Pokémon

Booster packs, Elite Trainer Boxes and Pokémon singles:

sealed product comes in fixed sizes. A booster pack holds ten cards, a booster bundle is six packs, an Elite Trainer Box adds nine packs to sleeves, dice and energy cards, and a booster display holds 36. To play without gambling on pulls, a League Battle Deck is a finished 60-card deck ready for league night. Opened cards are bought one of two ways. Singles are raw cards priced on rarity and condition, and they are the cheapest way to build a particular deck. Graded cards sit in a sealed PSA, CGC or Beckett case with a grade from 1 to 10, and on a popular card the step from a 9 to a 10 can multiply the price. Magic: The Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh! have categories of their own.

Card language and the regulation mark:

both decide whether a card is playable. At official Play! Pokémon events in Costa Rica, English and Spanish cards are legal. Portuguese prints, accepted across the border in Panama, are not, and Japanese cards are ruled out because their backs differ from every other edition, which counts them as marked. Store league nights are up to the organiser. Buy Japanese cards to collect, not to compete. The regulation mark is the small letter in the bottom-left corner of the card face. Standard format keeps only the newest few letters and every rotation drops the oldest, so a competitive deck from a couple of seasons ago can turn up cheap because half of it no longer plays. Check the letters on the key cards before you pay for a deck.

Sealed boxes and the out-of-print premium:

a pack from a current set runs around ₡4,000 and an Elite Trainer Box from about ₡30,000, and those shelf prices cap what an opened or second-hand lot from the same set is worth. Once a set stops being printed, its sealed boxes climb: an Elite Trainer Box from a popular set that has left the shelves can fetch double the price of a new release. An opened ETB with its packs gone is worth its box, sleeves and dice and little more, so make sure a listing says which one you are getting.

Spotting a fake or a tired Pokémon card:

hold it up to a phone torch. A genuine card has a dark core layer that blocks most of the light; counterfeits glow through, and they often give themselves away with a washed-out blue back, odd fonts or HP numbers that do not exist. Modern full arts and special illustration rares have a fine etched texture you can feel with a fingertip, while fakes are flat and glossy. Charizard and each set’s top chase cards are the most copied. For wear, turn the card over. Whitening on edges and corners, scratches across the holo, dents and creases show on the back first, and a card listed as Near Mint should have none of them. With a slab, enter the certificate number on the grading company’s website and check the case for cracks or signs of reopening. With sealed boxes, the shrink wrap should be tight with factory seams. Loose packs taken out of a display deserve caution, because packs get weighed and searched before they are resold.

Listing a binder, a deck or a single chase card:

photograph each valuable card front and back in daylight, with close-ups of the corners and any holo scratches, and give the set, the card number, the language and an honest condition: Near Mint, Lightly Played, Moderately Played, Heavily Played or Damaged. For a deck, list all 60 cards and the regulation marks on the ones that matter. Bulk commons and energies move better as a counted lot than card by card. A serious buyer will want to see the card out of its sleeve and under a light before paying, so bring a penny sleeve and a toploader and let the card leave your hands in the condition you described.