What Grades Can A Card Get
So you are sending off your card to PSA or another company that works with them to get your cards graded, but what do the scores mean?
PSA operate a ten point grading scale, when a card is sent in to them for evaluation theyll check the cards colouring, corners, edges, centring, authenticity and everything else about it and after that theyll give it a score between 1 and 10, 10 being the best quality card, 1 being the worst quality card. Lets take a look at what those scores mean specifically:-
There are some circumstances that will result in a card not receiving any grade on the above scale, these could be anything from obvious signs of doctoring, trimming or just general non-authenticity.
Ultimately if you are getting cards graded, you will want to be confident of getting good grades, whilst there are greater experts on the subject than myself, personally if I am paying to have a card graded and having it sent off to the states etc, I want to know that its going to grade reasonably well.
Is The Card Market A Bubble Ready To Pop
Everyone Marketplace spoke with gave us mostly the same assessment: prices for some cards will probably decrease eventually, but theyre not going to tank so badly that the entire market will crash.
The degree of the decline and when will depend on the type of card, according to Eugene Smith. The vintage cards released back in the 90s are no longer being printed and are basically part of history now, meaning many of them will likely continue to have value.
But because grading companies like PSA are still going through a backlog of cards, Smith thinks there will be an increase in supply.
Then post-holidays, theres going to be far less consumer spending happening. Its pretty much a perfect scenario for a decrease a correction, Smith said of the Pokémon vintage card market.
Garcia agrees that prices will eventually level off, although he doesnt think theyll dip that drastically.
Pokémon is one of those things thats never gone out of style, he said.
Since Pokémon first launched on the GameBoy in 1996, the franchise has spawned the trading card game, a wildly popular anime series that continues to run new episodes, dozens of console games and Pokémon Go, which was The Summer Event of 2016 and helped add $7.5 billion in market value to Nintendo within 48 hours.
Many collectors, like Caitlin Sidhu, Kalvin Foley and Jason A., became Pokémon fans when they were kids, proving its longevity.
Are Psa Graded Cards Worth More
This doesnt mean that having a card graded by PSA will always increase its value Only certain cards in certain condition will see a significant boost in value if graded by PSA. Generally, the older a card is and the better its condition, the more it makes sense to have it graded from a valuation standpoint.
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Identify The Card With The Name And Number In The Set
Finally, identify the card by looking up its name and card number on eBay.
The name will be located above the illustration of the card and the number is on the bottom right of the card. After checking all three of these steps, you should easily be able to identify every card, even if you dont know exactly what set it is in.
What Are The Biggest Scams To Look Out For
I won’t go too deep into these topics right now, but these are the biggest things to look out for if you want to get into buying Pokemon cards.
Loose booster packs
This is not really a scam, but as mentioned in the section about weighing booster packs: buy individual booster packs at your own risk. You should assume they were weighed or measured in some way and that means there is a good chance there are no special cards in them.
Booster boxes that are not sealed
Something that really could be a scam is an unsealed booster box. Original booster boxes come sealed in see-through plastic wrap.
If you buy what should be a brand new, unopened booster box but it isn’t wrapped in clear plastic wrap, it should be a huge red flag. Somebody could have weighed all the packs, taken out the good ones and replaced them with other dud packs.
Fake cards
As inevitably happens with things that are as popular and valuable as Pokemon cards… there are a lot of fakes on the market.
The safest way to get real cards, booster packs, booster boxes etc. from the latest sets is to buy directly from the official Pokemon store. If you don’t live in the US, you will have to find a trusted reseller.
For individual cards and older booster packs and boxes, you will just have to gain a lot of experience and learn the nuances of real Pokemon products and then make educated purchases, ideally with a means of recourse if it turns out you were scammed .
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Psa Graded Pokemon Cards A Beginners Guide
So lately at Titan Cards you may have seen that weve been shouting about our newest Pokemon Card lines; PSA Graded Ultra Rare and Secret rare cards sounds great right? But what exactly is PSA grading, and why would anyone want a PSA graded card? This article will give you a beginners guide to the ins and outs of graded trading cards, Pokemon and otherwise.
A selection of PSA graded Pokemon Cards we just put into stock this week.
