Condition Guide

How we grade the cards we sell

Our raw scale starts at Near Mint. Nothing that has been out of a pack gets called Mint.

Mint is a verdict for a card that has been measured, inspected under controlled light and sealed in a slab. A raw single has been pulled, sorted, sleeved and handled by people, so Near Mint is the highest grade we will put on one — even when the card looks flawless to us.

Every card is checked front and back under bright angled light against four things: corners, edges, surface and structure. A card is graded to its worst of the four. A pack-fresh card with one soft corner is not Near Mint, however clean the rest of it is.

Centring, print lines and small factory chips along the cut edge are how the card left the printer, not wear. They don’t move a card down the scale, but we photograph them and say so in the listing.

NMNear Mint
LPLightly Played
MPModerately Played
HPHeavily Played
DMGDamaged

Clean rim, sharp corners.

Near Mint

Looks like it came out of the pack and went straight into a sleeve.

At most — one or two specks of white on an edge or a corner tip that you only catch when you tilt it; a faint surface line you can’t see head-on; a trace of edge wear.

Never — a crease, bend or dent; whitening you can see without tilting the card; scratching visible at a glance; a corner that has gone soft or round.

Two small flaws is the budget. A third drops the card to Lightly Played, even if each one on its own is tiny.

Light whitening starting on the borders.

Lightly Played

Handling is visible, but it isn’t the first thing you see.

Expect — light whitening along one or more borders, slight wear at the corners, a few scuffs or scratches on the surface, mild clouding on a foil.

Never — creases, bends, dents, or whitening heavy enough to break up the border colour.

Tournament legal in sleeves. Some shops call this grade Slightly Played or SP; it means the same thing.

Whitening around most of the border.

Moderately Played

Wear you notice straight away, on a card that is still structurally sound.

Expect — whitening around most of the border, rounded or chipped corners, scratching and scuffing you can see without tilting, binder dents, a light shuffle crease that doesn’t read through the front, some dirt or discolouration at the edges, clouding on foils.

Never — tears, holes, liquid staining, ink, or a crease that breaks the surface.

Still legal in sleeves. This is usually where a card stops being worth grading.

Heavy rim wear and a fold line.

Heavily Played

Heavy wear in several places at once, but the card is in one piece.

Expect — whitening across the whole back border, one or more creases or a set bend, heavy scuffing on the front, grime, soft corners, visible warping.

Not reliable for tournament play, even in sleeves. Priced to be played with, not displayed.

Structural damage.

Damaged

DMG

Anything with a permanent mark or damage through the card stock.

Includes — tears, cuts, holes and punctures; creases that show on both sides; water or liquid staining; ink, writing or marker; peeling, splitting or layers separating; gouges that go through the print.

Not tournament legal. Maybe for unique collections. Every damaged card is photographed on its own, and the photos are of the exact card you’ll get.

Faults that cap the grade on their own

A card can be clean everywhere else and still land here. If one of these is present, that’s the ceiling.

A crease, bend or dent that reads on both sidesDamaged
Ink, writing or marker anywhere on the cardDamaged
Liquid staining, or warping from moisture rather than foilDamaged
Peeling or splitting at any layer, including the cornersDamaged
A scratch deep enough to catch a fingernailHeavily Played
Corner whitening that has gone soft and roundedModerately Played

Foils, holos and reverse holos

Holo, full-art and reverse-holo cards come out of the pack slightly bowed more often than not. That’s the foil layer reacting to the card stock, not damage, and it doesn’t move the grade.

Clouding does count. That’s the dull haze a foil picks up from being handled or shuffled, and it shows even when the card has no other wear. Barely-there clouding is fine at Near Mint; haze you can see across the front of the card is Lightly Played or below.

Scratches read far more on a foil than on a matte card, so we judge them at normal viewing distance rather than under a loupe. Factory roller lines and small foil chips along the cut edge are manufacturing, and get disclosed rather than graded down.

Stamps, signatures and other languages

Factory stamps — prerelease, staff, championship and the like — are part of the card and don’t affect the grade.

Hand signatures are a different thing. Signed cards are listed separately, priced at Lightly Played at best before their actual condition is taken into account, and shown clearly in the photos.

The same scale applies to every language we stock.

Sealed product

Sealed items get two states rather than a five-step scale, because what matters is whether the contents are intact.

State	What it means
Sealed	Wrap and seals intact, packaging clean, no tears, splits or crushing beyond the handling marks any retail box picks up.
Sealed, imperfect	Contents complete and untouched, with cosmetic damage to the outside: a nick or hole in the wrap, a crushed corner, a dented lid, a split seal on a box that was never opened. Priced down and photographed.

Cases and boxes reach us in bulk and pick up marks in transit. Unless a listing says otherwise, we don’t guarantee a collector-grade outer box — we guarantee that what’s inside it hasn’t been touched.

What these grades are called elsewhere

If you buy across several shops, the abbreviations don’t always line up. Here’s how ours map.

Our grade	Short	Also sold as
Near Mint	NM	NM-Mint, Pack Fresh, or simply Mint on shops that grade raw cards as Mint
Lightly Played	LP	Slightly Played (SP), Excellent (EX), the upper half of Played (PLD)
Moderately Played	MP	Very Good (VG), the lower half of Played (PLD)
Heavily Played	HP	Good (G), Poor
Damaged	DMG	Poor, Unplayable

If you think we got it wrong

Grading raw cards involves judgement, and two careful people can disagree by half a step. We’d rather hear about it than have you sit on a card you’re unhappy with.

Send your order number and photos of the card in good light, front and back, within 7 days of delivery, and we’ll sort it out.

This guide covers raw singles and sealed product. Graded cards are sold at the grade on the slab, and the grading company’s own standards apply.