Condition and grading

Condition is the single biggest reason a card sale goes wrong, so this page says exactly what our words mean. Every raw card in the store carries one of five grades. Graded cards carry the grading company’s number instead, and we do not re-grade them.

The five-point scale for raw cards

JupiterTCG raw-card condition scale
Grade	What it means
Near Mint	Looks like it came out of the pack. Sharp corners, clean edges, a flat surface and no scratches you can see when the card is tilted under a light. A single tiny factory flaw is still Near Mint; the scan will show it either way.
Lightly Played	Light wear you have to look for. Minor edge whitening, a slightly soft corner, or very light surface scuffing. It still presents well in a sleeve at arm’s length.
Moderately Played	Wear you notice immediately. Visible edge or corner whitening, surface scratching, a light crease, or a small imperfection on the back. Nothing structural.
Heavily Played	Heavy wear. Significant whitening, rounded corners, creasing that breaks the surface, scuffing across the front, or water or ink marks. Complete and intact, but plainly played.
Damaged	Damage beyond wear: tears, holes, a bend that will not lie flat, missing pieces, writing, trimming or anything altered. Sold as damaged and described in the listing.

A card that sits between two grades goes into the lower one. That costs us money on every listing and it is deliberate: the alternative is a stream of returns and a reputation we would not get back.

What we inspect

Every card is looked at out of the sleeve, in daylight and tilted under a light, for:

Corners - sharpness, whitening, rounding, and dings.
Edges - whitening, nicks, and factory cut quality.
Surface - scratches, print lines, scuffing, dimples, indentations, and gloss.
Centering and back - front-to-back centering, and any wear or marks on the reverse.
Integrity - creases, bends, and any sign of trimming, cleaning or alteration.

Anything that changes what the card is worth goes into the listing text as well as the scans, even when the scan already shows it.

How the scans are made

Every listing shows the actual card, never a stock image: front and back on a flatbed scanner, not a phone. A scan is flat, evenly lit and in focus corner to corner, and every card is scanned at the same scale, so two listings can be compared to each other.

If the scans and the written grade ever disagree, the scans win, and that is a return under the returns policy.

Packs

A pack is graded one card at a time. Every card in it gets its own grade on the scale above, and the listing names each card with its grade and shows it front and back, the same as a single.

The badge on a pack gives the spread: the range from its best card to its worst, and how many cards are in each grade, for example "NM–DMG, 20 cards: 2 NM, 11 LP, 5 MP, 1 HP, 1 DMG". It is never an average. The badge takes the colour of the worst card, so a pack never looks better than the roughest card inside it.

Graded cards

A graded card is listed with the grading company, the numeric grade and the certification number, and we scan the slab and the label. Look the certification number up with the grading company before you buy; that is what it is for.

We do not apply our own scale to a slabbed card and we do not have an opinion on whether the grade is generous. If the slab does not match the listing, see the returns policy.

Our grade is an opinion

Grading a raw card is a judgement, made by a person, in one session, with a loupe and a light. It is not a certification and it is not an appraisal. Two careful graders can land one step apart on the same card.

What we do promise is that the scans show the card you will receive, and that anything we noticed is written down. If you look at the scans and think we called it wrong, tell us before you buy.