# Bartr, full text > Bartr is a free iPhone app for pricing card trades at card shows. Scan a stack of Pokémon, One Piece or Riftbound cards, value both sides of a trade from sold-market data, and keep a written receipt of the deal. It is a live trade tool, not a marketplace: Bartr sells nothing and needs no account. Source: https://bartr.cards. Every section below is the text of a page on that site, with its URL. - Who it is for: collectors and vendors trading cards in person, at shows, shops and meetups. The copy is written to be family friendly. - What it does: scans raw cards and graded slabs, prices both sides of a trade, applies a dealer buy rate to both sides, shows a fair or unfair verdict, and saves the deal. - Where prices come from: Scrydex market data, recent verified sales for slabs, and JustTCG for graded One Piece and Riftbound. New prices land once a day. Prices are estimates, not appraisals or offers. - Fair rule: a gap under 3 percent of the larger side reads as fair. - Not financial advice. Bartr explains the arithmetic of a trade; it never tells anyone what to buy, sell, hold or grade. - Account: none. The collection, trades and settings live on the phone, with no login and no ads. Cloud Backup is opt-in and uses a recovery code. - Cost: free for the whole trade. Bartr Pro, when it arrives, adds room for busy show days. Details on /pro. # FAQ (https://bartr.cards/faq) ## Pricing and values ### Where do Bartr’s prices come from? Market data from Scrydex, recent verified sales for slabs, and JustTCG for graded One Piece and Riftbound. eBay supplies active listings and fills in some sealed prices. New prices land once a day, late morning. Until then you see the latest snapshot. All prices are in USD. ### Are the prices guaranteed? No. They are market references, not promises. Think of them as an estimate of what a card sells for, not a quote someone owes you. A trade is always your call. Cards Bartr cannot price are flagged and left out of totals instead of guessed at $0. ### Why does my collection total say “tracked value of N cards”? Because that is literally what it is: the total of the copies that resolved a real price. If some cards did not price, they are not silently counted. The label tells you the coverage instead of implying the number is your whole collection. ### Why did my collection value drop when I marked cards to sell? Marking cards as vendor stock moves them out of your personal collection, and every collection value number in the app counts your personal collection only. Your stock’s value lives in the Vendor view. Move a card back and it counts again. Nothing is lost. ### My PSA 7 card says its figure is derived from the raw price. What does that mean? PSA 7 and 8 (and CGC 7 and 8) get a real graded price whenever a source has market data or recorded sales for that exact grade, and the card says which. When no source does, Bartr derives a figure from the raw price and says so on the card. Treat that one as a ballpark, not a quote. PSA 9 and 10 have their own real prices. ### What does the MANUAL chip on a card mean? You set that value yourself. Live pricing is paused for that copy until you clear the manual value. ### What do “Strong / Limited / Few recent sales” mean? How much evidence a price rests on. Tap the chip on any card to see the comps behind the number. A price built on one or two sales is a hint, not a market. Bartr says which is which. ### Does Bartr use PriceCharting or TCGplayer? Not any more. PriceCharting was switched off in September 2026 and nothing in the app reads it. Pokémon prices come from Scrydex market data, recent verified sales, and eBay listings. Graded One Piece and Riftbound prices come from JustTCG. Bartr does not pull prices from TCGplayer directly. ### I collect One Piece. Do graded prices work? Yes, wherever there is real data for that exact printing and grade. Graded One Piece values come from JustTCG, matched to the printing's own TCGplayer product id, so an alternate art never wears the base art's price. Coverage is thinner than Pokémon: some grades on some cards have no number yet, and a missing number stays missing instead of being estimated. Raw One Piece prices work normally. ### What about Riftbound? Raw and graded Riftbound work the same way: raw prices from Scrydex, graded prices from JustTCG for the exact printing. Graded coverage is sparse. A slab with no graded number reads No graded market price, never an estimate. ## Trades and verdicts ### The trade says “FAIR” but there is a $150 gap. How is that fair? Fair has a band: the gap is under 3% of the larger side. On a $10,000 trade, $150 is 1.5%, comfortably inside the band. Nobody splits $150 on a five-figure deal. The footnote under the verdict shows the exact percent so you can see where the gap sits. If you want to close it exactly, cash or a small filler card does it. “NO GAP” is reserved for a perfectly even trade ($0 difference). ### What does the dealer buy rate do? Dealers do not pay full market. They pay a percentage so they can resell. Setting a buy rate (like 80%) discounts that side of the trade to what a dealer would actually offer, so the verdict reflects the real deal. You choose whether the rate applies to your side, their side, or both. ### What is the Trade Professor? Advice on top of the math: the value gap, a suggested counter, a fair counter, and your limit if terms shift. The verdict always comes from the same math as the calculator, so the two can never disagree. If a card’s identity is not confirmed or its price rests on thin comps, the Professor says so and lowers its confidence. You can try that verdict math without installing anything on the web calculator. ### Can I lock the trade before sliding my phone across the table? Yes. The lock icon in the Trade toolbar makes everything