How to Value Pokémon Cards

To value a Pokémon card, identify the exact card by expansion and collector number, then find recent completed sales of that same card in the same language and condition. Read the middle of those sales rather than the highest, and take off what selling will cost you. Live listings show what sellers hope for. Completed sales show what buyers paid, and even those need sorting first. This guide takes each step in turn, using the three Charizard ex cards in the 151 expansion as the running example.

Identify the exact card variant first

A name is not enough to look a card up. The 151 expansion holds three cards called Charizard ex, and all three have 330 HP and the same two attacks. They are 6/165 (Double Rare), 183/165 (Ultra Rare) and 199/165 (Special Illustration Rare). Sales of one tell you nothing about the other two.

Read the bottom of the card before you search. The collector number settles which of the three you hold, and the set symbol beside it settles the expansion. The illustrator credit helps less than you might expect, because PLANETA Mochizuki drew both 6/165 and 183/165 while miki kudo drew 199/165. So the illustrator separates 199/165 from the other two, but only the number and the rarity separate 6/165 from 183/165. Confirm the rarity in the official Pokémon TCG Card Database rather than guessing it from the finish.

Printings of the same number can differ as well. Modern sets print many cards in a reverse holo version that shares the standard card's number, and our guide to holo and reverse holo cards shows how to tell them apart. Older cards can carry a 1st Edition stamp that a later printing of the same card lacks. If any mark on your card differs from the card in the sale you are reading, it is not the same card.

Choose completed sales that actually match

Match language first. An English card and a Japanese card are separate products even when the artwork is the same, and our guide to Japanese and English cards explains how they differ. Then match condition. Cardmarket grades raw cards on a seven-step scale (Mint, Near Mint, Excellent, Good, Light Played, Played, Poor) and states that visible clouding alone keeps a card out of Near Mint. A Near Mint sale is not evidence for a Played copy, and a seller's description is not evidence until the photos agree with it.

Graded cards are a separate category. A card in a grading company's case sells on its label as much as on the card inside, so compare graded sales only with sales from the same company at the same grade. Each company publishes its own standard. CGC Cards, for example, places a Pristine 10 above its Gem Mint 10 and reserves the Pristine label for cards that are flawless under ten-times magnification. Keep raw and graded sales in separate lists, and see our grading guide for how the companies differ.

Finally, separate transactions from listings. A live listing is an ask, and one that has sat unsold for weeks is an ask nobody accepted. eBay's own help pages point sellers to completed listings in Advanced Search to see what similar items have sold for. Check that each result ended in a sale rather than expiring, and skip lots of several cards, because a lot cannot tell you what any one card fetched.

Read a small set of comparable observations

Set your inclusion rules before you look, so the sales do not choose themselves. For a raw Near Mint 6/165, these rules would do.

• Same expansion and collector number, confirmed from the photo rather than the title.
• Same language as your card.
• Same condition band for a raw card, or the same company and grade for a graded one.
• A completed sale, not a live or expired listing.
• Sold within the last 90 days, or the last 30 for a set released this year.
• One card per sale, with no lots.

Aim for five to ten sales that pass, and note the date and venue of each. Take the middle figure rather than the top or the average. The gap between the lowest and highest included sale is your uncertainty, and it stays attached to the estimate.

The worksheet below applies those rules to a search for 6/165. The rows are illustrative, written to show each rule at work, and are not real sales. Fill in one like it for your own card and keep the reason column honest.

Handle sparse or inconsistent evidence

Sometimes fewer than three sales pass the rules. Widen the time window first and say that you have. If that is still not enough, widen the condition band by one step and label the estimate as resting on neighbouring conditions. Never widen the language or the card number, because then you are no longer valuing the card you hold.

A card with no recent matching sales does not have a known value. It has a last known sale and a date, and anything beyond that is a guess you should label as one.

When the sales you have disagree, look for a reason before you average them. An auction that ended at an awkward hour can close low, and a listing with poor photos can put buyers off. If you cannot explain an outlier, leave it in and widen your range rather than deleting it to make the answer tidier. State the result as a range with the date of your search beside it, since a figure with no date cannot be checked later.

Account for selling costs

What a buyer pays and what you keep are different numbers, and the gap depends on where you sell. The table gives the published position for UK private sellers on two venues, as checked on 17 October 2026. Fees change, so read the source page before you list.

Postage comes out of the same sum. A card you would be upset to lose should go by a tracked service with compensation, so check Royal Mail's current prices before you set your postage charge, and our guide on how to post Pokémon cards covers the packaging. If you grade a card before selling it, add the grading fee and postage both ways, and remember that the grade is not known until the card comes back.

Put the costs against the estimate with the assumption written down. As an illustration only, suppose fees and postage come to a tenth of the sale. The figure to expect to keep is then the middle of your included sales less that tenth. Write the assumption beside the result so that you, or the person you sell to, can see it.

Use specialist pricing resources

Start with the official Pokémon TCG Card Database on pokemon.com. It shows the expansion, number, rarity and illustrator of each card, which is how you confirm that the card in a sale is the card in your hand. It carries no prices, and for identity that is a strength.

For the sales themselves, eBay's completed listings show what buyers paid on that venue. Specialist price-tracking sites gather completed sales from several venues and chart them by grade. They are a starting point rather than an answer, and only as good as the sales behind the chart.

Before trusting a tracker, test it on a card you have already worked out by hand. A good one shows the individual dated sales behind each figure and keeps raw and graded cards apart. If a site gives a single figure with nothing behind it, treat that figure as an opinion.

Move from an estimate to a sale or purchase

An estimate is the start of a conversation, not the end of one. If you are buying, it tells you what a fair ask looks like, and the seller's photos tell you whether this copy meets it. No seller and no shop can promise what a card will fetch.

When we open, every card we list in our singles range will name its printing and its condition. You can set both against the identity and condition columns of your worksheet.

Our condition standard defines the five condition words we will use for raw cards, each with a written test. Those are fewer than Cardmarket's seven and the names do not line up one to one, so read the definitions before you match a band.

If you are selling, your worksheet gives you a range and the fees table tells you what that range looks like after costs. The next page to read is our guide to how to sell Pokémon cards, which covers choosing a venue and writing a description that matches what arrives.