What is a grail card?

A grail card, or grail, is the card a collector wants most, usually the hardest to find or the most expensive card on their personal want list. Where a chase card is defined by a set, a grail is defined by you: it can be a 1st Edition holo, one exact grade of a modern card, a Japanese promo or the card you owned as a kid.

It's collector slang, from "holy grail", with no official definition. Which is the point: nobody else gets to say what yours is.

Before you buy one

• Write the exact card down before you shop. A grail rarely comes up for sale, so it's easy to buy the first copy you see even when it's the wrong version or grade. Note the set, number and edition, the grade or condition, and the most you'll pay.

• Search the card, not the word. "Grail" in a listing title is a selling word, not a description. Search the name, set, card number and grade.

• For a graded grail, look up the cert number on the grader's website before you pay.

Put your grail on ChaseBoard with that price range and you'll get a ping when a listing lands inside it, so the day one finally comes up, you hear about it.