What Are Your Pokémon Cards Worth?
The honest answer is: what someone recently paid for the same card, in the same condition, in the same printing. Not what it is listed for. Here is how to find that number — with a free tool you can use right now, and a human who will check your work.
Listed price is not value
This is the single biggest thing people get wrong, and it is the reason collections get mis-valued in both directions.
The asking-price trap
Search a card and you will see listings ranging from reasonable to absurd. A listing is one person’s hope. On a card that only sells a few times a month, one optimistic listing can sit at the top of the results for a year and convince everyone the card is worth triple what it is.
What we actually use
Recent completed sales for the exact card — right set, right card number, right printing, right condition. When a card is thin on volume we widen the window rather than lean on a single outlier sale. Graded slabs are priced against sold comps for that specific grade.
The four things that move the number
The exact printing
First Edition, Shadowless, Unlimited, reverse holo, promo stamp, a different set with the same art — these are different cards with different values, even though they look almost identical. Getting the printing wrong is the most common valuation error we see.
Condition
Near Mint 100% · Lightly Played 85% · Moderately Played 70% · Heavily Played 50% · Damaged 30%. Whitening on the back edges and soft corners are what usually drop a card a tier. Our self-grading guide walks through how to read your own cards.
Graded vs raw
A slab prices off its grade, not off the raw card. A PSA 10 of a modern card typically trades around 3× its PSA 9; on vintage the multiple is wider still. A raw card is worth the raw price until somebody has actually graded it.
Language and region
Japanese, Chinese and English versions of the same Pokémon are separate markets with separate prices. Japanese print quality means Japanese cards often grade higher, which changes the math on whether to submit them.
Appraise them yourself, free
Our Sell / Trade lookup is a working valuation tool, not a lead form. Search a card by name, set or number — English, Japanese, sealed or graded — pick the condition, and it shows you the current market value it found before it shows you our offer. Use it purely to price your collection and never contact us; that is a completely legitimate use of it.
When you want a human to look
Send it to us
Photos and a rough description are enough to start. We reply within 24 hours with what we see, what it is worth, and what we would pay — three separate numbers, deliberately. There is no fee and no obligation.
Worth a second opinion
Vintage WOTC-era cards, anything you suspect is First Edition or Shadowless, error and miscut cards, sealed product where the seal condition matters, and anything you are not certain is genuine. Those are the cases where a photo to a dealer saves real money.
Appraisal questions
Do you charge for an appraisal?
What is the difference between what a card is listed for and what it is worth?
Does condition really change the value that much?
Can you tell me what a card is worth if I get it graded?
Is a formal written appraisal for insurance or probate something you do?
What information should I send?
Know before you sell
Free, no obligation, and we will tell you if you should keep it instead.