Reference
Condition & grading guide
Two different systems get used on this site — a five-tier condition scale for raw cards, and a 1–10 numeric scale for slabs. Here's exactly what we mean by each, so you know what's arriving before it does.
Raw cards: the five-tier scale
Every raw single in the shop is graded against the same published standard TCGplayer uses. We picked it deliberately rather than inventing our own: it's the vocabulary the whole hobby already shares, and a scale only one shop uses isn't a scale, it's a marketing device.
Near Mint
Looks nearly unplayed. A crisp surface and clean corners, with at most a couple of tiny flaws from shuffling. Foils in this tier carry no scratches or clouding.
Lightly Played
Minor border or corner wear, or light surface scuffs. Structurally sound with no bends, no liquid damage, and still tournament legal in a sleeve.
Moderately Played
Noticeable wear — moderate scratching, whitening on the borders or corners, or minor creasing that does not break the card's structure.
Heavily Played
Heavy whitening, scratching, creasing or scuffing. The card is intact and playable in a sleeve, but the wear is obvious from across the table.
Damaged
Significant damage: a bend or crease that breaks the surface, water damage, tears, or writing. Priced accordingly and sold as-is.
Foils are judged harder
This trips people up constantly. A foil shows wear the same card in non-foil simply wouldn't — clouding, fine scratching across the holo layer, and the curling that comes from the foil layer and the cardstock shrinking at different rates. So the bar is higher: a foil we call Near Mint carries no scratching or clouding at all, where a non-foil at the same tier is allowed a couple of minor surface flaws.
Slight curl on a foil is a manufacturing characteristic, not damage, and doesn't drop the grade on its own. Print lines are the same — they came out of the pack that way.
Age is judged in context
A 1994 card and a card printed last month don't wear the same way, and pretending otherwise would mean almost no vintage card ever grading above Moderately Played. Cardstock, ink and foiling all changed over thirty years. We grade against what that print run reasonably looks like, and where age has caused something specific — edge yellowing, natural colour loss — the listing says so rather than hiding it inside a tier.
Graded slabs: the 1–10 scale
A slab is a card that's been sent to a third-party grader, authenticated, assigned a numeric grade and sealed in a tamper-evident holder. You're buying that company's opinion as much as the card — which is why the grader on the label materially changes the price of an otherwise identical card.
PSAProfessional Sports Authenticator
Whole numbers 1–10 with a single overall grade, plus a rare Gem Mint 10. The most liquid slab on the market: a PSA 10 generally resells faster and higher than an equivalent grade from anyone else, which is priced in.
BGSBeckett Grading Services
Whole and half grades, and the one grader that publishes four subgrades — centering, corners, edges and surface. A BGS 9.5 with black-label 10 subgrades is a different object from a bare 9.5, and the subgrades are worth reading.
SGCSportscard Guaranty Company
Whole and half grades in the tuxedo-black holder. Historically strongest on vintage sports; increasingly common on modern too, and generally regarded as a strict, consistent grader.
CGCCertified Guaranty Company
Whole and half grades, came to cards from comics. Strong presence in TCG — particularly modern Pokémon — and its slabs are well regarded, though resale premiums still lag PSA on the same grade.
Roughly what the numbers mean
Graders differ in the details and none of them publish a formula, but the bands line up closely enough to be useful:
Always check the cert number
Every graded listing here shows its cert number and links to the grader's own public lookup. Use it. It takes ten seconds, it confirms the grade and the card match the label, and it's the single best protection against a counterfeit holder — which is a real problem in this hobby, and one that no amount of trusting a seller solves.
If a listing anywhere refuses to show you a cert number, that is the whole answer to whether you should buy it.
Should you get a card graded?
Usually the honest answer is no. Grading costs money per card plus shipping both ways and takes weeks, so it only pays when the graded price meaningfully exceeds the raw price — which in practice means a genuinely Near Mint card that's already worth a fair amount, or a vintage card where authentication is doing the heavy lifting.
Bring it in and we'll give you a straight opinion, including when that opinion is “this will grade a 9, and a 9 is worth less than you'd spend finding out.” We do submissions for customers, and we'll happily talk you out of one.
Questions about a specific card? Call or email us— we'll take more photos of any listing, under whatever light you want.