read-only, so nothing can be edited by accident. Totals still update. The Professor and Balance with Cash come back when you unlock. ### Where do finished trades go? Tap Deal Complete after the handshake. Every saved trade lives in Collection, then Trade History, with the itemized receipt: what you gave, what you got, the gap, and the rate applied. ## Scanning ### What can Bartr scan? Raw cards and graded slabs, from the camera or your photo library. Bulk mode scans a stack in sequence with a running total. ### Bartr matched the wrong card. How do I fix it? Use the picker on the result to choose the right card. A wrong match is worse than a failed scan, so it is always correctable. Please report it too (Profile, then Report a Problem), since wrong matches are how the matcher improves. ### Why does the same wrong match keep coming back? Scans are cached so re-scanning the same photo does not cost another lookup. If a wrong match keeps coming back, pick the right card on the result and report it (Profile, then Support, then Report a Problem) so the match can be fixed. ### What do the bulk scan states mean? Matched is ready to add. Needs Review means Bartr is not sure and wants you to pick the right card. Failed means the photo could not be read, so retake it in better light with the card flatter. ### Does scanning cost anything? Not for you. Behind the scenes, each new photo identification uses a paid lookup. That is why results are cached, and why bulk mode groups unsure reads for review instead of guessing. ## Your collection ### How do I bring my collection from another app? Go to Profile, then Import your collection (or Collection, then the dots menu, then Import / Export). Three ways in: screenshots of your current app, a pasted list, or a CSV export from Collectr or Shiny. You review every card before anything is added. Re-importing the same file refreshes it instead of doubling it. CSV imports also have an Undo button right after they finish. ### Can I have more than one collection? Yes. Tap the collection name at the top of the Collection tab (“Main”) to create, switch, rename, or star a default, and to see an all-collections total. ### What is the difference between the Trade Box and vendor stock? Trade Box is cards you would trade away at a show. Stock is cards you sell, which moves them to the Vendor view with asking prices, a live page, and a sales ledger. A card can be for-trade without being for-sale. ### Some of my Japanese, Korean, or Chinese cards won’t match. Is that a bug? Expected, for now. Coverage is best for English Pokémon. Unmatched cards still import and scan with the price from your file. They just won’t show a card image until the catalog matches them. ## Selling at shows (Vendor Mode) ### How do I turn Vendor Mode on or off? New installs start with Vendor Mode on. To switch it, go to Profile, then Show Tools, then Vendor Mode. With it on, hold the Collection tab to flip between your collection and your Vendor view. ### What does Publish do? It creates a live for-sale page with a link and QR code. Customers scan it at your table and see your stock with current prices and availability. It updates as you sell, and you can take it down any time. ### Can buyers make offers? Yes, if you turn on offers when publishing. Buyers send an amount. Hold reserves the card, Dismiss clears the offer. ### How do I price a whole table quickly? Price My Table in the Vendor Desk shows each card at quick-sale (85%), market, and stretch (110%). Tap a card to see its three prices. ### What is the Drawer Check? End-of-show cash math: expected cash equals your float plus cash sales minus buys. Digital sales are left out automatically. ## Privacy and Show Mode ### What does Privacy Mode hide? Dollar values across the app: live trades, Home, and collection totals. Counts stay visible. Turn it on once, or set it to switch on automatically whenever Show Mode starts. ### What is Show Mode? The at-the-table mode. Privacy Mode turns on so the person across from you cannot read your values, your scans and trades get tagged to the show (and to a booth, if you set one), and ending the show gives you a trip recap. ### Will Bartr ever show my collection’s value to someone else? Only if you share it. Share Profile and trade receipts are images you explicitly create and send. Nothing posts anywhere on its own. ## Data, backup, and account ### Do I need an account? No. Your collection, trades, and settings live on your device. No login and no ads. The only email box in the app is the optional Vendor Desk sign-in link. Nothing follows you onto other apps or sites. ### How do I protect my collection if I lose my phone? Go to Profile, then Cloud Backup. You will get one recovery code. Write it down somewhere outside your phone. It is the only way to restore on a new device. There is no email reset, and Bartr cannot recover the code for you. Backups run about once a day once enabled. ### What does Reset App Data do? It permanently deletes your collection, saved trades, price alerts, and want list from this device. It asks twice. If you have Cloud Backup on, you can restore with your recovery code. If not, it is gone. ### What analytics does Bartr collect? In the app, counts only: which features get used and where people get stuck. Never your cards, prices, searches, or anything that identifies you. It is off until you switch it on in Profile, and switching it back off also discards anything queued. This website separately counts page visits, with no cookie and no way to recognise you tomorrow. The privacy page spells that out. ## Free and Pro ### Is Bartr free? Yes. Scanning a card, seeing both sides of a trade, the fair verdict, the dealer rate, the receipt, your collection and Show Mode are free and stay free. Today the whole app is free. Free vs Pro lays it