collection.cards

How we calculate prices

Where our prices come from, how often they change and how to judge the condition of your card.

In short: we follow the Cardmarket price trend in euros, update it twice a day and adjust it to the condition of your card. Below you can read exactly how that works.

Where the prices come from

We follow the market through Cardmarket (opens in a new tab), the biggest European marketplace for trading cards. Every day Cardmarket publishes a price list with all Pokémon products, and we use it. All prices are in euros.

If Cardmarket has no price for a card, we look at TCGplayer (opens in a new tab), an American marketplace. Its prices are in dollars. We convert them to euros using the daily exchange rate of the European Central Bank (opens in a new tab).

We get the list of cards and versions from TCGdex (opens in a new tab), an open card database. It also tells us which card on Cardmarket matches which card here.

Which price we pick

Cardmarket gives several prices for each card. We take the first one that’s available, in this order:

  1. The price trend: the price you also see for every card on Cardmarket.
  2. The average of sales in the last 30 days.
  3. The average of sales in the last 7 days.
  4. The average sale price.
  5. The lowest asking price.

On TCGplayer we take the market price, or otherwise the mid price or the lowest price.

Every version on its own

Many cards come in several versions: regular, holo or reverse holo, and sometimes with a stamp or as a 1st edition. Every version gets its own price. If Cardmarket has a separate page for a special version, we use that price. Cardmarket has its own prices for reverse holos, and we use those separately.

If a version has no price of its own, we use the price of the regular version of that card. If no price is known at all, you’ll see a dash (—) and the card doesn’t count towards the value.

Condition counts

How good your card looks is what we call its condition. Market prices are for cards that are near mint: as good as new. For a lower condition we use a fixed share of that price.

Mint
100%
Perfect. Even up close and under bright light you can’t see a single scratch, white spot or mark.
Near mint
100%
As good as new. At most a tiny white dot on an edge that you only notice when you look closely. No scratches or dull spots.
Excellent
85%
Used a few times without a sleeve. Light wear, like white spots on the edges or corners, but no scratches on the surface.
Good
70%
Clearly used. White edges and corners and small scratches on the surface, but no creases or tears.
Played
50%
Used a lot. Heavy wear, a crease or water damage, but the card is still in one piece.
Poor
30%
Badly damaged: tears, deep creases, major water damage, or someone has written or drawn on it.

So a card worth €10.00 in near mint is worth €7.00 in Good condition. A card page always shows the near mint price.

You don’t need an official grade for Mint: it simply means the card is perfect. Even a card fresh out of a booster sometimes already has a small white dot, and then it’s near mint.

Graded cards are something else: a company like PSA (opens in a new tab) has rated them with a score from 1 to 10 and sealed them in a plastic case. On that scale, Mint stands for a 9 and Gem Mint for a 10. Our prices are for cards without such a grade. Graded cards often sell for a very different price.

How to judge the condition

Judging condition isn’t an exact science, but these steps will get you a long way:

  1. Take the card out of its sleeve and put it under bright light.
  2. Start with the back. That’s where you spot wear first, as white spots on the blue edges and corners.
  3. Tilt the card in the light and look at the front. That makes scratches and dull spots stand out, especially on holos.
  4. Lay the card flat on a table. If you see a crease or bend, it’s Played at best.
  5. Pick the description above that fits best. If you’re torn between two conditions, pick the lower one. That way your trading partner never gets less than they expected.

Judge an old card just as strictly as a new one. A printing error, like a crooked picture, doesn’t count as wear.

Cardmarket has one more step, Light Played, between Good and Played. We don’t: here you mark such a card as Played. You’ll find example photos of every condition in Cardmarket’s guide (opens in a new tab).

Offers and trading

When you offer a card, you can set your own asking price per copy. Your asking price then counts in your offers and trade proposals. Without an asking price, the market price for your card’s condition applies.

In a trade proposal, the values are fixed at the moment you make the proposal. That way they don’t shift while you’re talking it over. With a counter-proposal they’re worked out again.

The balance bar compares both sides. Up to 10% difference, a trade is balanced; up to 25% it’s slightly off balance and above that it’s far off balance. That’s just a guide: together you decide what’s fair.

The value of your collection

The value of your collection is the total of all your cards: for each card, the price of that version in the condition of your copy, times how many you have. Asking prices don’t count here.

Every day we save that total value, so you can see on your profile how your collection grows. A day follows your own time zone. Today’s value is worked out again each time with the latest prices.

When prices change

We fetch the Cardmarket price list every day at 4 am and 4 pm (Brussels time) and update all cards right away. At the bottom of every page you can see how recent the current Cardmarket prices are.

New sets show up within an hour of appearing on TCGdex. We go through the rest of the catalogue, with the TCGplayer prices, all the time: a few sets every hour.

Why a price can differ

Seeing a different price on Cardmarket? There can be several reasons:

  • Prices on Cardmarket move all the time; we update twice a day.
  • We show the price trend, not the cheapest offer right now.
  • Shipping and selling fees aren’t included in our prices.
  • Rare cards don’t sell often, so their price swings more.

So our prices are a guide for trading fairly, not a promise that someone will pay that amount.

Sources

Want to check for yourself where our numbers come from? These are the sites we use.

On a card page you’ll also find a button to view that card on Cardmarket straight away.