How to Use Your Local Card Shop to Buy, Trade and Pick Cards Worth Grading

Why buying in person leads to better grades

The grade on a slab comes from four things: centering, corners, edges and surface. Online listings are good at showing the front of a card under flattering light. They're bad at showing the problems that turn a 10 into an 8. Those include a hairline scratch across the holo, light whitening on a back edge, a soft corner, or print lines that only appear when you tilt the card.

When the card is in your hand, you can check all of that in under a minute. You pay the grading fee either way, so the cheapest mistake is the card you never buy. Our is my card worth grading guide covers the math. The short version is that a card that comes back a 7 or 8 often isn't worth the fee.

A five-step in-store check before you buy a card to grade

This is what we do at the counter before we buy a raw card we're thinking about grading.

1. Check the centering first. Look at the borders on the front and the back. Uneven borders are the most common reason a clean card misses a 10. If you're unsure, take a straight-on photo and run it through our centering tool.
2. Tilt it under the light. Hold the card at an angle to the shop's overhead light and slowly rotate it. Scratches, dents and print lines show up as breaks in the reflection.
3. Flip it over. Back edges and corners pick up whitening from binders and sleeves. They're easy to miss if you only look at the front.
4. Look closely at the corners. A corner that's even slightly rounded or frayed usually caps the grade.
5. Run a quick pre-grade. Snap the front and back with CardGrade's AI pre-grade for a second opinion before you commit. It's an estimate, not an official grade, but it catches problems you might talk yourself out of seeing.

Ask first, and handle cards by the edges or in a sleeve. Good shops are used to collectors checking cards, and a shop that's comfortable with it is a good sign.

Use posted trade rates to turn old cards into grading candidates

Many shops make offers on the spot, and you don't know the terms until you're at the counter. Level Up Games publishes its general rates on its sell and trade page. All of them are for Near Mint condition:

Store credit put toward Pokémon singles earns an extra 10% bonus. Credit that you don't spend stays on your account, and it also stacks with the shop's Poké Perks rewards. The shop says these rates are guidelines and can change. Final offers depend on demand and condition, and newly released sets may get lower offers. Check the page before you go.

This is how we use it. Cards we're done with, whether duplicates, cards that graded lower than we hoped, or cards we never planned to submit, become credit. That credit goes toward singles we've inspected in hand and think have a real shot at a high grade. You aren't paying new money for a card you can't see.

A few tips for a smoother trade:

• Bring cards sleeved, and bring toploaders for anything valuable.
• Know the recent sold prices for your bigger cards, so you can talk about the offer with real numbers.
• Pick cash or credit ahead of time. Level Up can't split one payout between the two.
• Leave out bulk, code cards and heavily damaged cards. Level Up doesn't take them, and most shops don't.

No shipping risk, and no waiting

A card you buy at the counter never goes through the mail. It can't get bent in a bubble mailer or lost in transit, and you don't have to wait a week to find out the "Near Mint" card has a crease. You can sleeve it, put it in a semi-rigid holder that day, and add it to your next submission.

If you like shopping online, many local shops offer both. Level Up offers free in-store pickup on online orders. Orders are usually ready within 4 to 24 hours, and orders placed before 2 PM often qualify for same-day pickup. You still get to look at the card before you take it home.

Graded cards and authenticity

Fakes are a real concern, especially with Japanese and Chinese products that many U.S. collectors are still learning. Buying from a shop that stands behind what it sells lowers that risk. Level Up Games guarantees every product is authentic. It reviews items before listing or accepting them in trade, and it says it will make things right if an item is ever proven fake. It also carries a rotating selection of PSA, CGC and BGS graded cards. Those are backed by the grading company's authentication as well as the shop's.

Why local shops and online brands should work together

We're an online business, and we still think local shops are the foundation of this hobby. Shops are where new collectors see a clean card up close for the first time, where trades happen face to face, and where kids and parents learn the game together. Level Up Games runs a free Pokémon Trainer Meetup every Saturday from 2:00 to 4:30 PM, open to all ages with no signup required.

The two sides are good at different things, which is why working together helps both:

• Shops give collectors a place to inspect and trade with confidence. That's the part of grading an app can't replace.
• Online tools and guides help shop customers make smarter grading decisions. Those include pre-grades, centering checks, fee breakdowns and service comparisons. That means fewer disappointing submissions and more happy repeat customers.
• Both sides grow the same community. When a local shop does well, more people get into the hobby, and every business, online or not, gets its customers from that community.

That's why we're happy to send people to Level Up Games. Relationships like this one should be more common.

Visit Level Up Games

Level Up Games is a locally owned Pokémon and trading card shop inside The Red Rocker at 15 Hershey Rd, Shippensburg, PA 17257. It stocks thousands of Pokémon singles and sealed product in English, Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Indonesian. It also carries other trading card games, Nintendo games and consoles, and collectibles. The shop is closed Wednesdays and open until 7 PM on Thursdays and Fridays. Check its store policies page for current hours before you drive over.

If you're anywhere near central Pennsylvania, stop in. Bring the cards you're ready to trade, check the ones you want before you pay, and pre-grade your favorites before they go in the submission box.