Beginner guide

The Collector's Glossary

Every hobby has its own language. Here's ours — each word in a breath or two, no jargon left behind.

Alt art: Short for alternate art: a special version of a card with different, usually more elaborate artwork than the regular print. Alt arts are printed in smaller numbers and are often a set's most chased cards.
As of (a date): Our way of saying “the price in force on the day we last checked.” Some price sources report a grade's latest sale without the day it closed, so we date those by our check instead of guessing. A row marked “sold” is different: that is the real sale day.
At market: A listing priced within 10% of its benchmark either way — a fair going rate, not a discount. We show these so you can see the whole shelf, but they are not deals. Anything more than 10% over the benchmark is Above market and waits in the board's tail. How our deal math works →
Authenticity Guarantee (eBay): eBay's own check on qualifying cards: before the card reaches you it goes to eBay's authenticators (their partner, PSA), who confirm it's genuine and matches the listing, then send it on in tamper-proof packaging. Listings that qualify say so, the check costs the buyer nothing, and eBay's Money Back Guarantee covers it. Every card in our Vault carries it.
Below fair (%): How far a listing's delivered price sits under its benchmark, as a percentage. A $90 delivered price against a $100 benchmark is 10% below. The higher the number, the better the deal — 20% and up earns the Steal badge, 10–20% is a Good buy, and within 10% either way is simply At market. How our deal math works →
BGS: Beckett Grading Services, one of the big three grading companies. Known for printing four subgrades (centering, corners, edges, surface) on the label, and for the ultra-rare Black Label 10 — a perfect score on all four. PSA vs CGC vs BGS →
Bids & bidders: A bid is one offer placed on an auction; the count climbs every time anyone raises. Bidders is how many different people have bid — six bids from two people is a duel, six bids from six people is a crowd. More bidders usually means a stronger finish.
BIN (Buy It Now): An eBay listing with a fixed price — click, pay, done. The opposite of an auction, where you bid and wait. Our deal board tracks BIN listings because their prices can be compared instantly.
Card number: The small fraction on a card's bottom edge — 4/102 means card 4 of a 102-card set. Cards numbered past the set's total (103/102) are its secret rares. The number, not the name, is what tells two prints of the same Pokémon apart.
Cert number: The serial number a grading company prints on a slab's label, unique to that exact card. Type it into the grader's website to see what they really graded — the quickest fake-check there is.
CGC: Certified Guaranty Company, one of the big three grading companies. It started in comic books and is known for strict, consistent grading; CGC slabs often sell a little below the same card in PSA. PSA vs CGC vs BGS →
Chase card: The card everyone opening a set hopes to pull — usually the rarest or most beautiful one. A set's chase cards carry most of its value.
Comps: Short for comparables: what identical copies of a card recently sold for. Checking comps before buying or selling is how collectors know a fair price. One asking price means little; ten comps tell the truth.
Cosmos holo: A holo pattern of soft, swirling galaxies behind the artwork, used on many promo and theme-deck cards from the early 2000s onward. A cosmos holo is the same card as the regular print with a different foil — collectors track it as its own printing.
Current bid: The highest offer on an auction right now — what the card would sell for if the clock ran out this second. It only moves up, and the last minutes are when it moves most; the price you see mid-auction is a floor, not a forecast.
Delivered price: The real total: item price plus shipping. A $95 card with $12 shipping costs more than a $100 card shipped free. Our deal math always compares delivered prices, never stickers. How our deal math works →
Fair value: Our estimate of what a card is really worth right now, computed from live asking prices: we collect them, trim the extremes, and take the median. It's the line every deal on our board is measured against. The full methodology →
First edition: The very first print run of an early Pokémon set, marked with a small “Edition 1” stamp on the card's left side. Far scarcer than later runs of the same card, and worth far more.
Full art: A card where the artwork covers the whole card face, edge to edge, instead of sitting in a framed window. Usually a rarer, shinier version of a regular card.
Gem Mint: The name for a perfect 10 grade — a card that looked flawless to a professional grader. The grade every submitter dreams about and few cards earn. The 1–10 scale →
Good buy: The quieter of our two deal verdicts: a listing whose delivered price sits 10–20% under its benchmark — recent sold comps for that grade, the TCGplayer market price for raw cards, or the live ask median. A decent buy, not a steal. How our deal math works →
Graded: A card that a professional company has examined, scored from 1 to 10, and sealed in a clear case with a label. Grading answers the two big questions — is it real, and what condition is it in — before you spend a dime. Grading, explained simply →
Grail: The dream card — the one a collector wants more than any other, even if it takes years to get. Everyone's grail is different. That's the fun part.
Holo: Short for holographic: a card whose artwork shines with a foil pattern when it catches the light. Holos are the classic “special” card — in vintage sets, the holo version can be worth many times the plain one.
Last sold: The most recent recorded sale of a card at one exact grade — the closest thing to a real-world price for a slab, because it's what a buyer actually paid, not what a seller hopes for. Our “last sold” comparisons use verified sold data via Card Hedge. How we compare →
Market price: The going rate for a card based on actual sales data, published by price trackers like TCGplayer. It's the best single number for what a raw card is worth today.
No comps yet: A find we spotted but could not price: no recent sale for that exact grade, no market price for the raw card, or a listing we could not match to one catalog card. It waits in the board's tail rather than wearing a verdict it hasn't earned. How our deal math works →
