How we price cards
Every fair market value on Graded.Markets is computed by us, for the exact card, grading company, and grade in the listing — and labeled with how much you should trust it.
What the badges mean
Independent sales-based sources agree with our value. Only Verified values make percentage claims — a listing is only ever called “18% below FMV” when the number has been independently corroborated.
A value we compute for this exact card and grade that has not yet been independently corroborated. Shown as a figure, never as a deal percentage.
No value we are willing to stand behind: the card’s identity is still being verified, our data is stale, or independent signals disagree. We show nothing rather than a number we don’t trust. The marketplace’s own estimate, when one exists, still appears separately labeled “Est.” — it is the platform’s figure, not ours.
How the number is made
- Identity first. A price is only as good as knowing exactly which card is in the slab. We verify identity against grading-company records and the slab label itself, and premium printings — 1st Edition, Shadowless, stamps, alt arts — are tracked separately so one printing can never borrow another’s price.
- Market data, per card and grade. We combine licensed market data with our own index of real sales observed across tokenized-card marketplaces.
- Calibrated to real sales. Values are continually adjusted against what cards actually settle for — not list prices, and not vending-machine pulls: a fixed price paid for a random card says nothing about the card you receive, so pulls are excluded from every sales figure we compute from our own observed sales.
- Checked before shown. Values that live market signals contradict are withheld, and every displayed value is cross-checked against independent sources. Agreement earns the Verified badge; disagreement takes it away.
Freshness
Values refresh continually, new listings are priced shortly after they appear, and a value that can’t be refreshed is removed rather than left to go stale. Every FMV carries its as-of date — shown on the item page, where an amber date means a refresh is pending.
What we deliberately don’t do
- No percentage or “deal” claims from uncorroborated values.
- Insurance figures are never treated as market value — they appear only as the clearly labeled “Ins.” figure.
- Marketplace estimates and other sellers’ asking prices never make a value Verified — asks anchor on published prices, so they can only ever count against a value.
- Third-party data licensed for internal analysis is never displayed.