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If you have been collecting Pokemon TCG cards for a while or are brand new to the game, you’re going to want to know just how much value you have in your collection. Thankfully, there are quite a few ways of checking the value of your cards.
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A lot of factors go into determining the value of your cards, however, so you need to make sure you have a good idea of what to look for. We broke down some of the key components you need to be aware of to make sure you’re getting the most out of your cards.
Know The Different Rarities
The Basic Rarities
A card’s rarity is one of the main things that determine a card’s value. There are three basic rarities you need to keep track of:
- Common – A black circle
- Uncommon – A black diamond
- Rare – A black star
You can see the rarity of each of your cards by looking for one of these symbols at the bottom right corner of most cards.
Even More Rarities
From there, you can get a few more rarities. There’s the holo foil rare, which has the artwork of the card in a sparkly foil finish. A reverse holo foil, where the text box of the card is foil and not the artwork.
Since the release of Scarlet & Violet TCG sets, the Pokemon TCG has introduced a few more rarities to help keep track of various cards. You have:
- Double Rare – Two black stars
- Ultra Rare – Two silver stars
- Illustration Rare – A single gold star
- Special Illustration Rare – Two gold stars
- Hyper Rare – Three gold stars
If you’re concerned about getting the rarity of a card right, you can also reference the collector number of each card. Typically it is found on the bottom left corner of a card and will follow this format: 020/189.
Cards of a higher rarity will sometimes exceed the total number of cards in the set, this isn’t an error, but to denote that it’s a special printing. In these instances, it could look like: 191/189.
There are other rarities out there like Rainbow Rare that were either only around for a limited time or have been discountined by the Pokemon TCG.
Verify The Condition Of Your Pokemon Cards
The single most important thing that will determine the value of your cards is the condition that they’re in. A Base Set Charizard might go for around $60 for a damaged card, one that might have heavy scratches, water damage, or even a crease in the card. Meanwhile, a near mint card can go for $300 or more.
Just as a quick disclaimer: You’ll very rarely have a near-mint card, especially with older cards that you probably played with on the playground with your friends back in the day. If you want a safe bet, value your cards as either lightly played or moderately played or get them evaluated at a local gaming store before getting disappointed your Ancient Mew card isn’t in as good of a condition as you hoped.
Every site has different conditioning scales, but generally speaking, cards will fall under one of these categories:
- Near mint
- Lightly played
- Moderately played
- Heavily played
- Damaged
Near Mint
Near mint is the rarest condition in which you’ll find a card. Even if you open a brand new pack from the latest Pokemon TCG set, there is a not insignificant chance that the cards you open will have some sort of scuff, mark, or damage to them. That’s just the nature of card games.
Lightly Played
Lightly played is the next best thing and has a wider window of what it could encompass. There might be minor scuffing or scratches in the card, particularly with foils.
Moderately Played
Moderately played cards are next, and can have anything from border or corner wear to more noticeable scuffing or scratching.
Heavily Played
Heavily played cards are the worst a card can be while still being sleeve playable. You could have severe damage in terms of scratching and scuffing, and lots of fraying around the border of the card. So long as the card is indistinguishable in a sleeve when shuffled up in a deck, it will fall under heavily played.
Damaged
Damaged is the final category, and covers everything from water damage to folds in the card. If you can feel the damage through a sleeve, it isn’t playable in a deck anymore and would fall under the damaged category.
Keep in mind that a conditioned card is not a graded card. Graded cards are ones specifically sent to a service that will look at every inch of the card to give it a number score between 1 and 10. Saying a card is lightly played or having it looked at by a local gaming store and having them say it is a certain condition does guarantee that it will be seen as that condition by everyone. Just keep an open mind when it comes to conditioning and try not to get disappointed if it comes back lower than what you expected.
Use Reputable Sites
Now that you have the card’s condition set and you know what the exact rarity is, you can check to see what the value of the card might be. For the sake of convenience, TCGplayer is a pretty safe bet when looking to see what a card’s value might be.
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The site will show you the market price of a card, which is an aggregate of recently completed sales of that card. You can also see what current listings of the card are, with a fairly easy filtering system that will let you look at different conditions.
Plenty of people will use TCGplayer as a baseline for determining a card’s worth simply because of its popularity and ubiquity among players, making it a solid choice.
PriceCharting is another good option, as it will show you all sorts of different sales across ungraded and graded cards. It also has charts that help you see the cost of cards over time.
One Last Note About Your Pokemon TCG Cards
Just because a Base Set Charizard is selling for $300 online, it doesn’t mean you can just go to a gaming store and walk out with $300.
Stores have to make a profit off the cards they’re buying and lower conditions of cards will lower the value of the card. If you want $300 for a card you feel is near mint and they are offering to buy at $120 because of some moderate scratching, don’t get upset or insulted. You can always go somewhere else for a second opinion or try your hand at selling online.
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