Grade to the Photo: Pricing Raw Vintage Pokémon

I collect Pokémon with my kids, and I buy and sell a good deal more than I keep. This spring I picked up a lot of 18 vintage cards, and pricing it taught me something about condition labels.

The Labels Don't Travel

Moderately Played, Lightly Played, Heavily Played: every platform and every seller uses them a little differently. There's no shared standard for raw vintage.

The comps show it. In the same window, two raw Gengar Fossil Unlimited Holos sold for $95 and $229.80. Same card, same label range, more than double the price.

Buyers of raw vintage price off the photo. So that's what I grade to.

How I List a Raw Vintage Card

• Shoot the front and back straight on, in even light, with the corners and edges visible.

• Name the specific wear in the description: soft corners, light edge wear, no creases.

• When a card sits between two grades, take the higher label and list the flaws plainly.

• Put creases, water damage, writing or structural damage in the title or the first line.

That last one matters most. A flaw named up front rarely comes back as a return.

What's Next

The most-asked Pokémon question right now is how to spot a fake card. That's the next write-up, with my own cards as the examples.