out. ### What is Bartr Pro? An optional subscription that arrives with version 1.1.0, for people who work a whole show. It adds room: a much higher scan allowance, more Condition Checks and imports, longer price history, bigger binders, more alerts and the full vendor tools. It costs $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. Free finishes the trade. Pro keeps up when the show gets busy. ### Do I need an account for Pro? No. You pay through Apple with the Apple Account already on your iPhone. Bartr has no login, and your collection stays on your phone either way. ### Can I finish a trade without Pro? Always. Both sides of the trade and the math that says whether it is fair are never locked. If you reach a limit in the middle of a trade, the trade still finishes. ### How do I cancel or restore Pro? Apple runs the subscription. Cancel any time in the Settings app: tap your name, then Subscriptions. On a new phone, Restore Purchases in the app brings Pro back with the same Apple Account. ### Is Bartr financial advice? No. Prices in Bartr are market references: an estimate of what a card has been selling for. They are not advice, not a quote and not a promise. A trade is always your call. ### I used Bartr before Pro existed. Do I have to pay? No. Beta testers, and everyone who installed Bartr before Pro launched, keep Pro free. There is nothing to sign up for. If the app ever gets this wrong for you, write to support@bartr.cards. ## The app ### How much does Bartr cost? Free on iOS, on the App Store. Android is not available yet. An optional subscription, Bartr Pro, arrives with version 1.1.0: see Free vs Pro. ### Something broke. What do I do? Go to Profile, then Support, then Report a Problem. Type one line about what you were trying to do and hit Share Report. It attaches your recent activity log and build info automatically. That log is the difference between “it was weird” and a fixable bug. ### My Insights chart looks empty. Is it broken? No. It records once a day and needs a few days of data to draw anything. A sparse chart in week one is expected. ### The app shows a “last-known” price offline. Is it stuck? It is being honest. With no connection, Bartr shows the last price it saved and labels it as such, instead of pretending the number is live. # How to value a Pokémon card trade (https://bartr.cards/how-to-value-a-card-trade) Most trades at a show are settled from memory and a phone calculator. That is fine when both people are guessing by roughly the same amount. It stops being fine the moment one side has looked something up and the other has not. Here is the order to work in. It applies to Pokémon, to One Piece, and to any other card game where people quote each other numbers across a table. ## 1. Price what sold, not what someone is asking An asking price is one person's opinion. A sold price is two people agreeing. They are frequently not the same number, and the gap is widest on exactly the cards trades get argued over: the hyped ones, where hundreds of copies sit listed at prices nobody has paid. So when you look a card up, filter to completed sales. On eBay that is the Sold Items filter. In a pricing catalog it is whatever they call market price, which is normally a recent sold average rather than a listing average. If a tool will not tell you which of the two it is showing you, that is worth knowing before you trust it. Ignore the outliers at both ends. One person overpaying at 3am is not the market, and neither is one auction that ended at a bad hour. ## 2. Match the printing, not the picture This is where most honest mistakes happen, and it is not a small effect. The same artwork can exist as a common, a holo, a reverse holo, a first edition, a promo, a Japanese print, and a modern reprint, and those can be worth wildly different amounts. Four things have to match before a comp counts: - The set. Reprints are the usual trap. A card in a modern set with the same art as a vintage one is a different card. - The collector number. Written on the card, usually bottom left or bottom right, as a number over a total. - The finish. Holo, reverse holo, non-holo, full art, alt art. Sellers list these inconsistently, so read the photo, not just the title. - The language. Japanese prints have their own market and their own prices. They are not a discount version of the English card. If you cannot confirm all four, you do not have a comp. You have a card that looks similar. ## 3. Raw and graded are two different markets A slabbed card and a loose copy of the same card are priced by different people for different reasons, and the graded price is not the raw price plus a fee. It reflects what buyers pay for a condition somebody else has certified. Two rules follow from that. Never price a raw card off graded sales, which is the more expensive mistake. And never price a slab off raw sales, or off a different grade: a PSA 9 and a PSA 10 of the same card can be a long way apart, and on some cards the distance between them is most of the value. If a card in the trade is raw and one person is quietly imagining it graded, the trade is already unfair and nobody has said anything untrue yet. ## 4. Agree on one dealer rate, and apply it to both sides Nobody trades at full market. A dealer buying your card has to resell it, cover the booth, and carry the risk that it sits. So they buy at a percentage of market, and that percentage is the thing people are really negotiating when they argue about a card. The number itself is a matter for the two of you. What matters is that it is stated out loud, and that it is applied to both sides of the trade. A rate applied to your cards but not theirs is not a rate, it is a discount, and it is the single most common way a trade goes sideways without anyone lying. A worked example, with round hypothetical