Cards/Funko Best Practices

• Mint: Item and/or packaging are in great condition and both have no visible defects or damage. For cards, there are no visible marks for shuffling, handling, clouding, printing defects, or damages, and it looks like it was just pulled from a pack and went straight for a shield. 
• Near Mint: The item is in great condition along with packaging but may have up to 2 minor bits of damage. For cards, they show minimal to no wear from shuffling, playing, or handling, surface flaws, or slight fading or warping. Basically, in this type of card, it is hard to see any damage or aging signal at first glance.  If you are used to buying singles in local game stores, here are the Near Mint and Slightly Played cards. 
• Good: The item is not broken, but may show some signs of wear along with the packaging. For cards, show significant signals of wear from shuffling, play, or handling, showing dirt, smudges, small bends, warping, clouding, and a little flaking. If you are used to buying singles in a local game store, the Moderately Played cards are here.
• Damaged: Packaging may be heavily damaged, but is still in one piece where applicable. Items may show signs of significant wear but are not broken. For cards, they may have extreme border wear, corner wear, heavy scratching or scuffing, folds, creases, tears, or other types of damage that impacts the physical structure of the card (that includes damage by any type of liquid). We must be able to handle the card properly without a shield and this will not affect the integrity of the card. Here are the Heavily Played and Damaged cards, if you are used to buying singles in local game stores.

Item Condition Breakdown 

Products Sold in Boxes

Mint

The item shows no visible defect or damage on any side of the box. All the corners look sharp and don’t show any bends, dents, marks, or small tears.

Near Mint

Item has up to 2 minor bits of damage, like dents, small tears, or small box defects (damage area should be a maximum of 5% of the box area).

Note: If you can’t see all the corners of the box, but everything else looks Mint, you can approve the listing, but first change the condition to Near Mint.

Good

Items that show signs of damage bigger than the ones shown on Near Mint condition should be tagged as good (damage area should be between 5% to 30% of the box area).

Damaged

The item inside the box must be intact, but the box may be torn or severely crushed, but it should always be in one piece (the damaged area should be above 30% of the box area). Also, any sun damage should be tagged as damaged.

Cards 

There are a few things that need to be considered when evaluating cards:

• Structure: Anything that affects the structural soundness.
• Playability: Anything that hinders the ability to function as a game piece such as the wrong size, missing or obscured information, or an imperfection that causes tournament illegality (specific to TCGs).
• Authentication: Can it be verified? Anything that interferes with verifying authenticity such as misplaced, incomplete, or obscured authentication factor.

Types of imperfections 

Edgewear: Loss of color, sheen, or material along edges, borders, or corners (terms: border wear, fraying, nicks, flaking, roughed edges).

Scratch: A score on the surface that removes the material (terms: score, gouge).

Scuffing: A group of scratches or abrasion (terms: scratch groups, clouding, binder or sleeve gross, buffing).

Surface wear: Material loss causing the internal layers to show through the image/color(terms: eye appeal, speckling, whitening, wear dots).

Grime: Material on the surface from handling, use, or poor storage (terms: dirt, play dirt)

Indentation: A notch or groove on the edge or surface that displaces material (terms: ding, ident, dent, fingernail mark, pockmarks)

Bend: A line or ridge from folding or pressing (terms: crease, fold)

Fault: An expansion or splitting of the surface material (terms: split, tag, flaps, rippling, drips, drops, peeling, delamination, fraying)

Damage: A severe imperfection that impacts the card integrity (terms: tear, hole, flimsiness, sun damage, bleaching, foreign substance)

Defect: A printing or manufacturing error (terms: inking, blurring, crimping, miscuts, centering, error, shifted)

Imperfection severity

Slight: Impacting a minimal surface area of the card (around 2% of the overall card)

Minor: Impacting a noticeable surface area of the card (around 5% of the overall card)

Moderate: Impacting a significant surface area of the card (around 10% of the overall card)

Major: Impacting the surface area of the card above the measures of the other severities.

Condition Standards

Mint

There are no visible marks for shuffling, handling, clouding, printing defects, or damages, and it looks like it was just pulled from a pack and went straight for a shield. 

Near Mint

Up to three points of imperfections of the following types: slight edgewear, slight scuffing, slight indentation, minor scratches, and slight defects.

In this condition, surface wear, grime, bend, fault, and any type of damage aren’t allowed.

Good

Up to 12 points of imperfections of the following types: minor to moderate edgewear, minor to moderate scratches, minor to moderate scuffing, minor to moderate indent, minor bend, slight to minor surface wear, slight to minor grime, minor defects, and minor fault. In this condition, only damage isn’t allowed.

Damaged

Damage cards have moderate, major, or severe faults, any damage, severe bends, foreign substances, including non-manufacturer ink, and severe indentations.