Normal (non-holo): The plain printing of a card — no foil on the artwork, no reverse-holo shine, no edition stamp. Price trackers call it “Normal”; collectors say “non-holo.” It's usually a set's most common and cheapest version of a card.
Pop count (population): How many copies of a card a grading company has graded at each level, published in their population report. A card with only 50 PSA 10s in existence is a very different animal from one with 50,000.
Price guide: Our page for one exact card: its market price today, what graded copies trade at, the price history chart, every printing and language, and live listings. When a listing says “price guide for this card,” that's where it leads — the place to check a price before you bid.
Price range (of a set): The spread from a set's cheapest priced card to its most valuable one, at today's market prices. A wide range means a top-heavy set: a few chase cards carrying the value, and a lot of cards you can pick up for pocket change.
Priced daily: We write down the market price of every card and sealed product once a day and keep the history, so the number you see is at most a day old and the chart behind it is real. Prices move a little every day; the trend matters more than any single reading.
Promo: A card given out or sold outside the normal booster packs — at events, in tins and collection boxes, with movies or magazines. Promos carry a black star and their own numbering (SWSH001, SVP 085) instead of a place in a set, and they're priced on their own.
PSA: Professional Sports Authenticator, the biggest grading company. More cards trade in PSA slabs than any other brand, which makes PSA-graded cards the easiest to price, buy, and sell. PSA vs CGC vs BGS →
Pull: The card you get when you open a pack — “I pulled a Charizard” is a very good day. A big pull is the pack-opening jackpot.
Rarity: How hard a card is to pull from a pack, shown by the small symbol near its number: a circle for common, a diamond for uncommon, a star for rare, and a growing family of special tiers above that (Illustration Rare, Special Illustration Rare, Hyper Rare). Rarer printings usually trade higher.
Raw: An ungraded card — no slab, no label, no official score. Raw cards cost less, but you're relying on photos and the seller's honesty to judge condition.
Regulation mark: The single letter printed in a modern card's bottom-left corner (D, E, F, G, H…). It marks the card's print era, and the game's Standard format decides which letters are legal to play each season — collectors mostly ignore it, players never do.
Returns (window): Whether the seller takes the card back, and for how long after it arrives — “30-day returns” means you have 30 days to send it back for a refund. “No returns” means the sale is final unless the card isn't as described or arrives damaged — and on an eBay purchase, eBay's Money Back Guarantee still covers that.
Reverse holo: A card where everything except the artwork is shiny — the reverse of a normal holo. Most modern sets include a reverse holo version of nearly every card.
Sealed: Product still in its factory wrap — booster boxes, Elite Trainer Boxes, tins, collection boxes — never opened. Sealed product is the hobby's other market: it can't be pulled from, so a set's boxes tend to climb once it stops being printed.
Secret rare: A card numbered past the set's printed total — 103/102 and up. Secret rares aren't listed on the set's official checklist, are pulled far less often than the regular cards, and are usually where a modern set's chase cards live.
Seller feedback: eBay's report card for a seller: the percentage of buyers over the past year who left positive feedback, and the total number of ratings behind it. 99.8% positive across 12,000 ratings is a seasoned, trusted seller; 100% across 4 ratings tells you very little yet.
Set rank: Where a card's market price stands among the priced cards in its set — #1 is the set's most valuable card. A quick way to tell a set's chase card from its filler without reading the whole list.
SGC: Sportscard Guaranty, a long-running grader best known for its black-bordered slabs. Grades 1–10 in half steps; less common for Pokémon than PSA, CGC and BGS, so fewer sales to price against. PSA vs CGC vs BGS →
Shadowless: A very early Base Set print run missing the drop shadow beside the artwork frame. Scarcer than the standard “unlimited” print and prized by vintage collectors — check the right edge of the art box.
SIR (Special Illustration Rare): The modern rarity tier for cards with expanded, storybook-style artwork — the full scene, not just the Pokémon. In today's sets, SIRs are usually the chase cards.
Slab: The sealed, tamper-proof clear case a graded card lives in, label and all. “A PSA 10 slab” means the whole package: card, grade, and case. Slabs don't open without breaking — that's the point. How to read a slab →
Sleeves & top loaders: The basic armor for raw cards: a soft plastic sleeve, often inside a rigid “top loader”. Pennies per card, and the difference between Near Mint and heartbreak.
Steal: Our deal board's top verdict: a listing whose delivered price (item plus shipping) is at least 20% under its benchmark — recent sold comps for that grade, the TCGplayer market price for raw cards, or the live ask median, whichever is lower. Every find is re-verified through the day, so the badge means the gap was real when we last looked. How our deal math works →
Thin market: A grade with only a handful of recorded sales, so one unusual sale can swing its whole price — which is how a CGC 4.5 can briefly show a higher number than a CGC 8. We keep thin-market rungs on the ladder for completeness but mute them, and never quote them as a benchmark.
Unlimited: The regular, open-ended print run of an early set — everything printed after the 1st Edition run, with no edition stamp. Far more copies exist, so an Unlimited card is the affordable way to own a vintage print; the 1st Edition of the same card can cost many times more.
Verified (freshness): How recently we confirmed a listing was still live at that price — “verified 4m ago” on a deal, “updated” on the board. Deals re-check a few times a day and again whenever someone clicks through, so a fresh stamp means the price was just seen. Older stamps aren't wrong, just less certain.
Vintage: The early era of Pokémon cards — roughly Base Set (1999) through the sets printed by Wizards of the Coast. Vintage cards are the antiques of the hobby: scarcer, storied, and graded copies carry serious premiums.

All beginner guides →