Guide
Card condition explained: Near Mint to Damaged
Card condition on the singles market runs Near Mint, Lightly Played, Moderately Played, Heavily Played and Damaged. TCGplayer scores every flaw by severity — slight is 1 point, minor 2, moderate 4, major 8 — and allows 3 points at Near Mint, 6 at Lightly Played, 12 at Moderately Played and 24 at Heavily Played. Past 24 points, or any flaw that compromises the card’s structure, the card is Damaged.
This is a selling scale, not a grading scale
Two different systems get called “condition” and they are not interchangeable. The five-step scale on this page is the one marketplaces use for raw singles: you pick it from a dropdown when you list a card, and the buyer expects what it describes. Grading companies use a numeric scale instead, 1 to 10, applied once to a card that is then sealed in a slab.
The practical difference is who decides and when. A marketplace condition is the seller’s own assessment, checked only if the buyer disputes it. A numeric grade is a paid judgement from a third party and it travels with the card forever.
Worth knowing before you list anything: TCGplayer does not sell cards as Mint or Gem Mint at all. Those terms belong to the grading scale, and the marketplace tops out at Near Mint.
How the points system works
The part most condition guides leave out is that the scale is arithmetic rather than impression. Each flaw is given a severity — slight, minor, moderate or major — and each severity carries a point value: 1, 2, 4 and 8. Add up every flaw on the card and the total decides the ceiling.
This is why a card can look clean and still not be Near Mint. Three separate slight flaws is 3 points, which is the entire Near Mint allowance; a fourth takes it to Lightly Played however minor each one is on its own.
The ceiling works the other way too. Each individual flaw also has its own cap, so one bad enough flaw sets the condition no matter how clean the rest of the card is. A crease alone makes a card Moderately Played at best even if it has no other flaw at all.
| Condition | Points allowed | What it describes |
|---|---|---|
| Near Mint (NM) | 3 | Minimal handling or play wear |
| Lightly Played (LP) | 6 | Signs of handling, nothing significant |
| Moderately Played (MP) | 12 | Significant play, use or wear |
| Heavily Played (HP) | 24 | Heavy wear, but still authenticable |
| Damaged (DMG) | Over 24 | Beyond the other standards, or structurally compromised |
What Near Mint actually allows
Near Mint is the condition people over-claim most, usually because they are judging it against “looks fine to me” rather than against a list. The list is short and it is published.
Only five kinds of flaw may appear on a Near Mint card at all, and only in their mildest form: slight edgewear, slight scuffing, slight indentation, minor scratches and slight manufacturing defects. Three points’ worth, between them.
Five kinds of flaw are not permitted at Near Mint in any amount: surface wear, grime, bends, faults and damage. Surface wear is the one that catches people, because its other name is whitening — the moment cardstock shows through the printed layer anywhere on the card, Near Mint is gone.
- Allowed, up to 3 points total: slight edgewear, slight scuffing, slight indentation, minor scratches, slight defect
- Never allowed at Near Mint: surface wear (whitening), grime, bends, faults, damage
The thresholds, flaw by flaw
Every flaw is measured, in millimetres of length or square millimetres of area. The figures below are from TCGplayer’s September 2026 guide, which is the most recent of its three conditioning documents.
A note on how to read the last column: most flaws never make a card Damaged on their own, however severe they get — they simply cap it at Heavily Played. Only a handful cross into Damaged by themselves, and those are the ones that threaten the card’s structure or its authentication.
| Flaw | Measured by | At Near Mint | Damaged at |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edgewear | Contiguous length of edge | Up to 20 mm | Not on its own |
| Surface wear (whitening) | Area of exposed cardstock | Never allowed | Over 40 mm² |
| Scuffing | Area of clouding | Up to 31.5 mm² | Not on its own |
| Scratches | Length | Up to 40 mm | Not on its own |
| Bends | Length of the fold | Never allowed | Any bend that breaks the structure |
| Creases | Present or not | Never allowed | Not on its own |
| Indentations | Area, and whether it shows through | A single pinpoint | Not on its own |
| Grime | Area | Never allowed | Over 27.5 mm² |
| Curling | Lift from flat at the centre | Under 5 mm | Over 5 mm |
| Centering | Border ratio | Up to 70/30 | Worse than 70/30 |
Which layer of protection prevents which line
Read the list above as a list of causes and it stops being a seller’s chore and starts being the argument for everything else on this site. Almost every flaw on it is produced by one of four things, and each has a layer that prevents it.
