How we price Pokémon cards for the UK market.
Cardfolio exists to tell a British collector the truth about what their cards are worth here. Every value on this site — and every valuation in Cardfolio — is built for the UK collector, not an American number with the currency symbol swapped. This page explains how we get there, how we tell you which prices to trust, and where the limits are. They are guide prices for tracking a collection — estimates, not quotes.
Two reads on every price.
The market baseline refreshes weekly, right across the catalogue, so every card carries a current UK-aware value. Then, the same week, a second read goes through the cards that trade most — the valuable, liquid singles — and refreshes them from real UK sales, the highest-value cards first. Each price in the app carries its own "price as of" date.
A market baseline for every card.
We start from recent-sale market data compiled by an independent third-party price guide, converted to GBP at the live exchange rate and recalibrated for the UK market, where supply is tighter and collectors consistently pay more than a straight conversion would suggest. This gives every card in the catalogue a current, UK-aware value.
A real UK price for the cards that matter most.
For the valuable, actively-traded singles, we go further than a converted average: we read recent UK sold prices directly and let genuine British market activity set the number — prices people here actually paid, not an estimate of what they might. Where that read is clear and consistent, it replaces the baseline.
Anchored to a clean copy.
Ungraded values are anchored to Near Mint, with sensible adjustments for played grades. Graded cards are a different product on a different market, so they are valued separately: a PSA 10 trades on an effectively global market, so we take that PSA 10 benchmark and convert it to GBP at the live exchange rate — no separate UK adjustment.
The right card — and only the right card.
Wrong editions, reprints, bundles, graded slabs, custom proxies and overseas sellers are all sifted out before a sale is allowed to count toward a price. Getting this right — telling near-identical cards apart at scale — is most of the work, and most of the difference.
One noisy week can't whipsaw your collection.
Card markets are noisy — one odd sale or a quiet week can throw a single reading off. So a sudden, outsized swing in a card's value isn't published on the strength of one week alone: it's held at the last trusted figure until the next read confirms the move is real. Genuine shifts still come through — just a beat later, and without the whiplash. Your collection's value follows the market without lurching on its noise.
Checked against reality, continually.
The engine is measured against live UK sold listings and tuned as the market moves. The public collection on this site is valued by the same engine — it is the standing proof, on our own cards first.
Every price tells you how far to trust it.
Not every card trades often enough to price with the same certainty — so we don't pretend otherwise. Each value carries a confidence indicator, shown as a coloured dot in the app, so you can see at a glance how much weight a number can bear.
Priced from real UK sales.
Confirmed by recent UK sold prices of clean, Near-Mint copies — the number is set by sales we can actually see, not inferred from anything else. As close to the live market as a guide gets; lean on it.
A solid market guide.
A dependable, UK-calibrated estimate — drawn from solid market data, or read from UK sales where clean Near-Mint copies are too thin to confirm on their own. Not pinned to a confirmed sale, but trustworthy for everyday tracking.
A rough guide.
For a card that trades rarely or has thin data. Useful as a ballpark — the start of a conversation, not the last word.
The same value can shift bands as the market changes: a card that earns a clean run of UK sales moves up; one that goes quiet eases back. The indicator always reflects today's evidence, not a label fixed once and forgotten.
What these numbers are not.
A methodology you can't fault is one that admits its edges. Here are ours.
Not offers.
An estimate is what comparable copies have recently sold for — not what a buyer will hand you today. It isn't an appraisal, an insurance valuation, or a guaranteed resale price. Condition, photos, timing, and platform fees all move the real number.
Obscure cards wobble.
A card that sells twice a year has a noisy market. These are exactly the cards that carry a Low confidence dot — useful as a ballpark, but treat them with more caution than a liquid chase card.
Weekly, not real-time.
Both reads refresh every week: the baseline across every card, and the deeper UK-sales read across the valuable, most-traded cards right after it — highest-value first. It is not a live ticker — every price in Cardfolio shows the date it was last updated, so check it before you act on it.
We assume a clean copy.
Ungraded estimates are calibrated to clean, collector-grade copies — the kind UK buyers actually bid on. A heavily played copy of the same card will trade below its estimate, sometimes well below.
Check the comps yourself.
Before you buy, sell, or insure an expensive card, spend five minutes checking recent UK sold listings yourself. Our estimate tells you where the market has been; live comps tell you where it is this week. Use both.
Collecting first.
Nothing here is financial advice. We built this to document collections honestly, not to predict markets or sell a dream.
We use it on our own collection. Publicly.
The TCG Mart London collection — 2,000+ cards across 8 master sets — is valued by this exact engine and published openly, price history and all. If the methodology is wrong somewhere, it's wrong in public, on our own cards first. Then it gets fixed.