Card Condition Guide: What Does NM, LP, MP, HP, & DMG MEAN? - Lessons from an LGS Owner 

I wish my local card store owner was half as friendly as you

Love that you’re a real person. Love that you encourage likes or dislikes. I’m sick of, “HEYYYYY GUYS!!!! MAKE SURE YOU SMMAAAASHHH THAT LIKE BUTTON”.

Completely agree, perfectly fine with having damaged cards in my binder.

FINALLY!!! Someone who is honest and accurate about condition. My issue is when people sell online and aren’t honest about their condition. For example Mason’s HEAVILY Played card is what most would call “NM / VLP” when I see and I know something is NM I’ll still call it LP for two reasons. 1. The buyer will be happy to find out it’s actually in better condition and 2. Everyone’s condition is different so I wouldn’t want to have some sort of dispute where they said I lied about condition. Mason! Can you please make your own channel? :/ I say this respectful but the other guy isn’t very friendly or welcoming to the audience. I’m a huge fan and I only watch your videos specifically. Thank you!!

Thank you so much for this! i'm always trying to figure out how to properly talk about card condition- i like cards any which way but i wanna make sure im paying the right price for the condition! I like to keep mine in my themed binders, and i have a lot of damaged cards from when i was a kid that are still my favorites :)

A kid in my daughters 3rd grade class just came to school one day and handed her this bent up Ancient Orgins holo Entei card. She was so excited when she showed me. It's the card that kicked off her interest in collecting. So here we are 3 years later with all these pristine cards and one all bent to hell Entei xD

Congratulations to your success here on RU-vid man, really enjoy the informative content. Oh, I subbed and liked!

Hi guys... mason here.. CARD N ALL GAMING!

Man before this year ends i will fursure spend a couple racks on some cool stuff from you ... Your way underrated my Man

Awesome Video and Much Love!!!

Hello Mason! Received my two Vivid Voltage booster boxes this week and had a blast opening them. Ordered some singles tonight as well to help complete my set. I appreciate your shop so much because the shops around me do not have fair pricing whatsoever. Once again, just thank you and thanks for the informative channel!

I love the content you put out, I believe you’ll get thousands and thousands of new subs in 2021

Very helpful with the thorough explanations. Exactly the video I was looking for. Thanks.

Glad you put on this helpful guide with a lot of beginners joining the market

I recently just started buying from this site, this video was helpful on how my cards will look when they arrive.

Hey Oregon viewer here. Just picked up some singles from you. Thanks and definitely thumbs up all your vids.

Thank you for this, not many poketubers go this in depth for condition. This is great info

I dont feel like anyone should be listing their cards as mint unless they're graded mint! I'm so tired of seeing "NM AMAZING CONDITION" on a heavily played card lol. I think this video is important for a lot of the new people coming into the hobby; great content :)

Great Video, my personal worst condition card is a Neo Genesis Japanese Lugia Holo Rare Card #249

Appreciate the breakdown really helps me visual the grades better!

Every eBay seller that says “mint condition” for everything needs to watch this.

SUPER helpful. Thanks a ton!

As a binder collector of nm cards, cards do not get scratched or become Lp from sleeves or keeping them in a binder

Great video again! appreciate the insight. Keep up the good work

Remember that sometimes ebay NM means folded down the middle, dragged through a hedge and used as sandpaper

I recently bought a few sets of uncommon and commons from the WOTC era. I purposely went for the LP-EXC condition simply because I wanted to have the cards from my childhood back. MUCH cheaper that way!

I know I’m late but thanks for this man helped me a lot with buying cards online

I've got alot of cards double sleeved in binders vs out in hard cases. Pros and cons with keeping cards nicely in binders vs in hard cases separately?

I have a jungle eevee that is literally bent in half. Kid me lovingly straightened it out and put it in her binder along with all the other Eevees. I discovered it a few weeks ago when pulling out my old cards lol.

Great video! Thorough and clear explanations. I have a peeling shadowless Charizard in my collection 😭 So close to greatness.

My jungle holo snorlax has no back, came off when i wased it in my pocket as a kid... but as a binder card, front still looks fine till you unsleeve it lol

Super helpful thanks for this video.

Way back when Pokemon first launched, on the playground at my school, I rescued a pile of pokemon cards that were in a puddle of water. Of course, all damaged, but they were worth saving. In my huge prestine NM vintage binder collections, I have pages of the damaged holos and non holo rares all to themselves. I have them usually showcased right in the middle of my binders. Thanks Mason. The most damaged card in my collection is obviously like a 50 way tie, however the more I think about it, the number one spot is my holo rare vintage WOTC jungle set Nidoqueen. I'll confirm later on if it's 1st Edition... but man, I wanna know the full back story of the card. I was never able to find out who the original owner was. I have a card box I keep of lost cards... at least they have a home now. I have cherished the Nidoqueen ever since and honestly, that much wear, it looks better than my NM ones haha.

