Conditions of Sale
Effective August 2026, Version 1.4. These are the auction rules, and they are part of every bid placed at Minthouse. Where these conditions and the Terms of Service conflict about the conduct of an auction, these conditions control.
§1. Registration & the auction#
Minthouse Markets, Inc. operates premier auctions for graded trading cards: Pokémon, sports, and TCG grails. Every lot is consigned through our specialists, inspected against tamper and counterfeit markers before listing, and sold under the mechanics on this page. We are a marketplace of record: every price realized is published.
- Registration is by an email address, verified by the six-digit code our sign-in provider sends, or by a wallet you prove control of by signature. Watching any lot is free; bidding requires registration, and on deployments where bids are collateralised, USDC on deposit.
- Each lot closes at the time posted on its lot page; sessions run across the auction week, and extended bidding (§3) can move any close later.
- Each lot sells to the highest bidder at or above any reserve when the lot closes. The hammer price plus the auction house fee (§4) is the price you pay.
- The auctioneer may reject bids that appear erroneous or manipulative.
Reserves#
Most lots are no reserve. Select Premier lots carry a confidential reserve, never above the low estimate. Under no circumstances does the system place any bid on behalf of the seller at or above the reserve. A lot that closes below its reserve is passed. A lot that closes with no bids is unsold. The lot page shows the state plainly: Reserve met or Reserve not met.
Descriptions are the house’s opinion, not a statement of fact. Lots sell as is; condition information is guidance only.
Bidder identity#
Bidder identities are never published; bid histories show anonymized handles. We use your contact details to run your account and settle invoices. Nothing is sold to third parties. Wallet addresses are used for compliance screening, collateral, and settlement. What we collect, why, and where it goes is set out in the privacy notice, which is incorporated into this page.
§2. Bidding, maximum bids & increments#
There are two ways to bid, and both are binding.
- Maximum bid. Enter the most you’d like to pay, and we bid on your behalf at the lowest winning price, never above your maximum.
- Exact-amount bid. A single bid at or above the next minimum. You hold the lot at that amount until someone raises.
When two maximums compete, the higher one wins at one increment above the lower, or at the higher maximum exactly when the gap is under one increment. Equal maximums: the earlier one wins.
Bids are binding and cannot be lowered or withdrawn, only raised.
Minthouse does not display your standing maximum in bid history, but proxy prices can reveal it or bound it: when a rival bids within one increment of it the proxy answers at your maximum, and when a rival’s own maximum beats it the price lands within one increment of your maximum. Where BidEscrow collateral is enabled, the public on-chain lock equals the standing maximum plus the published auction house fee, so an observer can infer the maximum from that lock. A rival who names an exact amount instead takes the lot at the amount they named, which can be any distance above your maximum.
The full account of what is inferable, and why the house publishes the fact rather than denying it, is What is revealed.
The increment ladder#
Minimum raises follow this ladder. The ladder in force for a lot is the one frozen into that lot’s auction rules snapshot, so it cannot change under a live lot.
| Current bid | Minimum raise |
|---|---|
| Under $100 | $10 |
| $100 – $500 | $25 |
| $500 – $1,000 | $50 |
| $1,000 – $5,000 | $100 |
| $5,000 – $10,000 | $250 |
| $10,000 – $25,000 | $500 |
| $25,000 – $50,000 | $1,000 |
| $50,000 – $100,000 | $2,500 |
| $100,000 – $250,000 | $5,000 |
| $250,000 and above | $10,000 |
§3. Extended bidding#
A bid placed inside a lot’s final five minutes moves that lot’s close to five minutes after the bid, anchored to the bid itself rather than added to the old close, and capped at 30 minutes of total extension per lot. Lots close independently and may close out of numerical order.