Pokemon Tcg Bulk What Why & Where Does It Go
Hey everyone and welcome back to ChannelFireball! Im back with another collecting article and it is something quite different from the usual. While it may not be for all the people out there collecting their favorite Pokemon, it is super relevant to the community financially. Have you ever wondered why anyone cares about bulk common cards? I certainly did in the past and I am I am sure a lot of people reading this may have boxed up bulk before. Even if you have not, I am sure some of the information in this article might surprise you! Regardless of that, you will absolutely walk away from this knowing all there is to know about what happens with bulk.
For those of you out there that may not know what bulk is, Ive got you covered. Bulk is where each rarity of Pokemon card is assigned a value and then these cards are sold at that bulk rate, which is where it got its name. This looks something like a common for 4 cents; a rare for 6 cents; a Pokemon-GX for $2 and so on. Generally, if you are going to sell bulk, you will want to make sure you have removed anything valuable from it, because you are otherwise just giving away value. I will talk more about that later in the article from the perspective of the buyer because that is a big part of this entire market.
Once you break it down the process is quite simple, lets get started with the first step
Buyer beware!
Peace!
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What Are Shadowless Pokemon Cards
Over the past few years, and particularly during the Covid lockdown, a lot of people found themselves getting back into old hobbies and pursuing new interests. As a result, the Pokemon Trading Card Game exploded with prices reaching crazy new highs. One Shadowless 1st edition PSA 10 Charizard, for example, sold for $369,000 in December of 2020. If you are looking into the hobby and keep coming across the term Shadowless, you might be wondering what this refers to. Today, we are going to be covering what Shadowless means, as well as touching on a few other frequently used terms in the Pokemon TCG world.
Is There A Holo /reverse Holo Version Of Every Card
No.
Common-rarity cards only exist in standard and reverse-holo versions*.
Some rare-rarity cards only exist in reverse-holo and holo versions, others only exist in standard and reverse-holo.
Full art, EX, GX, V, VMAX, etc. cards are all holo cards*.
Beyond that, there is no rhyme or reason to which cards exist in which versions*.4
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What Is Weighing / What Does It Mean To Weigh A Pokemon Booster Pack
Holo cards are usually more desirable than standard cards.
Also, due to what they’re made of… holo cards also usually weigh more than standard cards.
This means that if you weigh booster packs, you can usually tell which ones have holo cards in them.
So you can go to a store, bring a pocket-sized scale with you, weigh all the booster packs they have, and buy only the heavy ones… and you will basically be guaranteed to pull some very good cards.
… that is, you could: but The Pokemon Company claims* to have solved the problem by placing 2 different types of code cards into booster packs. The different code cards weigh different amounts and are supposed to compensate for the weights of the other cards in the pack… and ideally: make every booster pack weigh the same amount.
The Pokemon Company claims* they solved the problem. But people on online forums, Reddit, etc. claim the system does not work very well, and the weight of booster packs can still tell you whether or not a good card is inside.
I am doing my own research on the topic and plan to report back with a blog post or video in the near future.
Charmander 1st Edition $330
Charmander’s value has been all over the place in the last 12 months. After the 2020 summer of record sale after record sale, baby Zard’s value has taken a dip recently, but don’t be surprised if Charmander rebounds due to the power Charizard yields on the market.
PSA Pop: 1521 – 652 – 661
Current Value: PSA 10 $1186 PSA 9 $330
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Verify The Pokemon Cards Information
This is the first thing you need to do when authenticating a Pokemon card. By the information, we mean all the cards details.
The information that you should know about the Pokemon card includes:
- How much HP does this Pokemon have?
- Whats the correct spelling for the name?
- What is the rarity of this Pokemon card?
- What set does this Pokemon card belong to?
When there were only 102 Pokemon cards to collect, you could just memorize everything. Thats what hardcore collectors did to spot fake Pokemon cards. They just knew every card out there.
As were more than 20 years into Pokemon cards now, knowing them all-let alone memorizing them- is much harder than it used to be. This is what Google searches are for!
So, all you have to do is Google the Pokemon card that youre trying to authenticate youll get all the information of the genuine card. Another way to do it is to use the Pokemon Card Database.
You can favorite this page and access it from your phone whenever you need to. Its like a Pokedex for Pokemon card collectors.