To be honest from this examples i will say light played presented here are excellent, moderate are light played etc

Thank you, I learned a lesson

Thanks for the info!

Good info! Thanks

Awesome content! I dont have a Local store 😔

Pretty long video for me to comment on how your grading compares to mine where I think I have a good idea too, but I think this is a video that a lot of people especially eBay sellers need to see :D

A lot of the listings can be very vague at times because everyone has different standards for their “condition views”

When you say you expect LP out of a binder does that include cards that are sleeved and side loaded into a binder? Or is that a fairly safe method to store cards? I collect master sets and like to have them layed out set order and in numerical order in my binders

What do you personally recommend for storing cards long term? Sleeve and in deck box? or Sleeve in binder?

I love the vmax meowth!!

Can a older card let’s say wotc up to black and white halo cards still be near mint if the card appears NM perfect except minor halo scratches that’s always confuses me . I mean I only buy Imo mint cards but sometimes I see great deals on nice cards with light scratches and I never buy because of that reason . I’ve seen scratched cards gets psa 10 like the pichus from neo

Would 2 corners peeling a little on a card still qualify it as NM?

i have a ton of older exs, lvl xs that ive collected, but are moderately played, is there card shops that would take these cards for a decent price?

Have you or can you do a video how to store for collectors to display with the smallest amount of damage.

I like the idea of the video but I feel that the cards should be judged a bit harsher. Regardless I appreciate when people make videos of things like this.

Worst card I have is a holo lapras from fossil set. Got it from an ebay card lot, the front/holo look fine but the back could be classified as worse than damaged.

Is damaged card usually to the point where it's really noticeable on the front of the card like if I bought a damaged card on a website, will it be torn, or super bad crease. Like there is variable damaged terms to cards.

Thanks for the example of silvering from binder cards. Will sleeving the cards in a binder help stop that?

my lgs owner reminds me of Mr.Wilson

If I got that Muk after buying it HP on TCGplayer with no pictures, I’d be upset that the seller didn’t post it as damaged.

What is your opinion of keeping a card in a sleeve so the sealed part of sleeve is on top and stored in a binder? Is that best way protect card in a binder?

I have a trashed base set 2 charizard.

Let's go

There is nothing wrong with putting a card in a binder. People just need to use protection for it and the correct sleeves. I graded some of my binder cards and most got Gem 10s

how do all these played cards get so damaged? Do people not sleeve their cards? or put them sleeved up in plastic? Idk never actually played pokemon cards just collect

I have a damaged Shiny Gyarados in my collection. got it for $25 just couldnt pass it up

Can u do a vid on spotting fake cards. I have a Japanese Lt. Surges eevee and I doubt it's real, since I do not know how I got it.

I have a jungle Holo Clefable and a fossil Holo Lapras both pretty fucked xD

Maybe sellers on ebay should see this video, a lot of cards that are set as NM are MP och DMG😅

What do cards come out of packs (both old and new sets) as? Are they all gm 10s? Is there standardization

my best cards are three 1st edition Charizards. two are HP to maybe MP. The other is MP for sure. Won't ever be getting rid of them as i have had them since i was kid.

Some card stores will try and grift their customers a bit by buying an LP card as "MP"

I personally don't think you can call an ungraded card mint until it's been graded a 10-9 by a reputable grading company. No raw card is mint, always NM/M.

Most people sell your version of moderately played cards as near mint. Online purchasing has become so scummy. You're pretty much guaranteed to not get a mint card anymore. Why would anyone sell you mint cards when they can just grade them and sell them for more.

Is MP worse condition than PL (regular played) or vice versa?

Heavy play aka damaged. They seem like they haven't been taken care of rather than been played.

very strict standards. you want to buy from these guys lol

It’s a Charizard lol I think 3 of the worse cards I have are zards lol

🍖🍻🍖

Does psa take off if a card if curved

So Mint is perfect, NM is Perfect also? and LP is actually NM largely? Shouldnt it be MINT, NM, Almost Mint lol

Mason! I have a great idea and wanted to run it past you to try and help. Best way to contact you? Would love for you to jump on the niche before others take advantage 🙏

If you tell the truth online then you will take forever to sell things. Loads of people upload pictures with a white background so you cant see the whitening anf at weird angles so you cant see the centering properly... i am honest, which means i have to wait for longer fo sell a card than what i would if i was deceptive. I always see "PSA10?" on listings where the card is not only off-centre, but has whitening or damage :/

Your not that far away

no timestamps

Oof first edition lapras from fossil haha

Always click fast af lol

Worst card in my collection is a shadowless Pidgey that’s very obviously been soaked in coca-cola and warped lol. Still a piece of history and may be worth more than a dime in the distant future.

The pink scorpion metabolically expect because crocodile actually miss below a hysterical kenneth. defective, magical clover