Movement causes the first two. A card that can slide inside its holder abrades its own edges against the plastic, which is edgewear; keep going and the printed layer gives way and the cardstock shows, which is surface wear. Both come from a holder that does not fit, which is why the point rating on a rigid holder matters more than its brand.
Pressure causes bends and creases, and they are the expensive ones — a crease is a two-step drop, straight to Moderately Played, and nothing reverses it. Overfilled binders and loose cards in a part-empty box are the usual sources.
Humidity causes curling, and foils curl first: TCGplayer singles out Magic foils as prone to it. Over 5 mm of lift at the centre is Damaged outright, which makes it one of the few flaws that can ruin a card while it sits untouched in storage.
Handling causes scuffing and grime. Both are what an unsleeved card accumulates simply by being shuffled, sorted and picked up.
- Movement → edgewear, surface wear: a sleeve, and a holder rated for the card’s actual thickness
- Pressure → bends, creases: a rigid holder for anything that travels, and a binder that is not overfilled
- Humidity → curling: a stable room, not an attic, garage or basement
- Handling → scuffing, grime: a sleeve, from the first time the card is touched
Where TCGplayer’s own documents disagree
TCGplayer publishes its conditioning rules in three places, and they do not entirely match. The seller-facing PDF is marked “Updated March 2025” and is the only one that publishes the points system quoted above. The web guide was updated in September 2026 and carries the per-flaw thresholds.
For two flaws the areas differ by a factor of ten. The PDF gives grime thresholds of 25, 137.5 and 275 mm²; the web guide gives 2.5, 13.75 and 27.5 mm². Scuffing differs the same way, 20 mm² against 31.5 mm².
This page quotes the newer web guide throughout, on the straightforward grounds that it is the more recent document. We are flagging it rather than quietly picking one, because the figures are a decimal place apart and anyone checking our numbers against the PDF deserves to know why they differ.
Common questions
- What does NM mean on a trading card?
- Near Mint. It allows up to 3 points of flaws, and only slight edgewear, slight scuffing, slight indentation, minor scratches and slight manufacturing defects. Surface wear, grime, bends and faults are not permitted at Near Mint in any amount.
- Does a crease always mean Moderately Played?
- At best, yes. TCGplayer defines a crease as a line or ridge produced by folding, pressing or crushing, and the presence of one caps the card at Moderately Played however clean the rest of it is. A bend longer than 20 mm caps it at Heavily Played, and a bend that compromises the structure makes it Damaged.
- Is whitening allowed on a Near Mint card?
- No. Whitening is surface wear — the printed layer worn through to the cardstock beneath — and surface wear is not permitted at Near Mint in any amount. Even slight surface wear caps a card at Lightly Played, and over 40 mm² of it makes the card Damaged.
- How is this different from PSA or Beckett grading?
- It is a different scale for a different purpose. Near Mint to Damaged is what a seller picks when listing a raw single on a marketplace. PSA, BGS and CGC assign a number from 1 to 10 and seal the card in a slab. TCGplayer does not list cards as Mint or Gem Mint at all; those terms belong to the grading scale.
- Are foil cards judged by different standards?
- No, the same criteria apply. TCGplayer notes two practical differences: some flaws are simply more visible on foiling, and foils — Magic foils especially — are more prone to curling, which becomes Damaged over 5 mm of lift at the centre.
- Does an off-centre card count as damaged?
- Only past 70/30. A card may be up to 70/30 centred without it affecting condition at all. Worse than that is treated as a manufacturing defect severe enough to make the card Damaged, regardless of how clean it is otherwise.