Card Condition

[Oakenshield]

Hi all!!!


Most traders/sellers say the cards they offer are in Mint/Nearly Mint condition.However,you may get perfect unplayed cards and destroyed cards from the same person,both in Mint/Nearly Mint condition .Souldn't we try to create a scale or something,so that we could be more specific when we're talking about card condition?I would like to hear ideas from people more ecxperienced than me first,then say my opinion

Cheerz!-Kostas.

[Gwaihir]

It already is a scale: Mint and Near Mint are two conditions from an elaborate scale made by Scrye. A "destroyed" card is not near mint, so - if it wasn't damaged in transit - the trader sending it wasn't honest with you. You should feel perfectly free to speak to him / her about that and use the appropriate feedback mechanisms if he / she is unwilling to resolve the situation. You are doing your fellow traders a favour by not letting such go unnoticed.

Mint means perfect, without any visible flaw. Not every card printed and taken fresh out of the pack is mint, as production, handling and opening do not allways lead to perfect cards. It is also very easy to destroy this perfect state afterwards during fairly normal handling. Therefore very, very few honest traders / sellers qualify any of their cards explicitly as mint. Those that do should have handled them with the kind of care more associated with collecting stamps than cards and will generally charge you about 50% extra for this condition. (I.e. they'll want extra cards / money from you.)

Near mint comes down to as good as new. Such a card can have a slight printing flaw or a tidbit of damage, such as so easily occurs during handling. Obviously, cards taken from the packs and handled with care will fairly often exceed this grade and thus most traders qualify their cards as mint/near mint, meaning at least near mint.

From there on downwards there is a whole lot more grades. To read up you can probably google for "scrye grades" with fair ease. I must say though, it gets fuzzy fairly easily, so I would recommend the use of specific damage descriptions and / or card scans rather than grades for any card that doesn't make near mint. Also note that any such cards are generally not of interest to a collector, but only to someone who wants to play with them. Personally I simply don't deal on-line in cards less than near mint (and answer any requests for mint ones with a "sure I'll verify, IF you are prepared to pay the extra buck for that").

[Oakenshield]

Wim!

Thank's for the reply!Yes,I agrre,Mint means in perfect shape,card that was taken directly from booster/starter and kept in protector-sleeve,treated carefully until it gets sold or traded.However,as you said,production errors(miscuts maybe...)cause damages to the card,so even a brand new card could be less than mint.Also,sometimes,card edges may be fine,but card natural curvature damaged.That's not a Mint card to me .Finally,I don't think that printing mistakes(misprints,lightly-rotated non-boarder part of the card,etc.)makes a card less Mint.

A trader/seller once sold to me a METW Lim set.When I asked him about the cards condition,he said the set was Mint.However,only a small number of cards was Mint.The rest of them were Near Mint,and some of them in reeeeally bad shape .I was a little shy to complain,since he may considered the cards Mint,so he may think I'm crazy or something .Sould I have complained?Is a card with obviously damaged edges or indentations Mint???

And,yes,Mint cards are faaar more expensive than Near Mint ones.I am a collector,so I have to keep paying


Cheerz!-Kostas.

[Gwaihir]

I was a little shy to complain,since he may considered the cards Mint,so he may think I'm crazy or something .Sould I have complained?

Being right and getting it your way are generally two quite different things, alas. I even have a pretty good guess as to who that seller might have been: I once bought a METW limited set of of a firm that advertised as "rigorous Scrye graders" but sent me a pretty poor "near mint" set. I didn't follow it up either; too much work for too little. Wouldn't do business with them again though.

Sure, I think you could have rightfully complained. But if it was about part of a set it is allways harder: would you have wanted to return them all, if that was the answer given? Would you have been prepared to follow it through, had they stonewalled you? Would you have had any reasonably useable means of doing so? (Like a good feedback system they would care about if you got a minus in, and / or the option to ultimately charge back the payment, as you can do with a credit card.)

Mod note: moved: All about the Cards Trade Info; about trading in general, not about specific MeCCG cards

[thorondor]

well, the scale of scrye isn´t complete: there is another category called "roberto mint" ))
(don´t take this too serious, roberto, in case you read this. it´s always a pleasure to trade with you!)

by the way: kostas - where in greece are you living? i soend some time in the north each year, since my wife has greek relatives. wouldn´t mind a game or three, when i am there ...

[Earendil]

well, the scale of scrye isn´t complete: there is another category called "roberto mint"

Eheheheh... TRUE!!!!

[Oakenshield]

Hi all!!!


I just saw the topic was moved here,I thought it was erased!!!So check this link,I think it tells everything:
http://www.vhoeven.demon.nl/fc_price.htm

Cheerz all!

[Gwaihir]

I read it just now. I think the info on grades is quite ok, but the info on prices isn't. Prices aren't such objective absolutes as he sketches.

As for topics being "gone": usually you'll find they just moved to a more appropriate place on the board. The search works miracles if you can't find something.

[Oakenshield]

You may be right about the comments about prices,I don't know.But he gives a nice idea of grades!It's worth checking it,I think

Well,yes next time I'll give it a search!I just thought it was simply erased,it might be of less interest for the forum...I wouldn't mind at all if the masters of the forum considered that and had erased my topic for this reason,since I got my answers .All we're trying to do is help each other about MECCG,right???I'll search next time

Cheerz!-Kostas