Our condition standard

This is the standard we will apply to every raw single on this site. It is written before we have listed a card so that it cannot be bent around stock later. Five words, each with a test. A card that fails any one test for a grade drops to the next grade down. There is no "mint", no "pack fresh" and no "gem" on a raw card here, because none of those is a condition.

The five grades

Near Mint (NM). Under ordinary room light the card looks as it did out of the pack. Corners sharp with no whitening visible at arm's length. Edges clean. Surface free of scratches, dents and print lines when tilted under a lamp; a single faint factory line that does not catch the light is allowed. Centring within what the printer produced for that set, which for older sets is looser than for new ones; we will say if a card is noticeably off-centre even when it is otherwise NM.

Lightly Played (LP). Light wear that you have to look for. A touch of whitening on one or two corners or along one edge. A faint surface scratch or two visible only under angled light. No creases, no dents, no writing. A card in a sleeve at a glance looks NM; out of the sleeve it does not quite.

Moderately Played (MP). Wear you can see without looking for it. Whitening on several corners or edges, visible scratching, light scuffing on the holo, minor edge chipping. No creases that break the surface, no water damage. Playable in a sleeve, obviously handled out of one.

Heavily Played (HP). Heavy wear: creasing that does not break the card, heavy whitening, scuffing across the surface, bent corners, small marks. Still intact and still the card, but clearly worn.

Damaged. Anything with a crease that breaks the surface, a tear, water damage, writing, a hole, or a bend that will not lie flat. We will say what the damage is.

What we will say about every card

The set and the number on the card. The printing: 1st Edition, shadowless or unlimited on Base Set; standard, reverse holo or promo on modern cards; the stamp where there is one. The grade from the list above. Anything the grade does not capture that you would want to know, such as off-centring on an NM card or a print defect.

Photographs

Cards above a threshold we will state at opening will be photographed individually, front and back, in flat light, and the photograph on the page will be the card sent. Cards below the threshold will be pooled by set, number, printing and grade, and the page will say the card is from a pool. We will not use stock images for any card.

Packing

Penny sleeve, then a rigid toploader for cards above the threshold or a semi-rigid for pooled cards, then a bubble mailer for a small order or a box for a larger one. Team bags around multiple cards. Tracked where the order justifies it. A card that leaves here NM and arrives LP has been packed badly, and that is on us.

If we get it wrong

You tell us. We look at the photograph we took before sending. If the card does not meet the grade we gave it, we take it back and refund the card and the postage both ways. The full returns policy will be written before the first sale; this paragraph is the part of it that will not change.