{
  "url": "https://www.moonstonehq.com/articles/reading-a-display-case",
  "slug": "reading-a-display-case",
  "title": "Reading a Display Case: A Field Guide to Shop Prices",
  "summary": "The sticker in the case is an ask, not a price. Three questions separate the fair deals from the tourist tax: what do verified solds say, which printing is it actually, and what does the grade really add? Now you can also just photograph the case and ask Cynthia.",
  "section": "Buyer's Guide",
  "published": "2026-08-26",
  "readMinutes": 6,
  "publisher": "moonstone",
  "findings": [],
  "tables": [],
  "charts": [],
  "sections": [
    "Question one: what do solds say?",
    "Question two: which printing is this, exactly?",
    "Question three: what does the grade add here?"
  ],
  "method": [
    "Prices referenced are verified sold medians from individual eBay listings and TCGplayer market data, August 2026, with sample sizes on their card pages. Raw prices in this piece are asks; the Moltres figure is a sold median, and the two are never compared without saying which is which. Photo identification runs our production scanner first and a vision model read second; unidentifiable photos are said to be unidentifiable rather than guessed. RECHECKED 2026-09-22: the Moltres reading reproduces exactly from our recorded graded tape for August 25, 2026, 72 sales at a $199.99 median, and has since moved to $239.25 on 214 sales as a deeper comp set took over that card's row. The two Steam Siege Gardevoir EX prints now ask $5.08 and $107.47. Fossil's 1st Edition holo premium over Unlimited runs about 2.5x to 3.7x across the three birds, which is the \"several times\" the text claims. Cynthia's photo path was rebuilt on September 22, 2026 as a detection pass plus a single embedding call, so any timing you may have read elsewhere for the older pipeline no longer describes it."
  ],
  "terms": "Figures are moonstone's own recorded measurements, dated as published. Quote them with the population stated beside them. The article at `url` is the human form of this file."
}