How auctions work
Everything about buying and selling at our weekly slab auctions: how bidding works, what it costs, and what happens after the hammer falls.
Everything about buying and selling at our weekly slab auctions: how bidding works, what it costs, and what happens after the hammer falls.
Every lot is a graded slab that a collector has sent to us. Before it goes live we look up the cert on the grader’s own website, inspect the label, case and seals, check the card through the case, and take our own photos. You’re bidding on a slab we’ve held in our hands.
Enter the most you’d pay. We bid for you, one step at a time, only as far as needed to keep you in the lead. If nobody else bids that high, you could win for a lot less than your top bid. Nobody, including us, sees your top bid. If two people enter the same top bid, the one who bid first wins.
| Current bid under | Next bid goes up by |
|---|---|
| £5 | £0.20 |
| £15 | £0.50 |
| £60 | £1 |
| £150 | £2 |
| £300 | £5 |
| £600 | £10 |
| £1,500 | £20 |
| £3,000 | £50 |
| £3,000 and over | £100 |
Our auction closes every week on Sunday from 21:30 UK time. Lots finish one after another, 30 seconds apart, so you can follow each one.
Extended bidding (no sniping): a bid in the last 5 minutes moves that lot’s end to 3 minutes after its original end. From then on, every new bid resets a 3-minute timer. After 15 minutes of extended bidding, the timer drops to 1 minute. The lot ends when nobody bids before the timer runs out.
Every lot starts at £1. Sellers of valuable slabs (worth £250 or more) can set a reserve: the lowest price they’ll accept. We never show the amount, but every lot says whether it has a reserve and whether it’s been met. If bidding doesn’t reach it, the lot doesn’t sell.
We email you straight away. Pay within 5 days by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay on our secure payment page. Your total is the winning bid, plus the buyer’s premium, plus postage. The bid screen shows that total before you bid. Won several? Pay for them together and they come in one parcel, with one postage charge. We post within 2 working days of payment.
Postage: £1.99 by Royal Mail 2nd Class for orders up to £20; £2.99 by Royal Mail Tracked 48 for orders up to £150; £4.99 by Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm, £750 cover for orders up to £750; £7.99 by Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm, £1,000 cover for orders up to £1,000; £14.99 by Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed by 1pm, £2,500 cover above that.
New bidders can bid up to £500 until they’ve paid for their first win or bought from our shop. It keeps auctions fair for real bidders and sellers.
If it doesn’t sell, you can put it in the next auction free (up to 3 tries in all), change or remove the reserve, or ask for it back from your account.
Prefer a fixed price or the money now? List at your own price or get an instant offer.
| Seller commission | None. You keep the whole winning bid, less the listing fee. |
|---|---|
| Listing fee | £1 per lot, taken from the sale |
| Reserve fee | £3 if you set a reserve and it sells |
| New sellers | We add 5% on top of the winning bid, from us, on your first 10 slabs (up to £50 a slab). |
| Buyer’s premium | 30p + 20% up to £250, 17.5% from £250 to £1,000, 15% above £1,000 of the winning bid, paid by the buyer and shown before every bid. For example, a £1,000 win has a £181.55 premium. |
| Unsold lots | Your first 2 relists are free. No storage fees. |
Nothing to pay up front. Every fee comes out of the sale price.
Bids are binding. If you’ve made a genuine mistake (say, typing £1,000 instead of £100) contact us straight away and we’ll look at it, but we can’t promise to remove it.
Once you’ve paid for your first win, you get one free cancellation, for any reason, before paying. Use it from the payment page. It cancels all of your unpaid wins: we don’t allow part-cancellations, so nobody can bid on lots of slabs and keep only the bargains. Accounts that leave 2 orders unpaid have bidding paused.
Yes. Our returns promise gives you 14 days from delivery to change your mind. Send it back in the same condition and case, and we refund you. If it isn’t as described, we pay the return postage. Returns in full.
No. We never bid on lots, and sellers can’t bid on their own. Our system blocks it, and asking someone else to bid to push the price up is against our terms (and the law). If we find it happening, we cancel the lot and close the account.
We offer the lot to the next-highest bidder at their own top bid, or put it in the next auction. Bidding is paused on accounts that don’t pay for two wins.
Yes. Pay for your wins together from your account and they come in one parcel, with one postage charge.
Lots are stored securely while in our care. In the post, Royal Mail Special Delivery covers up to £2,500 per parcel; above that we use an insured courier. Please keep your own insurance in place until your lot has sold.
PSA, CGC, BGS, TAG and ACE slabs of Pokémon and Riftbound cards in our catalogue. Not in the catalogue? Contact us and we’ll add it.