Pixel Grading GmbH

The company

In late 2021 a group of collectors led by Waldemar Felde founded Pixel Grading GmbH – the first German grading company to specialise exclusively in video and computer games.

Since then more than 15,000 items have passed through our grading process, submitted by collectors from across Europe and beyond. Every single one adds to what we know about variants, print runs and regional particularities – and that knowledge flows back into every grade that follows. In the end everyone who submits to us benefits from it.

The name takes us back to the very beginning of video game history. It all started with a single pixel.

Become part of the Pixel community – and let’s create a picture made of passionate collectors together.

What we stand for

Our vision

We see ourselves as an independent authority between collectors, buyers and sellers. Our goal is a collectors’ market where claims about authenticity and condition are reliable and both sides know where they stand.

That is why we want to be the benchmark for Europe. No collector should have to ship a game across the Atlantic to get a qualified grade. And no PAL variant should be overlooked simply because hardly anyone outside Europe knows it. We grade Japanese and American titles with the same command of their particularities.

Grading is not reserved for sealed games. We grade factory-sealed titles just as we grade used and complete copies – both are authenticated, and both are graded against the same definition. Whether a game was played for decades or sat on a shelf changes nothing about the process, only about the result.

Sealed in our acrylic case, a piece of video game history is preserved – protected from light, dust and abrasion, so that coming generations can enjoy it too.

Waldemar Felde

The founder

It all started with the NES and the Game Boy. I was a gamer from day one and played my way through almost every console generation. Over the years time grew shorter – and the gamer turned into a collector.

More than 20 years ago I began collecting systematically: CIB titles for several Nintendo consoles, the Sega Mega Drive and the PlayStation 1. It was never only about completeness, but about condition. A dog-eared manual was swapped, a scratched cartridge replaced – until the collection was as good as it could be. Little by little, factory-sealed copies joined it.

When I came across grading, I tried it myself and was convinced straight away. I liked the look of it, but above all the protection. Because the older a game is, the harder it becomes to find it in good condition.

As an engineer in quality management I know that a grade is only worth as much as its repeatability. Two comparable items have to receive the same result – no matter who grades them or on which day. That is exactly why we founded Pixel Grading: consistently high quality at a fair price.

Favourite games

Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Diablo 2, Super Mario World, Halo, C&C, Half-Life, Donkey Kong Countryand many more

For anyone new to this

What grading is

Video games have been part of everyday life since the 1980s. Alone or in multiplayer, they have kept us company for decades. Alongside the playing, a large collectors’ community has grown out of it, and next to the market for used games, the one for factory-sealed copies grew rapidly.

That is where grading has arrived in recent years – a procedure long established for trading cards, comics, coins and toys. It consists of two steps: checking an item for authenticity and grading its condition.

As demand rose, so did prices, especially in the retro segment. In turn, the supply of reproductions grew, from cheap fakes to professionally made replicas. On top of that come copies that are deliberately tampered with and re-sealed in order to sell them on at a higher price. For a layperson this is almost impossible to spot. This is where an independent third party comes in: we verify authenticity, and the buyer knows they are getting a genuine item.

The second point of contention is condition. “Very good” means something different to everyone, and buying on the strength of such a description often ends in disappointment. That is why we grade condition against a fixed definition and place it on a scale. Sellers and buyers no longer have to rely on terms like “near mint” or “mint”, but have a value they can follow.

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