Grading card condition correctly

Three rules that reliably downgrade

Some traits take the interpretation off your hands because they firmly rule a step out.

• Scratches on the surface mean Good at best. On foils this shows fastest.
• Clouding, the dull patches in the gloss, rules out Near Mint.
• Darkened or whitened edges mean Poor, no matter how good the rest looks.

Grading strictly is cheaper than arguing

Cardmarket calls misunderstandings about condition unavoidable to a degree. Our recommendation from that: when in doubt, pick the lower step. The price gap between two steps is almost always smaller than the cost of a return, and a buyer who receives better than ordered does not complain.

Condition belongs in the data, not in the comment

A listing carries condition as a fixed attribute that buyers filter and sort by. The comment must not contradict the structured data, that is Cardmarket’s own rule, and altered cards only belong in a listing with a scan. A “see description” does not rescue a wrong grade.

In a stack: set once, mark the exceptions

With large quantities, nobody turns every card twice. What works is a base condition per stack, say Near Mint for freshly pulled cards, and a second look only at the exceptions. One thing matters here: the same card in different conditions makes separate listings; merged, they would be mispriced.

What CardEntry takes over

In the export, the condition sits as a code in every row. It is assigned during review, and where it is missing, the export profile’s fallback applies, which is exactly the base-plus-exceptions pattern. The grading itself stays with you: no camera sees clouding and fine scratches reliably, and we do not claim otherwise.