FAQs

SHIPPING

So, How does TCGWarehouse ship my order

Have you ever gotten an order shipped in a plain white envelope & the card just in a soft sleeve for protection?  This leads to the risk of the post office machining the order and damaging the card.  As a result of one too many cards arriving at our door in this condition we will NOT ship that way.

Have you ever gotten an order without an invoice?  I don't know about you, but we have dozens of packages arrive every day & without an invoice or packing slip it is hard to tell who the order is from & if everything was included.

First, unlike some internet dealers, all orders will ship in a minimum of a padded mailer.  This helps prevent the order from being run thru the post office rollers & being machine twisted & bent

Second, we will include a packing slip with every domestic order.

Third, all orders will be shipped with some kind of rigid packing material (usually top loaders) to help protect the cards.

If the order is larger, it will be shipped in a box.  We will not try & cram 300 cards into a #000 bubble mailer.  That would just be stupid.

GRADING

So, how do you assign a grade to a card?

First off, the scale here is as follows

NM/MT

Light Play

Moderate Play

Heavy Play

Damaged

Let's start with the easy stuff...

NM/MT - stands for Near Mint to Mint.  Basically a pack fresh card.  A NM/MT card will not have any shuffle wear, play wear, or any major flaws.  It may have a couple very minor flaws such as a tiny edge chip or tiny scuff from leafing thru the pack or stack of cards.  

Heavy Play -  This card has seen better days.  It would be considered marked if played without sleeves due to the play wear.  Typically, major surface wear, chipping, white showing on edges, etc.  But the card will still be able to be played in a sleeve without worry about it being marked.  The card can have so much wear that it appears 'snow-covered' but will still be considered tournament legal if played in the proper sleeve. 

Damaged - This card has a major flaw that not only makes the card 'marked' but it may be so bad that in a sleeve you may be able to tell what it is.  For example, hard creases, tears, water damage, gouges, major scrapes/scuffs, etc.  Basically, any card that would be hard to hide the damage, even when sleeved. 

Now for the tricky part.. Light Play & Moderate Play

Light Play -- At arm length, it would appear NM/MT, but upon closer inspection does not meet the standard.  It may have faint surface wear on the front/back and a light edge chips or mild shuffle wear.

Moderate Play -- This card has more pronounced surface wear on the front/back and may have edge chipping or whitening or shuffle wear.  Basically, a step up from Heavy Play, but not quite clean enough to be considered light play.

If you have any questions  please send questions to shonn@tcgwarehouse.com