Fair market value

Where the prices come from

First and foremost, our own sales: slabs sold in our shop, by sellers on our site and in our weekly auctions. These are real, finished sales that we can see in full. Where we hold a licence to show them, we also use graded sale prices from licensed price data providers. We never copy prices from other websites.

How the number is worked out

• We take every sale of the same card, from the same grader, in the same grade. A PSA 10 is never mixed with a CGC 10 or a PSA 9.
• We look at the last 90 days. If there have been fewer than 3 sales in that time, we look back 180 days instead.
• We leave out extreme prices, far above or below the rest, which are usually mistakes, bundles or damaged slabs.
• More recent sales count for more than older ones, because prices move.
• We take the median: the price in the middle. One unusually high or low sale can’t drag it far.
• Prices in dollars are converted to pounds at the European Central Bank’s rate for the day.

How sure we are

Every value has a confidence level. High means at least 5 sales in the last 90 days. Medium means at least 3 sales, or a value from a licensed price provider. Anything less sure stays behind the scenes and isn’t shown, so if you don’t see an FMV on a slab, that’s because there isn’t enough data yet.

What it is and isn’t

FMV is a guide, not a valuation for insurance and not a promise of what a slab will sell for. Sellers set their own prices, and auction prices are set by bidding. Every slab we sell is still checked by hand first: see how we check every slab.