numbers. Your side totals $400 at market and theirs totals $380. At an agreed 80% rate that is $320 against $304, so the gap is $16, not $20. Applying the rate to one side only would have made it look like $80. ## 5. Count cash as cash Cash added to one side is worth exactly its face value and is not subject to anybody's buy rate. It is the cleanest thing in the trade, and it is the usual way a small gap gets closed. Write it on the side it is going to, not in your head. ## 6. Decide what counts as fair before you look at the total Two sides of a trade almost never land on the same number, and they do not have to. What matters is whether the gap is small enough that it is noise rather than a transfer. Bartr's rule is that a gap under 3% of the larger side is fair: close enough that a few dollars of cash or a filler card settles it. Pick whatever threshold you like, but pick it before you see the number, because a threshold chosen afterwards is just the answer you wanted. ## 7. Write it down Trades get remembered wrong. Not dishonestly, just wrong: a month later two people recall two different sets of cards, and neither can check. A list of what each side gave, what each was worth on the day, and what the gap came to takes a minute at the table and settles every version of that conversation. It is also the only way to find out whether you are any good at this. A trade that looked fine can look different six months on, and you cannot learn from a trade you did not record. Related: PSA 10 vs raw, when grading pays. Prices on this page are hypothetical and used to show the arithmetic. Bartr is an information tool, not financial advice. See the Terms of Use. # PSA 10 vs raw: when grading pays (https://bartr.cards/when-is-grading-worth-it) The version of this question people usually ask is "what is this worth in a PSA 10". That is the wrong end of it. The right question is what the card is worth on average across every grade it might come back as, minus everything it costs to find out. ## The whole cost, not the grading fee The fee on the grader's price list is not the cost of grading. The cost is all of this: - The service fee for the tier you have to use. Tiers are priced by the card's declared value, so a more valuable card costs more to grade. - Shipping there, with tracking. - Insurance, on the way there and back, at declared value. - Return shipping, which is usually billed per order rather than per card. - Supplies. Sleeves, semi-rigids, a box that survives the trip. - Any membership the tier requires. Check the current numbers on the grader's own site the day you send, because they change, and a stale figure from a forum post is how people end up underwater on a submission. Submitting several cards at once is what makes the per-card figure land somewhere sensible, since the shipping and insurance legs are shared. ## The number that decides it: the gem rate A gem rate is the share of submissions of that card that came back as a 10. It is the closest thing to an honest probability that your copy gets the grade you are imagining. People skip it because it is uncomfortable. If a card gems 15% of the time, then four submissions in five are not the outcome you are picturing, and the 9 price is the one you should be planning around. On a card that gems 60% of the time the same arithmetic reads completely differently. Your own copy is not the average, of course. Centering, edges, corners and surface are yours to look at. But the population is the base rate, and a base rate is what you start from before you talk yourself into anything. ## Read the pop report before you read the price The population report says how many copies have been graded and at what grades. Two things in it matter. The first is supply. A card with tens of thousands of 10s already in circulation is not scarce in that grade, whatever the raw copy costs, and the price reflects that. The second is direction. Population only goes up. A card being submitted heavily right now will have more graded copies in six months than it does today, and the graded price has to absorb them. A number that is true when you send is not guaranteed to be true when it comes back. A worked example, with round hypothetical numbers. Say a raw copy sells at $100, a PSA 9 at $150, and a PSA 10 at $400. That 10 looks like four times your money. Now add a gem rate of 25% and an all-in cost of $30 a card. One time in four you hold $400; three times in four, call it $150. The average outcome is $212, less the $30, so $182 against the $100 the raw copy was already worth. Still worth doing, on those numbers. But it is less than double, not four times, and that is the number to make the decision on. Move the gem rate to 10% and the same card is barely worth the postage. ## Time is part of the price Turnaround is measured in weeks or months depending on the tier. The card is not yours to trade while it is away, and the market it comes back to is not guaranteed to be the one it left. Paying for a faster tier is partly paying to be exposed to that for less time, which is a real thing to be buying even though it does not show up in the fee comparison. ## When it is clearly not worth it Some cases do not need the arithmetic: - The raw card is worth less than the all-in cost. A 10 has to more than cover the fee before anything else is worth discussing. - The gap between raw and a 10 is small. If the 10 price is not far above the raw price, there is nothing to win and a grading fee to lose. - The card has a visible flaw. Whitening on the back edges, a soft corner, a print line, off centering you can see without a loupe. You are paying to be told. - You want to keep it. A slab is a nicer way to own a card and that is a perfectly good reason. It is just not the same decision, and it should not be argued for with the