How to set up eBay alerts for Pokémon, sports and Magic cards

Name the card the way sellers title it

A card’s name alone matches every printing of it, plus every lot and accessory that mentions it. Sellers who know what they have put the set and the card number in the title, and so should your Spotter.

• Pokémon: card name, set and number, like Charizard 4/102 Base Set or Charizard ex 199/165 151. Add the printing if it matters: 1st Edition, Shadowless, Unlimited, reverse holo. Japanese cards have their own set names and numbers, so put Japanese in Must include or Exclude depending on which you collect.
• Sports: year, brand, set, player and card number, like 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan #57 or 2018 Panini Prizm Luka Doncic #280. Sellers mark rookies RC, autographs auto, and rookie patch autographs RPA.
• Magic: The Gathering: card name and set, plus the treatment: foil, borderless, showcase, extended art, etched. Add the language if you only want English, since other printings share the card name.

For modern sports cards the parallel is often the whole point. A base Prizm and a Silver Prizm of the same rookie are different cards, and serial-numbered parallels are stamped with their print run, like /99 or 1/1. Put the parallel’s name, like Silver or Gold Refractor, in Must include, and check the serial number in the photos.

Graded, raw or sealed: one Spotter each

eBay lists single cards as graded or ungraded rather than new or used, so leave the Spotter’s condition on Any and use words to choose.

• Graded cards are sealed in a hard plastic case, the “slab”, with a label from the grading company. PSA grades run from 1 to 10, with 10 as Gem Mint. Beckett (BGS) uses half points: 9.5 is Gem Mint, and a 10 is Pristine, or a Black Label when all four subgrades are 10. CGC and SGC also grade on a 10-point scale. Put the company and grade in Must include, like PSA 10 or BGS 9.5, and make a separate Spotter for each grade you’d accept.
• Raw means ungraded. Sellers describe condition themselves, usually as NM (near mint), LP (lightly played), MP or HP (moderately or heavily played). Exclude PSA, BGS, CGC, SGC, slab to keep graded copies out. That also drops raw listings hyped as a “PSA 10 candidate”, which is rarely a loss.
• Sealed product means unopened packs and boxes: booster boxes, Elite Trainer Boxes (ETB), blasters, hobby boxes. Put sealed in Must include, set condition to new, and Exclude empty box, code card so empty boxes and the online code cards pulled from opened packs stay out.

How Spotter Otter’s AI helps with cards

• Start from a photo. Take a photo of the card or a slab’s label, or upload a screenshot. Spotter Otter reads the printed name, card number and label text, uses eBay’s image search for clues, and writes a description for you to check. Add the grade or printing you want before you start. It identifies the card; it doesn’t grade it or check that it’s genuine.
• Or say it in your own words. “Charizard ex 199/165 from 151, PSA 10 only, no Japanese cards” becomes a search and a list of must-haves from Luna, Spotter Otter’s AI. You confirm them and set a maximum price, which is required.
• Grades are read the way sellers write them. With PSA 10 as a must-have, a listing that states a different grade, like PSA 9, is left out, and one that doesn’t state a grade gets a Maybe so you can look at the photos yourself.
• Paste a link to an eBay listing of the exact card, such as one that sold before you saw it, to start a Spotter for the same card.

Keep lots, pick-a-card listings and proxies out

A popular card name pulls in far more than the card. The usual noise, and the Exclude words that remove it:

Use a phrase like lot of rather than the bare word lot, which also sits inside card names like Black Lotus. And don’t Exclude sleeve or toploader: plenty of sellers of the real card mention that it ships in one.

Fakes, fake slabs and resealed packs

• Counterfeit cards are common for popular Pokémon cards. Compare the listing photos with a copy you know is genuine: the font, the energy symbols, the holo pattern, the blue of the card back and the attack text. Colors that look too saturated, a flat glossy holo and typos are warning signs, and so is one seller with many identical copies of a chase card at a low Buy It Now price.
• Reprints aren’t always labeled in full. On older sports cards, RP in a title means reprint, and a card that looks too sharp and glossy for its age deserves a closer look.
• Fake slabs. Every slab carries a certification number. Look it up on the grading company’s website and check that it shows the same card and grade as the label in the photos. Label printing that looks off, or a case with pry marks, is a red flag.
• Resealed and searched packs. Loose packs can be opened and resealed with the hits removed, and packs from some older sets could be weighed to pick out the ones holding a holo. Look closely at the crimps and wrap in the photos, prefer packs from a sealed box, and be wary of loose vintage packs at a low price.

eBay’s Authenticity Guarantee covers eligible trading cards: the card goes to an independent authenticator before it reaches you, and eligible listings show the badge. Purchases are also covered by the eBay Money Back Guarantee if a card isn’t as described. Spotter Otter doesn’t grade or authenticate cards; it finds the listing, and you judge it.

Price it from sold listings, grade by grade

Search eBay for the card, turn on the “Sold Items” filter, and compare only sales of the same grade from the same company. A PSA 10 can sell for several times a PSA 9 of the same card, so a ceiling taken from mixed sales is no use. For raw cards, compare against sales with clear photos and similar condition notes, not ones called “mint” with blurry pictures.

Set your Spotter’s maximum price from those sales, before shipping. Auctions open low, so if you watch auctions too, the alert tells you bidding has started; decide your top bid from the same sold listings.

Example card Spotters