Condition pricing is where the Pokemon market is at its least efficient, because almost nobody knows the going rate. Sellers guess, buyers guess, and the guesses land everywhere. We pulled the live per-condition prices for 4,915 cards from our market data and computed each card's real condition ladder. The median answers are worth memorizing before you touch a binder at a show: LP 76%, MP 54%, damaged 32%.
Expensive cards punish wear harder
On cards under $5, a lightly played copy keeps 77.8% of near-mint value and damaged keeps 33.9%; nobody is inspecting a two-dollar card with a loupe. Cross $50 and the LP share falls to 71.2%, MP to 49.2%, damaged to 26.8%. The buyers of expensive cards are condition-sensitive because many of them are grading candidates, and one edge nick converts a card from a PSA 10 lottery ticket into a display copy. Wear costs more precisely where the card is worth more, in percentage terms, not just dollars.
The harshest real condition ladders on $20-plus cards
| Card | NM | LP | LP share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rayquaza, Call of Legends | $599.46 | $96.83 | 16.2% (MP 9.3%, DMG 3.4%) |
| Melmetal, SM Black Star Promos | $105.48 | $19.99 | 19.0% |
| Suicune, e-era Japanese | $95.00 | $18.08 | 19.0% (MP 13.4%) |
At the other extreme sit cards whose LP price equals their NM price to the cent, a perfect 100%. Those are not pricing miracles; they are illiquid corners where no LP copy has traded recently enough to discover its own discount. Treat a 100% LP ratio as a warning that the listed price is untested, not as an invitation to pay NM money for a played card.
How to spend this information
Selling: if your card is worth real money and honestly NM, never accept an LP-blended offer; the median gap you would donate is 24%. Buying to hold raw: LP at 60% of NM beats the median tax and the eye appeal difference in a binder is usually invisible. Buying to grade: the ladder is your floor math, because a misgraded-as-LP near mint copy at 71% is the single best legal arbitrage in this hobby, and it is exactly what our scanner's condition-blind pricing helps you spot.
Sample: 4,915 unique cards whose cached Moonstone market payloads carried live TCGplayer per-condition prices (NM and LP required; MP and damaged where quoted) as of August 26, 2026. Ratios are per-card condition price over NM price; medians reported per segment (under $5: 2,881 cards; $5-50: 1,450; $50+: 584). Two apparent sub-6% LP ratios on cheap promos were excluded as stale-listing artifacts; the harshest-ladder table starts at $20 NM. Prices are listings-derived market quotes, not our valuations. Not financial advice.