drive
P.O. Box 87078
Baton Rouge, LA 70879
Email: grade@goldengrading.com