numbers above. Related: How to value a Pokémon card trade. Prices and rates on this page are hypothetical and used to show the arithmetic. Bartr is an information tool, not financial advice. See the Terms of Use. # How to spot a fake PSA slab (https://bartr.cards/how-to-spot-a-fake-psa-slab) People fake slabs because a grade changes what a card is worth. Most fakes fail one simple check at the table. The rest usually show themselves if you slow down and look. ## 1. Look up the cert number Every PSA slab has a certification number printed on its label. Type it into the cert lookup on PSA's own website, or into Bartr's Verify PSA Cert screen, which shows PSA's record for that number. The record should describe the same card the label does: the same name, year, set, card number and grade. If PSA has no record for the number, you can stop there. ## 2. A real number does not prove a real slab The most common trick is to copy a real cert number onto a fake label. The lookup still finds a record, so people relax. Read the record against the slab anyway. A different card, a different variety (holo or non-holo, 1st Edition or not) or a different grade means something is wrong. PSA's record often includes photos of that exact slab, front and back, especially for recently graded cards. When it does, compare them with the slab in front of you. Centering, a small print line, a mark on the border: the same slab looks the same in both places. ## 3. Read the label closely Fake labels often give themselves away in the printing. Look for blurry or uneven text, letters that sit at slightly different heights, spelling mistakes in the card name, and colors that look faded or too bright. Check that the grade and the word beside it belong together. PSA pairs each number with the same words every time, for example GEM MT 10, MINT 9 and NM-MT 8. A label that says MINT 10 is not a PSA label. PSA labels also carry security printing that is hard to copy. Tilt the slab under a light and compare it with a slab you trust from around the same time. PSA has changed its label design over the years, so an older design is normal. It should still match one of PSA's real designs. ## 4. Check the case A PSA case is sealed shut when the card is graded. Run your eyes along every edge. Glue, gaps, pry marks, cracks near the seams or a card sitting crooked inside are all signs that someone opened it. Normal scuffs from years in a box are not. Hold it next to another PSA slab if you can. Size, thickness and the shape of the label area should match. ## 5. Look at the deal, not just the slab A price far under what that grade usually sells for, a seller who will not let you hold the slab or look up the number, or pressure to decide right now. None of these prove a slab is fake. Each one is a reason to slow down. Trading or buying from someone you can find again, like a shop or a vendor with a booth, also means you have somebody to talk to if something turns out wrong later. ## When you are still not sure Pass. There will be another copy of that card. If you are at a show, ask a parent, a friend who knows slabs, or a vendor you already trust to take a look. A second pair of eyes helps. More reads: Is my trade fair?, Card show trading tips, Raw vs graded cards, How to value a card trade, When grading pays. Prices on this page are hypothetical and used to show the arithmetic. Bartr is an information tool, not financial advice. See the Terms of Use. # Card show trading tips (https://bartr.cards/card-show-trading-tips) A card show is loud, busy and a lot of fun. Most trades that go wrong there go wrong because somebody was rushed, not because anybody was dishonest. A little preparation fixes most of that. ## Before the show - Pack a trade binder. Only put in cards you would be happy to see go. Favorites stay at home or in a separate box, so nobody talks you out of them. - Write a want list. A short list of the cards you are hunting keeps you from trading for something just because it is shiny and in front of you. - Know roughly what your cards are worth. Look up the ones you care about the day before. You do not need every price memorized, just a feel for your best cards. - Bring the basics. Penny sleeves and toploaders, a charged phone, a battery pack, and a bag that closes. If you plan to buy, small bills make paying easier. - Go with someone. Shows are more fun with a friend, and younger collectors should bring a parent or another adult along. ## At the table - Ask before you touch. Hold cards by the edges, and keep them over the table, not over the floor. - Keep your binder with you. Do not leave it on a table while you look around. Busy aisles are exactly where things walk off. - Look at condition in good light. Check the corners, the edges and the back. A crease or whitening changes what a raw card is worth. - Say what you want early. "I am looking for this card, and I can trade from these" saves both of you time. ## Price both sides the same way This is where most unfair trades come from. Each person looks their own cards up one way and the other person's cards up another way, and the numbers drift apart without anyone lying. Use the same source for both sides, on the same day. Match the exact printing: set, card number, holo or not, and language. Compare raw cards with raw sales and slabs with sales of the same grade. If a dealer rate is part of the deal, apply it to both sides, not just one. How to value a card trade walks through each step. ## Take your time "Let me think about it" is a normal thing to say at a show. Walk the room before a big trade. If the offer is good now, it is usually still good in twenty minutes, and if it is only good right now, that tells you something too. ## Saying no politely You never owe anybody a trade. "Thanks, I am going to pass on this one" is enough. No