No. A reversed or fraudulent Pokémon slab sale should not count as a primary price comp.
A price comp is a completed, authentic sale used to estimate what a comparable card is worth. A canceled payment, failed authentication, counterfeit holder, or manipulated auction does not show a willing buyer successfully acquiring the listed card. Keep the record only as an annotated anomaly, not as evidence of market value.
Table of Contents
- What makes a slab sale a valid comp?
- Which failed sales should be excluded?
- How should you clean a comp set?
- Does an extreme price automatically mean fraud?
What makes a slab sale a valid comp?
A useful comp represents an authentic card that changed hands in a completed transaction. The card should also match the one being valued in grade, variant, language, and other value-relevant details. A reversed order fails that test.
Under eBay's Order Cancellation Policy, a seller's cancellation of a paid order produces a full refund. The buyer does not keep the card, and the seller does not keep the payment. The visible sale price may remain useful for recordkeeping, but it no longer proves that the market cleared at that amount. Treating it like a completed sale could distort an average, especially when few comparable slabs have sold.
Which failed sales should be excluded?
Exclude a sale from the main comp set when credible evidence shows that the transaction failed or the item was fraudulent. Common exclusion reasons include: For eligible trading cards, eBay's Authenticity Guarantee terms say the purchase is canceled when authenticity cannot be verified or the card materially differs from its listing. The buyer receives a refund, and the card returns to the seller.
That result is a failed transaction, not a reliable comp. A matching certification number does not settle the issue. PSA's certificate guidance warns that criminals can copy public certification numbers onto counterfeit grading inserts. Cert lookup is one check, not proof that the slab itself is genuine.
- The seller canceled and refunded the order.
- Authentication failed.
- The card materially differed from its listing.
- The slab, label, or certification details were counterfeit or tampered with.
- Shill bidding or other manipulation compromised the price.
How should you clean a comp set?
Start with multiple completed sales of the same card, grade, and variant. Review each result before calculating a range, average, or midpoint. Do not silently delete questionable results from your notes.
Label them "reversed," "failed authentication," "counterfeit slab," or "suspected manipulation," and preserve any supporting information. This separates an unreliable price from a result that merely looks unusual. If a sale is only suspicious, do not state fraud as fact. Place it in a review bucket until reliable evidence supports either including or excluding it.
- Confirm that the order was completed rather than canceled or refunded.
- Check for failed-authentication notices or later seller disclosures.
- Compare the exact set, card number, language, edition, grade, and grading company.
- Remove sales with documented counterfeit holders, altered labels, or copied certification data.
- Exclude prices credibly linked to shill bidding or other manipulation.
Does an extreme price automatically mean fraud?
No. A price far above or below nearby results may reflect a real transaction, so the price alone does not prove misconduct. Examine whether the sale completed and whether the slab and listing were authentic. Even a genuine outlier should rarely establish value by itself.
PSA's pricing guidance emphasizes patterns rather than letting one unusually high or low sale set a guide value. A truly one-of-a-kind card can require different treatment because close comparisons may not exist. For a thinly traded slab, report the uncertainty instead of filling the gap with a failed sale. If two verified sales reached $800 and $850 while a $1,500 order was canceled, base the comp discussion on the completed pair and annotate the $1,500 result as reversed.
