You found an old card in a drawer and want to know what it’s worth. Searching the name usually gives you ten different prices and no idea which one applies to your card. Here is a repeatable way to get a number you can trust.
Step 1: Identify the exact printing
“Charizard” is not a price. There are dozens of Charizard cards across more than two decades of sets, and they range from pocket change to a few thousand dollars. You need three things to pin down the exact card:
- The name at the top of the card.
- The collector number at the bottom, written like
025/198. - The set, which you can work out from the number, the set symbol, and (on modern cards) the small set code.
The collector number is the most useful clue. It tells you where the card sits in its set and, because the total is printed after the slash, which set it likely belongs to. A card numbered 4/102 is a very different thing from one numbered 4/165.
Step 2: Check the variant
The same card in the same set can exist in several versions with very different prices:
- Normal (non-holo)
- Holofoil
- Reverse holo (the whole card is foil except the art window)
- 1st Edition, on older sets, marked with a small stamp
Look at the card under a light. If the art shines, it is a holo. If the background around the art shines instead, it is a reverse holo. A price guide that lists only one variant is hiding the one that actually matters for you.
Step 3: Read the market price, not the asking price
Sellers can ask for anything. What counts is what cards actually sell for. A good price source reports a market price, which is based on recent completed sales rather than listings.
Two sources collectors lean on:
- TCGplayer is the main marketplace in the US, and its market price is built from recent sales. You also see a low and high range, which shows how wide the spread is.
- Cardmarket is the main European marketplace and quotes prices in euros, often with 7-day and 30-day averages so you can see the trend.
If the two disagree, that’s normal. Different buyers, different currencies, different shipping norms. Treat them as a range.
Step 4: Adjust for condition
Published market prices are usually for Near Mint cards. If yours has whitening on the edges, a crease, or surface scratches, it is worth less, sometimes much less. The usual grades are:
| Condition | What it looks like |
|---|---|
| Near Mint | Clean edges and corners, no visible wear |
| Lightly Played | Minor edge wear or a few light scratches |
| Moderately Played | Obvious wear, maybe light creasing |
| Heavily Played | Heavy wear, creases, or bends |
| Damaged | Tears, water damage, or major creases |
Be honest with yourself here. Buyers will check, and a card you described as Near Mint that arrives with a whitened edge becomes a return.
Step 5: Sanity-check against recent sales
Before you sell or insure anything valuable, search the card on eBay and filter to Sold items. Completed sales over the last few weeks show what real buyers paid, including for graded copies. If your number and the sold listings are far apart, work out why before you trust either one.
Common traps
- Pricing the wrong variant. A holo price on a non-holo card is the number-one mistake.
- Using one outlier sale. A single record-setting sale isn’t the market.
- Forgetting that prices move. Popular cards swing with new releases, tournament results, and hype. A price from last year can be badly out of date.
- Ignoring condition. The headline price is for the best case.
Do it faster
You can do all of this by hand, but with a big stack it gets tedious. ScanDragon does steps 1 to 4 from a photo: it reads the name and collector number, matches the exact printing, and shows the TCGplayer market price, the range, and the Cardmarket trend, with condition estimates built from the near-mint price. Prices refresh about once a day, so treat them as a guide and check recent sales before a big sale.
Try it now: the free Pokémon card value checker shows the market price, price range and condition estimates for any card.