If the cards information doesnt check out, you dont have to proceed to step two. The card youre examining is fake.
Part 1 Of 2: Identifying Valuable Pokmon Cards
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Thoughts On Pokemon Card Set Symbols
Good info. This helped me narrow down that a misprint card I have is fake. But it worries me that all my cards have always come from booster packs. So a lot of my cards could be fake. Damn shady comic book stores.
If the cards came from real booster packs then the cards should be genuine unless it was a fake pack of Pokemon cards Ive never seen that before. Ive just seen reprints of high dollar cards sold online . All the cards Ive collected have come from booster packs I dont buy individual cards because Im not that serious about collecting/playing specific cards. I make due with what I get from the packs.
Matthew Its hard for me to say without seeing the symbol. Cards from 1999 can be valuable especially if its a Pikachu Trainer No. 1, 2, or 3 these were given out at the winners of the Pokemon World Championships they fetch 10s of thousands of dollars! But those cards have a Poke Ball symbol and that doesnt sound like the media symbol you describe. It could be a Snap Pikachu Trainer card, that set has a camera symbol, its in Japanese so not sure if thats it. The Snap cards are from 1999 release of the Snap 64 Nintendo game. Players could take snapshots in the game and compete to get their snapshot printed on real Pokemon card with credit to the player that snapped it. Id have to see a picture of the card to tell you more.
What Is The Psa Test
Prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, is a protein produced by normal, as well as malignant, cells of the prostate gland. The PSA test measures the level of PSA in a mans blood. For this test, a blood sample is sent to a laboratory for analysis. The results are usually reported as nanograms of PSA per milliliter of blood.
The blood level of PSA is often elevated in men with prostate cancer, and the PSA test was originally approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1986 to monitor the progression of prostate cancer in men who had already been diagnosed with the disease. In 1994, FDA approved the use of the PSA test in conjunction with a digital rectal exam to test asymptomatic men for prostate cancer. Men who report prostate symptoms often undergo PSA testing to help doctors determine the nature of the problem.
In addition to prostate cancer, a number of benign conditions can cause a mans PSA level to rise. The most frequent benign prostate conditions that cause an elevation in PSA level are prostatitis and benign prostatic hyperplasia . There is no evidence that prostatitis or BPH leads to prostate cancer, but it is possible for a man to have one or both of these conditions and to develop prostate cancer as well.
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An Introduction To Pokemon Tcg Psa Grading
I hope that everyone kicked off the New Year in a great way! Welcome back to my collecting article series here at ChannelFireball where I cover all things collecting in the Pokemon Trading Card game. My latest article was a holiday special, where I covered the greatest winter themed Pokemon cards, check it out if you havent! Before that, however, I covered some important topics including CGC card grading and more. In that article, I mentioned that similarly structured articles on PSA and BGS grading were on that way. This article is a deep dive into the world of PSA card grading. Whether you have heard of it before or not, sell cards or collect them, I am sure this article will have something for you! I have a lot to talk about, so lets get started with a look at the company itself. For more reading check out the rest of my line!
What Does It Mean For A Trading Card To Be Graded Nm
Graded Baseball Cards
What does it mean to have a graded Baseball card?
First, grading is primarily about defining a cards condition in a standardized way usually by a third party professional company that offers a grading service. Professional grading services have been offered to collectors and dealers for the last decade by several companies including Beckett Grading Services , and Professional Sports Authenticator . The purpose is to have an unbiased evaluation of a card’s condition so a collector or dealer can quickly determine value. Before third party grading was available determining a cards condition could be an arbitrary experience. Grading is important because the better the condition, the higher the value.
Defining a sports card’s condition
In general grading companies use a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest or best example. There are some companies that include half points in their scale to further define a cards condition but, the concept is the same. For instance a grade of a 9 is better than a grade of 8.5. The following is a general guideline to each step in a grading scale. .
GEM-MT 9.5 or 10: Gem Mint
MINT 9: Mint
NM-MT 8: Near Mint-Mint
NM 7: Near Mint
EX-MT 6: Excellent-Mint
EX 5: Excellent
VG-EX 4: Very Good-Excellent
VG 3: Very Good
GOOD 2: Good
PR-FR 1: Poor to Fair
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