reason needed, and a good trader will not push. Saying no nicely also means they will be happy to see you at the next show. ## Write it down Before you walk away, note what you gave, what you got, and what each side was worth that day. A month later nobody remembers a trade quite right, and a written note settles it. It also helps you learn which trades you were happy with. More reads: Is my trade fair?, Raw vs graded cards, How to spot a fake PSA slab, How to value a card trade, When grading pays. Prices on this page are hypothetical and used to show the arithmetic. Bartr is an information tool, not financial advice. See the Terms of Use. # Is my trade fair? How to check a card trade (https://bartr.cards/is-my-trade-fair) Two sides of a trade almost never add up to exactly the same number, and they do not have to. A trade is fair when the gap between the two sides is small enough that it does not really move value from one person to the other. ## 1. Add up each side from sold prices Look up every card on both sides the same way. Use what copies actually sold for, not what people are asking. Match the exact card: the set, the card number, the finish and the language. A slab is priced from sales of the same grade, and a raw card from raw sales. Cash counts at face value. Ten dollars in cash on one side is worth ten dollars, no matter what else is in the trade. ## 2. Use the same rate on both sides Dealers usually pay a percentage of market so they can resell. If you agree on a rate, it has to apply to both sides. A rate on one side only is a discount, and it is the most common way a trade turns unfair without anybody saying anything untrue. ## 3. Compare the gap with the bigger side Subtract the smaller total from the bigger one. Then ask how big that gap is next to the bigger side. Bartr calls a trade fair when the gap is under 3% of the larger side. It is a band on purpose: on a big trade, a few dollars of difference is noise. A worked example, with round hypothetical numbers. Your side adds up to $200 and theirs to $195. The gap is $5. Three percent of $200 is $6, so this trade is inside the band. Fair. Now say their side is $180. The gap is $20, which is 10% of your side. That is outside the band. Adding about $20 in cash or a filler card to their side brings it back. ## Fair is not the only thing that matters Sometimes you want a card enough to give a little extra for it, and that is your call. The point of checking is to know the gap before you agree, so a trade is a choice you made on purpose rather than a surprise you find out about later. Also check the things a total does not show: the condition of each raw card, whether a slab's cert number looks up correctly, and whether both of you are looking at the same printing. ## When the numbers are close but you are not sure Ask for a minute, look the cards up again, or ask someone you trust to check your math. A good trade still looks good after a second look. More reads: Card show trading tips, Raw vs graded cards, How to spot a fake PSA slab, How to value a card trade, When grading pays. Prices on this page are hypothetical and used to show the arithmetic. Bartr is an information tool, not financial advice. See the Terms of Use. # Raw vs graded cards: what is the difference (https://bartr.cards/raw-vs-graded-cards) A raw card is a loose card, in a sleeve or a toploader or a binder. A graded card has been checked and scored by a grading company and sealed in a hard plastic case, called a slab, with a label that names the card and its grade. ## What grading companies do Companies such as PSA, CGC, BGS and TAG look at a card to confirm it is real, then score its condition: centering, corners, edges and surface. The score is printed on the label along with a certification number you can look up on the company's website. Most graders score from 1 to 10, and some use half points in between. A few also have a special top grade above a normal 10, such as a BGS Black Label or a CGC Pristine 10. Each company has its own scale and its own standards, so a 9 from one company and a 9 from another are not automatically the same thing. ## How raw condition is described Raw cards have no score on them, so people describe condition in words instead. Near Mint means the card looks almost new. Lightly Played, Moderately Played and Heavily Played describe more and more wear, and Damaged covers creases, tears and water marks. Two people can look at the same card and disagree by a step, which is one reason slabs exist. ## Why they sell for different amounts A slab and a raw copy of the same card are bought by different people for different reasons, so they are really two separate markets. The graded price is not the raw price plus a fee. It reflects what buyers pay for a condition somebody else has already checked and certified. Grades are far apart from each other too. On many cards a 10 sells for much more than a 9 of the same card, and a lower grade can sell for close to the raw price. ## Comparing them fairly in a trade - Price a slab from sales of the same grade, from the same company. Not from raw sales, and not from a different grade. - Price a raw card from raw sales. A raw card is not a 10 waiting to happen. Pricing it as if it will grade well is the most expensive mistake in a mixed trade. - Check the cert number on any slab. How to spot a fake PSA slab covers what to look for. A worked example, with round hypothetical numbers. A raw copy of a card sells for $40, a PSA 9 for $70 and a PSA 10 for $200. Someone offers their PSA 9 for your raw copy plus a $25 card. That is $70 against $65: close, and priced the right way. Pricing their slab as a 10 would have made the same offer look like a steal, and it is not one. ## Should a card be graded? That depends on the card, its condition and what grading