How Scouter prices a card
Every price on Scouter, on a card page, in a set list, in a vault total, comes from one function applied to one set of data. This page says what that function does, so a number can be read for what it is.
What is tracked
For each printing, Scouter tracks the public asking prices of current fixed-price listings on eBay, grouped by what is being sold: a raw card, a graded slab (kept apart and never used as the card's price), a silver, gold or unmarked energy marker. Listings are matched to the exact printing by their titles: an alternate art, a promo, a special rare and a Japanese copy each go to their own row, and titles for bundles, sealed product, custom cards and autographs are discarded. Auctions are excluded because a current bid is not an asking price.
The number shown
From the most recent thirty listings of a printing, the highest and lowest asks are trimmed (the top and bottom tenth when there are eight or more; the outer quarters when there are five to seven; nothing when there are three or four). The market price is the lower quartile of what remains: the level at which a quarter of current sellers are willing to sell. Asking prices sit above what cards actually change hands for, and the lower quartile has measured closer to sold prices than the median. A single lowest ask is not used, because one mispriced or damaged listing would set the price.
Confidence and fallbacks
Fewer than three listings is not a market. When a printing has fewer, or when its asks sit far above the market reference for the same card, Scouter shows a market reference price instead: the TCGplayer market price where TCGplayer carries the printing, otherwise a recorded sold-price reference where one exists. A printing with none of these shows no price rather than an invented one.
What the numbers are not
- They are not offers to sell. Scouter sells nothing and holds no inventory.
- They are not sold prices. Where a page says "asking prices", it means what sellers ask today.
- They are not condition-specific. Listings are assumed near mint; damaged copies are trimmed away where they show up as outliers.
- They are in US dollars. Listings in other currencies are converted at the day's rate.
Freshness
Listings are refreshed on a schedule: the printings that move most every day, the rest at least weekly. Each card page states when its price was last updated. Prices are recorded once a day, which is where the price history and the movement figures come from.