It's hard to avoid talk of the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:sudden Pokemon card boom if you spend a ဣlot of time online. Prices are skyrocketing and major news sites are covering it worldwide. So, this means that the dusty old folder sitting in the closet might now be worth a little bit of cash. This leads to a little problem. Online auction sites are full of cards that have absurdly high prices — but why?
Many childhood collectors had long since forgotten about their cards, but now want to turn a quick buck without knowing how heavily a card's condition weighs on its value, and even a few little defects can seriously sour one's dreams of trading in a few old pictures of a lizard for a Bugatti. These dreams, spurred on by headlines promising riches and YouTubers being, well, YouTubers, has led to many folks believing their𝓀 collection is worth a lot more than it is.
Before sticking a card up for sale, there are plenty of factors to consider that will be affecting its worth, especially if the hopes are to have it 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:PSA graded first.
10 Scratches
More obvious on cards with a holographic foil, scratches can drastically affect a card's price. A good habit to get into before listing any holographic card for sale is to hold the card foil-up to the light, turning occasionally to spot🍬 any scratches across the image.
Obviously, 💃scratches can appear on any card, but it is particularly important on those that are holographic. Sometimes, the scratch is so deep that i𓂃t cuts into the illustration and the holographic foil can be seen through the Pokemon, like with our sliced Ninetales here.
9 Edgew♊ear/White🌠ning
Edgewear and whitening are signs that your card has been handled or played with before, and that's a big no-no for those that want to drop a year's salary on a trading card. For a card to have truly perfect edges, there must be no white marks (also known as whitening) appearing on them at all.
Each edge should be one solid color, and this 🌳applies to the corners, too. Further🅷more, any noticeable wear on the edges or corner will mark the card down in the eyes of a professional grader — this includes slight ridges, stains, or scuffs.
8 💧 Border Alignment
A card may look absolutely perfect to most peopဣle, but professional grading companies may still score it lower than anticipated. Why? Borders. A border can af💜fect the value of a card, based on its width.
If your Pikachu's left border is a little thicker than the right, boom! It goes down a mark. It's a horrible truth, but it has to be said. Worse still, if the border is incredibly thick at one side and thin at the other, it 16ꦓ8澳ꦚ洲幸运5开奖网:may be considered a miscut and be worth hundreds! Try working that one out.
7 🦩 Corner Damage/Peeling
One of the more obvious signs of wear on a card is peeling. Minor peeling usually starts at the corners, but if it gets really, really bad, then whole sides can start to peel.
Obviousl🍃y, if a card's face is half hanging off then it will 🍃be worth very, very little. Unfortunately, even slight peeling in the corners can affect a card's worth quite severely. Sorry.
6 Faded C꧙olours ꧋
Some might arg♛ue that a faded card m♌ight look pretty cool — those bright blues, greens, and reds now fading into soft, pastel colors. It's definitely something you'd stick on a blog.
Unfortunately, it's probably not something to stick on eBay if you're expecting a big payout. A faded card, while aesthetic as all heck, will be a little lower in value than a card with its original colors. These three Psyduck cards all show different degrees of fading.
5 Bends
Much like peeling, bends are pretty bad news. Even a minor bend c🧔an affect a card's score qui🙈te badly, and a heavy fold will mean that even your rarest card won't bring home much — for example, this Gyarados.
Additionally, cards may begin to warp in areas of high moisture, so it's best to sleeve all cards ti🌳ghtly and keep them in a cool, dry place. Sometimes, cards will come out of the pack warped. That's not fair, is it? Some suggest placing the cards in top-loaders and placing them under heavy objects, but this has mixed results.
4 💞 Water Damage
C'mon, how did this happen? Sleeve your cards! Anyway, let's forget why it happened and try and fix the cards. Water damage can present itself in a number of ways, the most common of which are warping, creasing, and wrinkling. Unfortunately, modera🔥tely water-damaged cards will never return to their original state, but there are a few methods to ease the pain a little.
Some suggest flattening the damp card in a plain notebook and placing it under a heavy object for over a day. It's important here to use a completely plain notebook, as any ink in the notebook may run, damaging the card further. It is also important to note that whatever the card is sandwiched in should be smooth — rough textures m🎐ay damage the surface of the weakened card. Another sugജgestion is to iron the cards through a highly heat-resistant cloth.
3 Rips
It may not be worth having a ripped card professionally graded, but it's likely that there's someone out there who will throw a few bucks at a torn 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Charizard.
Many torn cards are likely to be rejected by major grading companies, though some will offer to certify whether or𝓀 not the card is genuine — offering no score, however. At this point, it's really time to start deciding whether or not it's worth paying 100 times the value of the torn card to have it graded. I'm leaning a little toward "no," here.
2 🐲 💃 Validity (Are They Fake?)
If the card is fake, it isn't getting graded. That said, many fake cards, especially "classic" fakes such as those that fa🎉ns remember being traded around the playground will command some value — just for the sake of nostalgia.
In addition to this, some of the fakes available are so poorly-made or plain bizarre that they're bought on comedy value. For example, our good friend Dratint here: let's hope it doesn't injure anyone with🎶 its trademark Bonemerang atta🃏ck.
1 Rarity
Unfortunately, this 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:isn't as plain to see as the other factors affecting value. With rarity, it'🔯s best to do some research on the card before listing it online. Most cards can be found online by searching for the number code found at 🔴the bottom left or right corner of the card.
Sadly, manܫy of the early Japanese cards are without identification codes (instead, their Pokedex number) and so are much harder to track. Good thing we have reverse image search, huh? After identifying the card, be sure to check out its current going price through recent auctions and value-checking websites.