§4. Auction house fee#
The auction house fee, called the buyer’s premium in trade usage, is added to the hammer price of every winning bid. It is tiered and marginal: each rate applies only to the portion of the hammer inside its band, exactly like tax brackets, so the effective rate falls as the hammer rises and the total never jumps at a band boundary.
| Portion of hammer price | Rate |
|---|---|
| First $2,500 | 7.5% |
| $2,500 – $10,000 | 6.5% |
| $10,000 – $100,000 | 5.5% |
| $100,000 – $1,000,000 | 4.5% |
| Above $1,000,000 | 3.9% |
Worked examples#
| Hammer | Fee | Effective rate | All-in |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | $75.00 | 7.50% | $1,075.00 |
| $50,000 | $2,875.00 | 5.75% | $52,875.00 |
| $500,000 | $23,625.00 | 4.73% | $523,625.00 |
The lot page shows the exact fee at any bid you type, before you place it, and your invoice itemizes it to the cent. Estimates never include the fee. The arithmetic, including how the rounding is done without floating point, is in the auction engine documentation.
Buy Now and Buy It Now#
Fixed-price Buy Now listings carry no fee; the listed price is the full price. No seller commission is taken on one either, so the consignor is owed that same figure in full: the seller’s side of a fixed-price listing is §7. Buy It Now on an auction lot is different: it is a winning bid. The Buy It Now price is the hammer, and the auction house fee is added to it like any other winning bid. Buy It Now is available until bidding reaches 75% of the Buy It Now price, and never during extended bidding.
Where the bid escrow is enabled, two further conditions apply on top of those. Buying a lot outright ends the auction on the spot, and the house does not end an auction against collateral it cannot see, so Buy It Now is open only to the standing leader, and only while the Buy It Now price plus the auction house fee on it is already locked against that lot, standing at least an hour clear of the lock’s expiry, with no other escrow operation on the lot in flight. A lock is the standing maximum plus the fee on it (§2), so the way to reach Buy It Now is to lead with a maximum at or above the Buy It Now price. A bidder who is not leading takes the lot by bidding for it, and a Buy It Now attempt from anyone else is refused with nothing sold. Buy It Now, and when it disappears.
§5. Payment & settlement#
Your invoice for a winning bid issues at close and is payable within 10 days of the invoice date. A fixed-price purchase is paid at checkout instead: checking out holds the listing for 10 minutes, and a lapsed hold voids its invoice and reopens the listing.
Invoices are denominated in US dollars and settle in USDC at 1:1, so the dollar figure on the invoice is the amount you pay. Fiat onramp options are available at checkout, for orders of $100 to $10,000. Above that cap the desk can discuss OTC options; Minthouse never takes custody of or converts your funds. Onramping is provided by Peer Pay, a third-party service. Minthouse does not profit from onramps, holds no customer funds at any point in an onramp, and is not a money transmitter or money services business.
- The invoiced dollar amount governs. Overpayments are refunded in kind; underpayments are returned and the invoice reissued.
- A payment made on chain is complete at the confirmation depth the house requires, which this deployment publishes as
chain.confirmationsat /api/health. Title to the lot transfers on confirmed payment, not before.
Late payment and default#
An auction invoice unpaid at its due date is late. An invoice still unpaid five days after that is defaulted: the sale is reversed, the lot is passed, and a default fee is charged. The fee is the greater of $250 or, applied marginally to the invoice total, 5% of the first $10,000, 7.5% to $250,000, and 10% above. While a default fee is open the house may pause bidding on your account until it is resolved with the desk.
Shipping#
Shipping is arranged with the desk after settlement and quoted separately. International shipments clear at the buyer’s expense; duties are the buyer’s responsibility.
Keeping a purchase in the vault#
A buyer who has paid may keep the card in Minthouse custody instead of taking delivery of it. The house records the change of custody and the fulfilment of that sale ends in a vaulted state, which is constructive delivery: the buyer protection window in §6 runs from the date custody is recorded, and the consignor’s settlement clock in §7 runs from the same date. Nothing is shipped, the card can be called home later, and it can be listed again from the vault without being posted anywhere first.
The house undertakes no insurance on a card held in the vault, and these conditions do not allocate the risk of loss of or damage to it while it is held. That silence is stated rather than left to be inferred, in either direction. A buyer or consignor whose decision turns on the answer should put the question to the desk in writing before leaving a card in the vault. What the house does undertake, and what the record of custody actually proves, is set out in The vault.
