Pokémon Card Condition Guide
What NM, LP, MP, HP, and DMG actually mean, what graders look at, and how condition moves a card’s price.
Updated August 21, 2026
Every price you see for a Pokémon card — on a marketplace listing, in a pricing app, from a friend at a trade night — assumes a condition. The same card can be worth several times as much Near Mint as it is played and creased, so before you can talk about what a card is “worth,” you need a shared vocabulary for what shape it’s in. That vocabulary is a five-tier scale used across the secondary market: NM, LP, MP, HP, and DMG.
Condition at a glance
| Condition | Abbreviation | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Near Mint | NM | No visible wear under normal light — sharp corners, clean edges, even centering. |
| Lightly Played | LP | Minor wear that takes a careful look to find — a touch of edge whitening or one soft corner. |
| Moderately Played | MP | Wear you notice without hunting for it — visible whitening, rounded corners, light scratching. |
| Heavily Played | HP | Significant, obvious wear — heavy whitening, notable scratching, possibly a light crease. |
| Damaged | DMG | Structural damage beyond surface wear — a hard crease, a tear, or missing material. |
The condition scale in detail
Near Mint (NM)
What you’ll see
- Sharp, unrounded corners on all four sides
- Clean edges with no whitening
- No scratches, scuffing, or print lines on the surface
- Centering that reads as even to the eye
What it means for price
This is the baseline condition raw pricing is quoted against — a card in this shape is worth the full range you'll see quoted elsewhere on this site.
Lightly Played (LP)
What you’ll see
- A faint scratch that only catches light at an angle
- One corner that's just barely soft, not visibly rounded
- A touch of edge whitening on one or two sides
- Still reads as clean from arm's length
What it means for price
Pricing stays close to Near Mint for most cards, though a sharp-eyed buyer will usually expect a small discount versus a truly flawless copy.
Moderately Played (MP)
What you’ll see
- Whitening visible on more than one edge
- Rounded or whitened corners
- Scuffing or light scratching across the surface
- Clearly handled, not just stored
What it means for price
The gap from Near Mint widens here, and it widens further the more valuable the card is raw — a played bulk card barely moves, a played chase card moves a lot.
Heavily Played (HP)
What you’ll see
- Heavy edge and corner whitening
- Notable, easy-to-see scratching
- Possibly a light crease or a corner that won't lie flat
- Intact and displayable, but far from its original condition
What it means for price
Buyers at this tier are usually collecting to complete a set or play with the card, not to hold it as a showpiece — pricing reflects that.
Damaged (DMG)
What you’ll see
- A hard crease, tear, or water damage
- Writing or ink on the card
- A corner missing material rather than just rounded
- Anything past Heavily Played condition lands here
What it means for price
The floor tier — a damaged copy of even a valuable card is worth a fraction of its played price, and some buyers won't consider it a collectible copy at all.
These five tiers aren’t a formal standard the way professional grading scales are — different sellers and marketplaces draw the lines slightly differently, and there’s real judgment involved in placing a card that’s borderline between two tiers. Treat the scale as a shared vocabulary, not a precise measurement.
How to protect what you’ve got
The four things graders check
- Centering. How evenly the image and border sit within the card’s edges. Off-center printing is a factory issue, not wear, but it caps how clean a card can read no matter its condition otherwise.
- Corners. Sharpness at all four corners — often the first place wear shows, especially from a card sliding in and out of a sleeve or binder pocket.
- Edges. The outer border along all four sides, checked for whitening (where the colored layer has worn through to the white core) and roughness or fraying.
- Surface. Scratches, scuffing, print lines, and — on holo cards especially — any disruption to the foil pattern, usually easiest to see under raking light.
Keeping a card in good shape
- Sleeve a card as soon as you pull or acquire it — most wear comes from repeated handling, not from sitting in storage.
- Store binders and boxes flat, out of direct sunlight and away from humidity, which can warp cards or fade ink over time.
- Compare recent completed listings at the same condition tier before buying or selling, rather than trusting a single asking price.
- Never try to clean, press, or otherwise “restore” a card — it tends to leave marks that lower the condition rather than improve it.
Grading vs. staying raw
The condition scale above describes raw, ungraded cards. Professional grading takes a card through the same four axes under stricter, magnified inspection and assigns it a number, which usually raises both the price and the certainty a buyer has in that price — at a cost, and only for cards that clear a certain condition bar to begin with. Whether that trade is worth it depends heavily on the specific card. See is grading worth it for the full breakdown, including typical costs and turnaround.
Ready to put this into practice?
Frequently asked questions
What's the difference between LP and MP?
Lightly Played (LP) shows only minor wear — faint edge whitening, a soft corner, maybe one small scratch — that you'd have to look for. Moderately Played (MP) wear is visible without close inspection: noticeable edge whitening, rounded corners, or scuffing across the surface. If you have to angle the card under light to see the flaw, it's closer to LP; if it jumps out under normal light, it's closer to MP.
Can a card look Near Mint but still not grade a 10?
Yes. Raw condition grades are eyeballed under normal light and cover a wide band; professional grading is done under magnification and bright light, checks centering with a ruler, and assigns a single number on a 1–10 (or equivalent) scale. A card that looks flawless to the naked eye can still lose points for a centering issue or a micro-scratch that only shows up under a loupe.
Does Slab grade my cards for me?
No. Slab identifies the card from a photo and shows you its current market price and price history — it doesn't assign a condition grade. For an actual grade, a card has to go to a professional grading company. See our grading guide for whether that's worth doing for a given card.
Track your cards’ value as you build the set
Scan a card with Slab to see its current price and price history — free on iOS.