What are my Pokémon cards worth?
There is no single answer to this question. There is a way to get close, and it is below.
First: which card do you have exactly?
Most disappointments start here. The same Pokémon appears in dozens of sets, and one is three cents while the other is three hundred euros. What you need is in the bottom left of the card: the number, usually in the form 168/191.
The number in the bottom left
That number with the total after it pins down your card in almost every case. If there is no total, it is a promo card and there is a set code like SVP or SWSH in front of the number.
And the variant it comes in
Also watch the variant. A normal card, a reverse holo and a holo are three different things with three different prices, even though they carry the same number. How to tell which one you have.
Then: which price is the right one?
Several are in circulation and they do not mean the same thing.
- The asking price is what a seller hopes to get. That is no use to you: anyone may ask what they like.
- The lowest price is usually a card in poor condition, from abroad, or both.
- The trend or market price is what cards have actually fetched recently. That is the number you want.
Cardtracker shows the market price, and every amount says when it is from. That last part is not a detail: a price without a date is an opinion.
And then: the condition
Almost all prices you see online are for a card in Near Mint. If your card has been loose in a drawer for ten years, that is not the price of your card. On older cards the difference between Near Mint and Played can be a factor of three. What the seven grades mean.
What a card is worth, and what it fetches
Those are two numbers. Sell through a trading platform and fees come off and you pay postage. Sell to a shop and it buys below the market price, because that is where its margin has to come from. Count on a part of the amount on your screen, not the whole of it.
That is why we call it an indication and not a valuation on every page. It is a guide amount based on what others paid, and it is not an offer.
When is a card actually worth real money?
Roughly in three cases: it is old and scarce (think of the first series from the nineties), it was deliberately made in a small run (illustration rares, gold cards, event promos), or it has been professionally graded and sealed with a high score. For the rest, the value is in the collection and not in the single card.
How Cardtracker helps with this
You look your card up by number or name, choose the variant and the condition, and add it to your collection. From that moment we track the price every day, so you see not only what it is today but also what it is doing. It works the same for sealed products.
Written by Nils. Prices come from Scrydex and are updated daily; they are indications, not appraisals. About Cardtracker