Cardmarket card conditions: what NM, EX and Good are worth (measured)
Mint, Near Mint, Excellent, Good, Light Played: what each Cardmarket condition means, and the price step we measured from one condition to the next.
Mint against Near Mint refreshed weekly. The other conditions were measured once, on 830 cards recorded between 26 September and 25 October 2026.
An Excellent copy asks 75% of the Near Mint price, a Good copy 47%, a Played copy 25%.
Median of the cheapest offer in each condition against the cheapest Near Mint offer, on 830 cards whose Near Mint copy costs €5 or more. Asking prices on Cardmarket, not sales.
The 7 Cardmarket conditions
The seller picks the condition when listing a card, on a scale of seven. The descriptions below are condensed from Cardmarket’s condition guide. Cardmarket keeps these English names in every language.
- Mint MT · Perfect
- Flawless front and back, like a card straight from the booster. Cardmarket notes it rarely makes sense for recent cards.
- Near Mint NM · Booster-fresh
- Looks never played without a sleeve. At most a very few tiny white spots on the border, no scratches.
- Excellent EX · Minor wear
- Looks played for a few games without a sleeve: a couple of white spots on the corners or border, light scratches seen up close.
- Good GD · Visible wear
- Looks played through a long tournament without a sleeve: white spots all around, scratches, some dirt. No bend, no water damage.
- Light Played LP · Severe wear
- Long unsleeved use. It can look bad, but it is still playable in a sleeve and has not been altered.
- Played PL · Damaged
- As worn as regular play can make a card; doubtful even in a sleeve.
- Poor PO · Destroyed
- Bends, water damage, borders inked or painted over, a signature that is not the illustrator’s.
Age earns no allowance: a card from 1999 is graded like one opened yesterday. A printing error, such as off-centre art, does not lower the condition.
What each condition costs
For each card, the cheapest offer in each condition divided by the cheapest Near Mint offer, in the same card language and recorded at the same time. The table shows the median card, and the middle half of cards around it.
| Condition | Share of the Near Mint price | Middle half of cards |
|---|---|---|
| Near Mint | 100% | reference |
| Excellent 803 cards measured | 75% | 50% – 97% |
| Good 665 cards measured | 47% | 28% – 72% |
| Light Played 565 cards measured | 36% | 20% – 58% |
| Played 532 cards measured | 25% | 15% – 41% |
| Poor 544 cards measured | 19% | 10% – 36% |
Put another way: a card whose cheapest Near Mint copy costs €100 typically has an Excellent copy at €75, a Good one at €47 and a Played one at €25.
The middle half is wide: an Excellent copy asks anywhere from 50% to 97% of the Near Mint price. The condition sets a range; the card and the seller do the rest.
Near Mint or Excellent: the step people argue about
Excellent is the first step down and the hardest to call: Cardmarket itself warns that one person’s Near Mint is the next person’s Excellent. At the median, the step costs a quarter of the price.
Buying: 254 of the 1,260 Excellent offers we measured asked more than the cheapest Near Mint copy of the same card. Check the Near Mint offers before you settle for Excellent.
Selling: listing a slightly worn card as Near Mint invites a dispute; listing it honestly as Excellent costs about a quarter of the price. Look at the corners and the border in daylight before you choose.
How much a worn card loses depends on its language
French cards lose the most at each step, German and Italian cards far less. At Excellent, a French copy asks 62% of its Near Mint price, an English one 71%, a German one 92% and an Italian one 102%.
| Condition | English | French | German | Italian |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Excellent | 71% | 62% | 92% | 102% |
| Good | 47% | 37% | 75% | 86% |
| Light Played | 37% | 30% | 65% | 78% |
| Played | 27% | 21% | too few | 68% |
| Poor | 21% | 13% | 44% | 65% |
German and Italian figures rest on fewer cards (104 German at Excellent, against 569 English). Spanish cards had enough offers only at Excellent, where they ask 100% of Near Mint (51 cards). On French cards a worn copy saves the most; on German and Italian cards an Excellent copy costs nearly as much as a Near Mint one, so compare before you buy.
Under €5, condition hardly changes the price
On cards whose Near Mint copy costs under €5, Excellent, Good and Light Played copies ask the same as Near Mint at the median (100%), Played 86% and Poor 98%. At these prices the condition barely moves what sellers ask, so you may as well buy Near Mint.
Cardmarket’s conditions are not the American ones
American shops grade on their own scale, and the same words mean different things there. Cardmarket’s own table gives the equivalents:
| On Cardmarket | American equivalent |
|---|---|
| Mint | Mint |
| Near Mint | Near Mint |
| Excellent | Slightly Played, Excellent |
| Good | Moderately Played, Very Good |
| Light Played | Played, Good |
| Played | Heavily Played |
| Poor | Poor |
The trap is Light Played. On Cardmarket it is the fifth step, a card with severe wear. The American “Lightly Played” sits just below Near Mint, close to Cardmarket’s Excellent, and Cardmarket warns not to confuse the two. The same goes for Good: an American “Good” card is a Cardmarket Light Played, two steps below Cardmarket’s Good.
Mint against Near Mint
Cardmarket notes that for recent cards a Mint copy is worth about the same as a Near Mint one. Here is what sellers ask for that step, refreshed every week:
| Card language | Cards with Mint and Near Mint offers | Median Mint premium | Mint cheaper than Near Mint |
|---|---|---|---|
| English cards | 389 | +39% | 19 |
| French cards | 748 | +46.4% | 12 |
Buying: for a binder copy, you will rarely see the difference between Mint and Near Mint. Selling: if your card goes straight from the booster to a sleeve, listing it as Mint rather than Near Mint can pay; overstating the condition costs you in disputes. The cheapest offers for each card are on our set pages.
Method and limits
- Excellent to Poor: for each card and card language, the cheapest offer in each condition against the cheapest Near Mint offer, from the same recording. 830 cards whose cheapest Near Mint copy is €5 or more, recorded between 26 September and 25 October 2026. Our weekly recording now keeps Near Mint or better only, so these figures are not refreshed.
- We record at most the 50 cheapest offers per card and language. A condition with no offer among them is left out for that card.
- Mint against Near Mint: active offers in Near Mint or better from our weekly recording, refreshed every week.
- Asking prices with a condition declared by the seller. No completed sales, no independent grading.
- Condition descriptions condensed from Cardmarket’s condition guide, read on 29 October 2026.