Personally I disregard all “mint” claims on eBay unless the seller has got multiple, high quality photos of the card showing it at different angles in different lighting. It’s too easy to miss or hide damage/flaws on cards, so I assume any card listed as “mint” just means “hasn’t been heavily played with”, and that’s what I expect I’ll receive. It’s different if you’re buying from a high profile seller who knows what they’re talking about but a lot of people selling Pokémon cards on eBay are either young, or are parents who don’t know any better.
The reality is that Pokémon cards are marketed towards children and children are its main target audience. Graded Pokémon cards are still a niche corner of the market. The majority of sellers on eBay will not be knowledgeable on grades or even know what graded cards are. “Mint” to one person will mean “absolutely no imperfections” but to someone else will mean “it looks pretty good and my dog only chewed it once”.
If you’re buying cards to grade yourself, ask the seller for more photos and ask them “is there any damage on this card that I can’t see in the photos?”. If the condition of the card is really important to you then make sure you find out all the information before hitting the buy button. Otherwise you’re accepting the seller’s definition of “mint” which we all know by now, doesn’t really mean “mint”. If after getting extra photos or confirmation that the card is undamaged, and you then receive a damaged card, that’s a different matter and you should pursue a return.
To make your life easier, take “mint” listings on eBay with a big old grain of salt and ask the seller for more information instead.
I know this thread isn’t really about PSA grading, but I have to agree that PSA 7 can be pretty awful. I think some of PSA’s “NM” standards have influenced the market. There have been many 7s that have left me scratching my head. Got this card back at the beginning of the year. Was expecting a 5, a 6 at most. One of my childhood cards that I just wanted in a case, pretty inexpensive. I would certainly never list this card as near mint, I would describe it as light play at best. Correct me if I’m wrong… but thought I’d share.
Yeah, I entirely agree. Honestly, that looks like a run of the mill 7. But 7s can vary pretty significantly. I recently-ish cracked a 46xx cert PSA 7 EX Emerald Milotic ex that was better than nearly all of the 2xx cert 8s I’ve cracked. Your Latios looks like a pretty average 7, though. And actually looks better than a couple of the old cert 8s I’ve cracked lol.
Personally, my standards have adjusted to view PSA 8 Pokemon cards as ‘NM.’ But when I was first getting back into the hobby, almost no PSA 8 quality cards made the cut for my sets. Let alone PSA 7 cards. But I’m not made of money, so I ultimately settled for building my sets with PSA 8 quality cards. With my adjusted condition standards, I would agree with you that your Latios is LP. But, as you said, considering it NM would never even cross my mind.
It’s really fascinating, though, just how much PSA grading standards have become standardized in the Pokemon hobby. For MTG, the preferred grading service is obviously BGS. And, despite the fact that a BGS 8.5 is labeled ‘NM-MT+,’ no legitimate seller would ever consider selling a BGS 8.5 quality card as NM (let alone ‘mint’). Even for BGS 9s, most larger vendors won’t purchase them for NM buylist prices. But, for Pokemon, it seems that PSA’s condition descriptors have more or less become established among collectors as official. These lax grading standard have become so widespread that, even as a raw card collector, I’ve recently been purchasing almost as many graded cards as raw cards (as I’ve already decimated the inventory of the few other strict graders that exist in this hobby).
sweet I just got another one to add to the collection lol.
Paid 75$ for this card expecting near mint, it comes and of course the picture taken of the back side is at the perfect angle to make you unable to see the damage.
There’s multiple dents all across the back. cards fucked. so aggravating.
I started sending messages to the sellers, showing them the pictures of the damage and explaining how it’s not cool.
No bad reviews, but just asking them to please be more careful / honest in the future, and that if we all collectively do so, we might all have a better experience purchasing pokemon cards on ebay in the future.
It bugs me to no end when there’s damage that isn’t disclosed.
It’s a huge waste of time as a buyer.
It’s especially worse if you’re buying from international
If I’m buying from the states, it could take a month or longer to get a card and then if there’s damage I gotta go and try to resolve with the seller. If that doesn’t work then do the eBay claim, which will take another 2 weeks to resolve. So I end up tying up funds to a purchase that could take nearly 2 months to refund. It’s such a pain.
I think the rise in card prices are drawing out all the folks who have old, forgotten collections and subsequently looking to sell them for a handsome price they never thought was possible.
So we end up getting these garbage listings with questionable photos and sellers who are overgrading their cards.
On the other end of the spectrum, as others have pointed out, if it’s a power seller on eBay selling a “NM” card, but they also have a bunch of graded cards for sale, it makes me pause and think why is this raw card not graded? What’s wrong with it?
So, like I said in a previous post, I decided to message the sellers that sell me flawed cards and ask them to do the right thing next time.
This dude messaged me back right away, and honestly seemed like he really was not aware of the marks I found on the card. and I believe him.
I didn’t write him a bad review or anything, just asked him to be more careful next time.
this dude goes out of his way, and sends me a free gift!
I was not expecting this at all!
I am shocked I was seriously not expecting that!
the card was a test tube mewtwo that I paid 75$ for!
even besides the free gift, this dude seems really genuine from his messages.
