How we price

Sealed product is valued at the same price its product page shows, in this order:

1. TCGplayer Market Price, matched by TCGplayer product ID and checked every hour.
2. Otherwise the TCG Study price library, where it lists the product.
3. Otherwise PriceCharting, matched to the exact product.
4. TCG Study and PriceCharting prices are checked against the same set's booster box and booster pack. A price that does not fit, a seller's asking price or a multi-unit listing is not used.

• A TCGplayer price that moves more than 15% from the last price we used is held and not applied until our team reviews it.
• When TCGplayer has no market price for a product, the next source is used until one comes back.
• The 7 and 30 day moves on a product page come from our own record of the TCGplayer price, kept since we started checking it. Until a product has been tracked that long, the move for that window comes from TCG Study. The chart is TCG Study's full history when it lists the product, otherwise our own record.
• Every product carries the UPC or EAN printed on its box where we have it, from the manufacturer's catalogue and barcode directories, so a scan at receiving lands on the right product.

• Vintage sealed (released before 2011) sells rarely. Those prices are marked Estimated value and never change a value in a chest on their own. We set those values ourselves from recent sales, and the product page says so.
• A value only counts as current when it comes from a checked market price or a value we set. If neither is available, the value ages and, after 7 days, the item cannot be added to a chest until we set its value.
• The price we paid for a product never holds its value down. It follows the market.

Graded and raw cards. Formula version fmv-v1. When we refresh an item's value we ask every active source for a quote and blend the answers with these rules, in this order:

1. Every source that answers is recorded as a price snapshot with its value, confidence and the comparable sales it used.
2. Quotes of zero or less are ignored. If no source answers, the value is 0 and the item cannot be placed in a chest.
3. If exactly one source answers, its value and confidence are used as is.
4. If two or more sources answer and disagree by more than 15 percent, measured as (max - min) / max, the lowest value wins, confidence is capped at 0.5, and the item is flagged for human review.
5. Otherwise the confidence-weighted average of the values is used, rounded to the cent.

valid   = quotes with valueCents > 0
if valid is empty:            value = 0
if one quote:                 value = that quote
spread  = (max - min) / max * 100
if spread > 15:               value = min, confidence = min(conf, 0.5), flagged
else:                         value = sum(v * conf) / sum(conf), rounded

• A value older than 7 days is stale. An item with a stale or zero value cannot be placed in a chest, and a scheduled job refreshes values on everything in stock.
• An item whose value is below the chest's published floor cannot be placed in that chest.
• Repricing an item while a chest is live changes the odds table and EV for future buyers only. The snapshot on your order does not change.

Status reflects whether the source's credentials are present in this deployment right now.

After a pull you can sell the item back to us for store credit. The offer is fixed at the moment of the pull and the formula is:

buybackCents = round(fmvAtPull * 80 / 100)
decision window: 7 days from the pull

• The current rate is 80% of FMV, paid as store credit. Credit is not cash and cannot be withdrawn.
• If you paid for the chest partly or fully with promo or reward credit, that same share of the sell-back comes back as promo credit, which is spend-only.
• If you added floor protection, the offer is the greater of the normal offer and 80% of the chest price.
• You have 7 days from the pull to decide. During that time the item waits in your vault at no cost, and you can ship it home or sell it back whenever you like.
• If an item has not been requested for shipping when the 7 days end, it is sold back to us automatically at the offer above and the credit lands in your account.

Each pull stores enough to audit the offer later, and you can see it on your order page:

• fmvAtPullCents: the item's FMV at the moment of the pull
• buybackPct and buybackCents: the percent in effect and the resulting offer
• offerExpiresAt: when the offer lapses
• tierKey: the tier the item landed in at that FMV
• proof: the fairness proof for the slot (see how fairness works)
• The price snapshots from each source that fed the FMV, with their comps, are kept on the item record.