Pokémon Card Conditions Explained: Near Mint to Damaged

The five conditions

TCGplayer publishes a detailed condition standard for raw cards, and its marketplace lists Pokémon singles in five conditions. Mint and Gem Mint are not conditions it lists, so Near Mint is the top of the scale.

TCGplayer scores every flaw by severity: 1 point for slight, 2 for minor, 4 for moderate and 8 for major. The type of flaw matters as well as the total, because some flaws cap a card's condition however few points they add.

• Any crease drops a card to Moderately Played at best, however clean the rest of it is.
• Whitening that reaches more than 0.5 mm in from the edge counts as surface wear, which a Near Mint card cannot have.
• Off-center printing up to 70/30 does not change the condition. Beyond 70/30, TCGplayer treats the card as Damaged, though it can still be sold as a Listing with Photo at the condition it would otherwise have.
• A card that curls so its center lifts more than 5 mm off a flat table is Damaged.
• Holo and foil cards are judged by the same rules as other cards, even though some flaws are easier to see on foil.

How to check a card under light

Edge wear is easy to spot in most light. Scratches, scuffs and clouding are not, which is why a TCGplayer seller article recommends a light strong enough to show every part of the card. Work on a clean, dark surface with one bright lamp, and hold the card by its edges.

• Edges and corners: go around all four sides, front and back, looking for white specks, white lines, nicks and fraying. For scale, TCGplayer counts a stretch of edge wear up to 20 mm long as slight, and the long side of a Pokémon card is 88 mm.
• Surface: tilt the card slowly so the light skims across it. Scratches and scuffs often show at only one angle.
• Foil: on holo cards, look for clouding, a grayish film that dulls the shine. TCGplayer counts clouding as scuffing.
• Bends and curl: lay the card flat and look across it at eye level, then along the surface from a low angle. A crease shows as a line or ridge.
• Then repeat every step on the back.

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Foil shine drawn as an illustration

1. 1CornersWhite specks, nicks and fraying
2. 2EdgesGo around all four sides, front and back
3. 3SurfaceTilt the card so the light skims across it
4. 4FoilOn holo cards, look for clouding that dulls the shine
5. 5BordersTCGplayer ignores off-center printing up to 70/30

Judge by the worst flaw, not the average. eBay's card condition guidelines say the most significant flaw anchors a card's condition and ask sellers to err on the safe side. TCGplayer also offers free printable overlays for measuring flaws against its standard.

How condition changes the price

On TCGplayer, Market Price is the average of recent sales for a specific product in a specific condition, and the price points on a product page follow the condition you filter by. A Near Mint copy and a Lightly Played copy of the same card each have their own price.

So when an app or price guide shows one number for a raw card, check which condition it means. In the Cardmatic card database, the TCGplayer price on each card is labeled Near Mint, and a list headed By condition underneath estimates the other conditions from it. Those are estimates, not appraisals. For a valuable card, filter TCGplayer by your card's condition or look at recent sales in that condition before you set a price.

eBay uses its own condition names for ungraded game cards. They line up with TCGplayer's names, but each marketplace applies its own definitions, so describe any flaws in the listing either way.

A condition is not a grade

TCGplayer draws this line itself. It calls a non-numeric label such as Near Mint a condition, and reserves the word grading for numeric measures of quality, most often from professional grading services. eBay's guidelines say the same: raw card conditions do not relate to a card's grade, which must be determined by a professional grader.

The words overlap, which causes confusion. On PSA's scale, Near Mint is the name of a 7 and Near Mint-Mint the name of an 8. A raw card sold as Near Mint has not been graded, so the label does not tell you what number it would get.

Centering shows how far apart the two systems are. TCGplayer ignores centering up to 70/30, while PSA allows only about 55/45 on the front for a Gem Mint 10. A card can be comfortably Near Mint raw and still miss a 10 on centering alone.