§6. Authenticity claims#
The heading line of a lot is the set, the card, the grade, and the certification number. If you come to doubt it, raise it with the desk in writing, or open a dispute, within 7 days of delivery, the buyer protection window. Where you keep the purchase in the vault instead of taking delivery (§5), the same window runs from the date the house records that custody. A dispute opened inside the window holds settlement while the desk decides; after the window closes the desk can still be written to, but proceeds may already have been paid out.
- The slab must return intact and unaltered.
- Where the desk upholds the claim it rescinds the sale and refunds the hammer price plus the auction house fee. That is the sole remedy.
- The refund goes to the buyer of record on the invoice.
Grades themselves are the grading house’s opinion; we sell the certified card, not a promise of regrade. Every holder is inspected against tamper and counterfeit markers before listing and again before shipment. The full procedure, and what the house does about a counterfeit that reaches a buyer, is Authenticity and enforcement.
§7. Consignor terms#
Seller commission is 0%, and the house earns on the auction house fee instead.
- Lots are offered in Weekly and Premier sales. A confidential reserve, never above the low estimate, may be set.
- A consignment is listed only after the house has physically received the card and verified it against what was submitted. Nothing is offered for sale before that. The vault.
- Settlement lands in USDC once the buyer’s payment has cleared, the card has been delivered or kept in the vault under §5, and the 7 day buyer protection window has run with no dispute open. An open dispute holds proceeds until it is resolved. Settlement is exclusively in crypto.
- Unsold lots return at the consignor’s expense.
- Every consignor warrants sole ownership and good, marketable title free of liens, claims and encumbrances, under Terms of Service §8.
The consignor’s figure is the consignor’s#
There are two ways to consign, and in both of them the number the lot goes out at is the number the consignor agreed. The desk lists at that figure or asks the consignor to agree another; it may neither raise it nor lower it, and terms freeze at the first bid, so the acceptance is the last moment a difference can be caught.
| Consigned | What is agreed | What the buyer pays | What the consignor is owed |
|---|---|---|---|
| At auction | An optional confidential reserve, never above the low estimate. Leave it unset and the lot sells to the highest bidder. | Hammer plus the auction house fee (§4). | The full hammer price. |
| At a fixed price | The price itself. A fixed price is the floor, so a fixed-price consignment carries no reserve. | The listed price, with no auction house fee added. | The full listed price. No fee is charged to the buyer and no commission is taken from the seller. |
- A fixed-price listing that the desk lists at any figure other than the one agreed is refused rather than listed, and the same rule governs a reserve in either direction: lowering a consignor’s floor is not a favour, and raising it commits them to holding a card they agreed to sell.
- A consignor may withdraw their own fixed-price listing while it is open and no purchase is in progress against it. An auction consignment is withdrawn through the desk instead, because the bidders on it are owed a word.
- A fixed-price listing is booked with a 90 day shelf life, after which the desk renews it or returns the card. Nothing closes it automatically: a fixed price has no close, so the extension clock in §3 never applies to one.
- A buyer of a fixed-price lot pays at checkout inside the hold in §5, and the consignor’s settlement then follows the same clock as any other sale.
§8. Contact#
Consignments begin at sell with us. Bidding and invoice questions go to the specialist desk. Notices to the house, including the notices named in the Terms of Service, go to notices@minthouse.io or to Minthouse Markets, Inc., New York. Press and partnerships reach the same mailbox.
§9. This deployment#
The catalogue is real consignments only, and a won lot ships. Bidding is real: bids run through the live auction engine, close on the real clock, and produce real invoices these conditions bind you to settle.
The mechanics on this page are the mechanics in the build: the increment ladder, the sealed-maximum resolution, the extension clock, and the reserve logic run exactly as written here. Payment rails are connected, so settling an invoice through Peer Pay moves real funds.
The on-chain bid escrow is not enabled on this deployment: bids are not chain-collateralised, and no bid-escrow deposit is ever asked of you on minthouse.io. The cash-out escrow described in Terms of Service §7a is separate mainnet infrastructure and always moves real funds.