Where every number on this platform comes from — and the rules that decide when we stay silent instead.
Every card is priced from two unrelated markets that cannot copy each other's mistakes. When they disagree beyond what FX and condition explain, the number is flagged instead of published.
Incoming prices pass automated sanity gates before they reach the site. A value that moves implausibly against its own history is quarantined and the previous verified value is kept — a stale-but-true number beats a fresh-but-wrong one. Database-level triggers block known contamination patterns from ever writing.
Where data is thin, we say nothing. A card without a reliable PSA population or without real graded sales gets no grading verdict — not an estimate, not a model guess. Silence over speculation, everywhere on the platform.
Each card's investment score combines six measured dimensions: market liquidity (how often it actually sells), scarcity (its real PSA population), era effects (how its print generation has historically behaved), tradability (spread, fees, and how hard the position is to exit), character premium (the measured market preference for certain Pokémon), and price momentum. The exact weights and curves are proprietary — the inputs are not, and each card page shows its sub-scores so you can see why a card ranks where it does.
The grade-or-sell verdict does not assume you hit a PSA 10. It uses each card's own population report as the realistic grade mix — most submissions come back a 9, not a 10 — prices every outcome at its actual sold value, then subtracts a ~$25 grading fee and a 13% selling cost. Cards with fewer than 30 graded copies get no verdict: the grade mix would be a guess, and we don't publish guesses. The same function produces the verdict on card pages, the leaderboard, and the grading calculator — they can never disagree.
No hypothetical performance — you will never read "if you had bought X you'd be up Y%" here. No urgency manufacturing. Projections are statistical estimates from historical data, labelled as such, and may be wrong. Research characterises what the market is doing; it does not instruct you to act. And when the data can't support a claim, the claim doesn't appear.
Questions about the data? [email protected]