Pokémon Card Condition Guide: How Singles Are Graded

Every Pokémon single we sell is graded by hand before it is listed. If you have ever wondered why one Charizard is priced at a fraction of another that looks almost identical in a photo, condition is usually the answer. This guide explains the grades we use, what separates them, and how to assess your own cards before bringing them in.

The five grades

The trading card industry has settled on a broadly consistent five-tier scale for raw (ungraded) singles. These are the grades you will see on our listings.

Near Mint (NM)

The card looks like it was pulled from a pack and sleeved immediately. Under good light you might find one tiny imperfection — a barely visible edge nick or the faintest surface mark — but nothing you would notice while playing or displaying it.

• Corners sharp, no whitening
• Edges clean, no visible wear along the border
• Surface free of scratches, scuffs, dents or print lines
• Centring reasonable front and back
• No bend, no crease, lies flat

Most modern cards pulled from a pack and sleeved straight away will grade Near Mint. Most cards that have spent a year loose in a deck box will not.

Lightly Played (LP)

Minor wear that is visible on inspection but does not dominate the card. This is the most common grade for well-kept older cards.

• Slight corner whitening or softening
• Light edge wear along one or more borders
• Minor surface scratching visible when tilted to the light
• No creases, no water damage, no bends

Moderately Played (MP)

Obvious wear at a glance, but the card is intact and fully playable in a sleeve.

• Noticeable border whitening around several edges
• Corner wear visible without close inspection
• Scratching or scuffing across the surface
• A light crease may be present but does not break the card's structure

Heavily Played (HP)

Major wear. The card is still whole and still identifiable, but it has clearly been used.

• Heavy whitening across most edges and corners
• Creasing, bending or significant surface damage
• Possible minor water or liquid marking

Damaged (DMG)

Structural damage. Tears, heavy creasing that breaks the card face, water damage, writing, or anything that has altered the card permanently. We do occasionally stock damaged vintage cards, because a damaged Base Set holo is still a Base Set holo — and for many collectors that is the point.

The four things graders actually look at

Whatever scale you are using, assessment comes down to four areas. Check them in this order.

1. Corners

Hold the card face up under a light and look at all four corners from an angle. Whitening shows up as pale fraying where the ink layer has worn back from the card stock. Corners are usually the first thing to go and the hardest thing to hide in a photo.

2. Edges

Turn the card so light runs along each border. On a card with dark borders — and a great many Pokémon cards have them — even slight wear reads as a bright white line. This is why dark-bordered cards tend to grade lower than light-bordered ones from the same pack.

3. Surface

Tilt the card and look across it rather than straight at it. Scratches, scuffs, print lines and indentations only appear at an angle. Holographic cards show scratching far more readily than non-holos, so a holo and a common from the same era rarely grade the same.

4. Centring

Compare the border width on opposite sides, front and back. Perfect centring is rare and off-centre printing is a factory issue, not damage — but it still affects value, and it matters enormously if you are considering professional grading.

Why condition moves the price so much

On a modern card still in print, the gap between Near Mint and Moderately Played is usually modest. On a vintage card it can be the difference between a few dollars and a few thousand.

The reason is supply. Modern cards exist in enormous quantities in Near Mint condition because collectors sleeve them immediately. A card printed in 1999, when nobody was sleeving anything, survives in Near Mint condition only by accident. That scarcity is what the price reflects.

This is why our vintage Pokémon cards carry a wider price spread than our modern sets. Two copies of the same card in different grades are, commercially, two different products.

Checking your own cards before you trade

If you are planning to trade cards in with us, a few minutes of preparation genuinely helps.

• Sleeve anything valuable before it travels. Most damage happens in transit, not in storage.
• Do not try to clean cards. Wiping a holo with a cloth adds scratches. Erasers, solvents and tape all cause permanent damage and are immediately obvious to anyone assessing the card.
• Do not flatten a bent card under books. It creates surface creasing that is worse than the bend.
• Sort by set if you can. It makes the assessment faster, which means you get a number sooner.
• Be realistic about corners. Nearly everyone grades their own cards one tier higher than a shop will. Look at the corners under a bright light before you decide what something is.

Raw versus professionally graded

Everything above describes raw cards. Professional grading — PSA, BGS, CGC — encapsulates the card in a sealed slab with a numeric grade from 1 to 10.

Grading makes sense when the fee is small relative to the increase in value it unlocks. On a card worth twenty dollars it almost never does. On a high-end vintage holo it frequently does. If you are unsure, ask us before you send anything away — turnaround times and fees change, and the answer depends on the specific card.

Questions

We grade every card in the shop by hand, and we are happy to walk you through why a particular card landed where it did. If you are in London, bring it in. If you are ordering online and want a closer look at a specific card's condition before you buy, get in touch and we will take photographs for you.

Browse our Pokémon singles, all graded and priced individually.