How we price

Every card carries a fair market value (FMV). It drives the tier a card sits in, the odds table, and the optional buyback offer. Here is exactly how it is computed.

The FMV formula

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

Every source that answers is recorded as a price snapshot with its value, confidence and the comparable sales it used.
Quotes of zero or less are ignored. If no source answers, the value is 0 and the card cannot be placed in a pack.
If exactly one source answers, its value and confidence are used as is.
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 card is flagged for human review.
Otherwise the confidence-weighted average of the values is used, rounded to the cent.

blend rules

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. A card with a stale or zero value cannot be placed in a case, and a scheduled job refreshes values on in-stock and packed cards.
A card whose value is below the case's published floor cannot be placed in that pack.
Repricing a card while a case is live changes the odds table and EV for future buyers only. The snapshot on your order does not change.

Sources

Source	Status	Notes
Manual admin entries	Active	Prices our team enters by hand from recent comparable sales. Always participates as one source; never silently overrides the others.
TCG Study feed	Not configured	Graded singles feed. Confidence defaults to 0.7 when the feed does not supply one.
PriceCharting	Not configured	Graded Pokemon and sports prices (PSA 9, PSA 10, CGC 10, BGS 10). Confidence 0.8 with a matched product id, 0.6 on a name search.

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

The buyback offer

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

buyback

buybackCents = round(fmvAtPull * 90 / 100)
offer valid for 24 hours from the pull

The current rate is 90% of FMV, paid as store credit only. Credit is not cash and cannot be withdrawn.
The offer expires after 24 hours. An expired offer defaults to the vault: you keep the card, held for you at no cost.
The buyback is optional. You can always keep the card in the vault or ship it to you instead.

Value may be lower than the case price

FMV is our estimate, not a guarantee. A card's FMV can be less than what you paid for the case, the market can move after you pull, and a sale you make elsewhere can differ from our number in either direction. Cases are not investments.

What we log for every offer

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

fmvAtPullCents: the card'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 card 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 card record.