Sold price vs asking price

Look up any popular card and you will find it listed at a dozen different prices. Those are asking prices, what sellers hope to get. What a card is worth in a trade or an offer comes from something else: what people actually paid.

An asking price is a hope

Anyone can list a card at any price. Listings that sell disappear, and listings that are priced too high stay up, so the listings you see are tilted toward the high end. That is why a search full of high listings can make a card look like it is worth more than anyone is paying.

A sticker on a vendor's case is an asking price too. It is a fair starting point for a conversation, not a measure of value.

A sold price is an agreement

A sale is two people agreeing on a number, and that is the closest thing a card has to a value. On eBay, the Sold Items filter shows completed sales. Pricing sites usually call their figure market price, and it is normally built from recent sales. If a tool does not say whether it shows sales or listings, it is worth finding out before you trust it.

Read the sales, not just one number

• Newest first. Prices move. A sale from last week tells you more than one from last season.
• Count them. One sale is a single data point. Five sales close together are a price.
• Watch for accepted offers. When a listing ends with an accepted best offer, the page can show the listed price even though the buyer paid less, and the real number is not always shown.
• Skip the odd ones out. A lot of several cards, a damaged copy, or a listing with the wrong card in the photo does not tell you what your card sells for.

Match the card exactly

A sale only counts if it is the same card as yours: the same set and card number, the same finish (holo, reverse holo, full art), the same language, and for a slab the same company and grade. A sale of a reprint or a different grade is a different card with the same picture. PSA vs CGC vs BGS grades explains why a 10 from one company is not a 10 from another.

Raw cards and condition

For a raw card, condition moves the price as much as anything. A sale described as near mint is not a sale of a copy with whitening on the back or a crease across the corner. Look at the photos of each sale and compare them with the card in your hand. Raw vs graded cards covers how raw condition is described.

An average or the last sale

An average over thirty or ninety days smooths out the odd high and low sale, which helps with cards that sell every day. For slabs, sales can be weeks apart, and when the market is moving an old average can trail well behind. There, the newest sale of that exact grade usually says more about today, as long as it is a clean sale of the right card.

Prices at a table

At a show, the numbers you hear come from all over: a vendor's sticker, the other collector's look-up, the app on your phone. Before comparing them, make sure they measure the same thing, a recent sale of the same printing and grade. When two numbers disagree, asking "where does that number come from?" is a fair question, and a good trader is glad to show you.

When there are no sales

Some cards rarely sell: rare printings, high grades, older Japanese cards. With no recent sales, any single number is a guess. The honest answer is "not enough sales to say", and it is fine to price a trade around that rather than borrow a number from a different card or grade.