costs on the day you send it, and it is a choice only the owner can make. When grading pays walks through the arithmetic. More reads: Is my trade fair?, Card show trading tips, How to spot a fake PSA slab, How to value a card trade, When grading pays. Prices on this page are hypothetical and used to show the arithmetic. Bartr is an information tool, not financial advice. See the Terms of Use. # Quick guide: Scan a card (https://bartr.cards/guides/scan-a-card) Point the camera at a card, get the card and its price back. Works on raw cards and graded slabs, in English, and in Japanese for Pokémon. ## 1. Open the scanner On Home, tap Add, the first of the four tiles under the trade slip. Every way of scanning in this guide starts from the same menu. ## 2. Pick how you want to add Scan Card identifies one card at a time. Bulk Scan captures a stack in sequence and keeps a running total. The same menu also offers Condition Check and Import Collection. To type a card instead, use the Search tab. ## 3. Frame the card and shoot Center the card inside the green corners and tap the shutter. The tips on screen are real: move closer if the text is small, and tilt slightly if a sleeve or slab is reflecting light. No card in hand? The gallery button scans a photo you already took. The flash toggle helps in dim convention halls. The card in this camera view is a real phone photo. A graded slab scans just like a raw card, and Bartr reads the label too. ## 4. Read the result A green Scanned card means Bartr matched one exact card and shows the price it found, here a Base Set Venusaur in a CGC 10 slab at $1,119. From here: Add to Collection, Check details for the full card page, or Scan Another to keep going, which stacks scans into a bulk batch. Check the printing compares the printing against your photo first if you want to be sure. ### What "Needs Review" means When Bartr is not sure it matched the right card, it does not guess. You get a review picker, a small grid of candidate cards, and you tap the one in your hand. In a bulk batch the same idea shows up as a Needs Review tag on that scan, next to Matched for the sure ones and Failed for photos it could not read at all. Picking the right card takes one tap and teaches the price to the whole batch. ## 5. Bulk Scan review After a bulk run you land on the review screen. Check the matched list, pick where the cards go, straight to Collection or your Trade Box, plus the Live Trade when you have one open, then add them all in one tap. Two honest details worth noticing in this shot: the totals are masked because it was taken during Show Mode with Privacy Mode on, and the yellow chip calls out a card that has no solid price yet, which is left out of the total instead of being guessed at. # Quick guide: Trade Calculator (https://bartr.cards/guides/trade-calculator) The table-side calculator. Your cards on one side, theirs on the other, and a verdict banner that tells you who is ahead before you shake hands. ## 1. The two sides The Trade tab is split into MY TRADE, what you are putting up, and THEIR TRADE, what you get back. Each side has its own Scan, Add, Cash, and Sealed buttons. New to trading? The Quick guide link opens a short walkthrough right on the screen. ## 2. The built-in quick guide The banner shows a worked example and a Load sample button that fills both sides with practice cards. Anything you scanned recently waits in the Recently Scanned tray with one-tap Give and Get buttons, so a card you just priced drops straight into the deal. ## 3. Set grade and printing on any row Tap any card row to open its editor. Pick the exact printing, the grading company and grade for slabs, and the condition for raw cards, then tap Done. Prices follow the exact copy you set. If a row shows no price, it usually wants you to pick the printing first: Bartr prices the exact card, and until it knows which one that is, it shows nothing rather than guessing. ## 4. Read the verdict banner The banner compares the two totals and stays pinned while you stack cards. Red means a big gap against you, here $853 apart. Tap the banner to expand the reasoning, or tap Professor for advice on how to balance the deal. When the handshake happens, Deal Complete, below the verdict, saves it. ## 5. Add cash to balance a deal Tap Cash on either side, type the amount, and tap Add. Cash shows up as its own row, and the verdict updates instantly. The same deal that was $853 apart reads Within $3, Fair after $850 in cash lands on the light side. ## 6. Record the deal Deal Complete asks before it touches your collection: cards you traded away leave, cards you received join, and you can undo right after. Tap Record deal. Every saved trade lives in Trade History, in the Collection header menu. # Quick guide: Show Mode (https://bartr.cards/guides/show-mode) The card-show session. One tap hides your dollar amounts from across the table, keeps count of everything you scan and trade, and hands you a recap when you leave. ## 1. Start it from Home Tap Start show, the chip at the top of Home beside your profile picture. ## 2. What turns on The app explains itself before it starts: Privacy Mode turns on so nobody can read your screen across the table, scans price instantly before you commit to a trade, and every scan and trade is kept on your phone for a recap at the end. Tap Start the show. ## 3. At the table The live bar pins to the top everywhere: your scan and trade count, a Show eye to peek at values, a Tag button to note which vendor table you are at, and End. Every dollar amount is masked to dots, including your collection value. The eye is yours: tap Show any time you actually need the number, and it masks again when you are done. The Home chip now reads Show · 0, your trade count at this show, and tapping it also ends the session. ## 4. End the show Tap End on the live bar. The dialog reads back your session, here 2 scans and 0 trades with the net still masked, and asks once. Keep going returns to the table; End wraps up. ## 5. Your recap A recap pops up as you end, and every past show stays in Trip History (Profile, under Card Shows): scans, trades, how the trading went for you, your best find, and how long you were there. Press and hold an entry to delete it. # Quick guide: Collection (https://bartr.cards/guides/collection) Your binder in the app: every card you own, with the exact grade, printing, and what it is worth today. ## 1. Three ways to start A new install usually opens with a sample collection already loaded. An empty Collection offers Scan first card, Import cards from another app, or Explore with a sample collection, practice cards that clear automatically the moment your first real card arrives. ## 2. Add from any card page Open any card from Search or a scan. The grade chips switch the price between Raw and graded copies, and the finish chips price each exact printing. In this shot the same Charizard is $135 as a Normal, $900 as a Holo, and $2,100 as a Reverse Holo, which is why Bartr always asks which one you own. The trade value block shows the price for the copy you have selected, dated to when it was updated. Add in the bottom bar puts the card in your collection with that grade and printing; Mine and Theirs put it on either side of a trade, and the eye opens Watch. ## 3. Read the grid The header is your collection's name and total value, tap the name to switch collections. Filter chips cut the grid to slabs, raw cards, or your Trade Box. This capture has the sample collection loaded, and the app says so on screen: those values are labeled example values, not market claims. The plus button adds cards by scan, catalog search, sealed product, or import. Long-press any card for Quick Look. ## 4. Quick Look and card actions Long-press a card in the grid: Open Full Details jumps to the card page, and the actions row covers the rest, mark it To Grade, remove the copy, select multiple cards, check how its price was built with Price Debug, or add it to your Want List. Actions holds the rest. ## 5. Import your collection Tap Import cards on Collection, or Import your collection in Profile. Pick where cards land, your collection or vendor stock, then pick a method: a photo of a binder page, screenshots from another app, pasted text, or a CSV export. Every import shows you each card for review before anything is added. # Quick guide: Watchlist (https://bartr.cards/guides/watchlist) Price alerts for cards you are watching, and a want list for cards you are hunting, both one tap from Home. ## 1. Open it Tap the Watch eye tile on Home. The Watchlist has three tabs: Want list, Price alerts, and Saved, which keeps the cards you bookmarked on their card pages. ## 2. Track a card from its page On any card page, tap the eye at the end of the bottom bar. Set Price Alert watches the card's price for you. Add to Want List files it on your hunting list with a target price and a priority. ## 3. Price Alerts Each alert row shows the card, its current price, your target, and how far apart they are, here $210 above your target. The pencil edits the target. The note at the top is the honest part: alerts check when you open Bartr. Add an alert adds one directly. If you would rather not have to open the app, Bartr also offers a heads-up notification when a target hits: Tap Turn on if you want that. It asks once, after your first alert, and the switch lives in Profile under Card Shows as Price Alert Notifications if you change your mind either way. ## 4. Want List The Want List is the card-show shopping list: each entry carries your target buy price, the current market price, and a priority, so at a table you can check what you planned to pay before anyone quotes you a number. The share button up top exports the list as an image. # Quick guide: Vendor Mode (https://bartr.cards/guides/vendor-mode) Selling at shows? Vendor Mode adds a second side to the app: for-sale stock, a sales ledger, and a live share list customers open by QR code. ## 1. Turn it on in Profile Vendor Mode starts off, unless you told the welcome screens that you sell cards at shows. To turn it on later, go to Profile, then the Card Shows section, and flip Vendor Mode. The app tells you how it works the moment it turns on: hold the Collection tab to flip between your Collection and your Vendor view, and cards you mark as stock move to the Vendor side. Tap Got it. ## 2. Flip to the Vendor Desk Press and hold the Collection tab. The chooser lists both views with live counts; tap Vendor Desk. Hold the tab anytime to switch back. ## 3. Stock your table The desk shows what is for sale and its list value. Tap Add Stock to pull cards in. Stock rows carry the card, its grade, its price, what you paid, and its status; a card with no established price says No price instead of inventing one. Note the line under the totals: values come from the daily price snapshot and say which day they are from. Picking stock is your own collection grid: tap the cards to sell, then Add to Stock. The bar keeps a running total of what you selected. ## 4. The full desk Open Full Desk gets the whole toolkit: set up your next show so your desk and ledger are filed under it, Share Availability to publish your list, and, further down, the Ledger, where every sale, buy, and trade you log at the table lands, totaled for the show and all time. ## 5. The live QR list Share Availability builds a poster of your stock with a QR code. Customers scan it and get your live list in their browser: prices and sold status update as you sell, so the poster never goes stale even if the printout does. Tap Share to publish and send it anywhere, or Cancel if you were just looking.