Hobby and Retail

 Hobby products are only allocated to hobby shops and local card shops through distributors and manufacturers directly. You won’t be able to find them in the trading card section or at the checkout aisle in big box retail stores. In general, the Hobby level of trading cards usually contains the best chances for high-level hits, autographs, and inserts. You’ll also find special releases of hobby products, including 1st Off The Line products, Sapphire products, Jumbo products, Super Jumbo products, HTA products, Choice products, among others.

 Retail products are the packs and boxes available at big box retail stores. Retail products can come in a variety of configurations, including Blaster Boxes, Mega Boxes, Value Boxes, Retail Boxes, Multi-Packs, Value Packs, Cello Packs, Rack Packs, Retail Packs, Factory Sets, Hanger Boxes, among others.

Both Hobby releases and Retail releases can include exclusive inserts, autographs, and trading cards that cannot be found in other levels or configurations of releases. Not every card from a set can be found in every hobby or retail configuration, so it’s important to double check where you can find the card you’re chasing before you buy.

If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Trading cards are so cool. I want to start collecting, but I don’t know where to begin,” we get it. We’ve been there ourselves. In fact, every collector in the world has been in your shoes. Whether you want to collect baseball cards, football cards, basketball cards, hockey cards, soccer cards, wrestling cards, racing cards, Star Wars cards, Garbage Pail Kids cards, Marvel Cards, non-sports cards, and any other type of trading card out there, there’s a ton of information out there, and it can come across as challenging to find your footing when you’re just starting out. There’s so many releases, sets, sports, and manufacturers that you may not know where to begin!

If you’re a first-time collector, we’d recommend starting here:

1. Figure out what you want to collect! Whether it’s cards from one team or cards from one player, knowing that makes you excited is the first step in collecting!
2. Set your budget! With boxes ranging from less than $10 all the way up to $1,000 or more, it’s important to set and maintain a realistic budget for yourself. Don’t try and buy outside your means.
3. Set goals for yourself! Are you trying to complete a full base set? Are you trying to find a certain card more than anything else? Are you looking for a big card to flip and make a profit on? Knowing what you want to chase is very important when it comes to buying boxes of trading cards.
4. Collect what you like! Don’t get pressured into keeping up with trends! Don’t compare yourself to another collector or compare your collection to another collector’s collection. Collect what makes you happy and what you enjoy. Don’t worry about anyone else except you!

Once you find a product you think you’d like, and you’ve set your goals, it’s time to buy! Finding the right card can be the thrill of a lifetime or net you thousands of dollars if you decide to sell it. Remember, it’s never your last box of cards. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to open it again in the future.

The wonderful thing about the hobby is that monster hits can be found by anyone — even you!

Celebrities are becoming more and more involved in the hobby too! Former professional baseball player Sean Casey has recently opened his own card store, and professional basketball players LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kevin Durant, and Ray Allen (among many others) have come out saying that they collect their own trading cards and the trading cards of their teammates. Rapper, singer-songwriter, and actor Drake famously spent over $200,000 in a basketball trading card break in 2022. Anyone could’ve bought into the break; so you could’ve been pulling monster cards right alongside the Grammy Award-Winning artist! Finding the same card that any of these stars are looking for might just earn you a direct message with an offer from them!

 We’ve all been there. You see a news report about some trading card fetching an astronomical sum of money. While some trading cards can be worth tens of thousands of dollars (sometimes even millions), figuring out exactly how much the cards in your collection are worth may be very confusing, and you may even find conflicting reports depending on where you look.

2020 saw a huge boost in trading card and sports memorabilia collectors, and the market has been hot ever since. A T206 Honus Wagner card sold for $6.6 million in 2021 through an online auction, smashing the record for the highest trading card ever sold. And it’s not just old and vintage cards making millionaires overnight. A 2017 National Treasures NFL Shield Patrick Mahomes Rookie Auto 1/1 BGS 8.5 card sold for $4.3 million in 2022 — the largest single football card sale to date.

But, the trading card market fluctuates similarly like the stock market; cards can rise and fall with how well or how poorly a player is doing on any given day. All it takes is one great game for the value of a trading card to skyrocket. The most popular and best marketed celebrities always command a higher value than their less popular counterparts, and teams in bigger sports markets will also bring in higher pricing on the secondary market.

 However, the single biggest factor when it comes to the value of a trading card is condition. The condition of the card (also known as the grade of the card) makes a dramatic difference to the overall value. Any damage on the front or back of the card (including manufacturer defects) can be the difference between thousands of dollars. Professional graders look at any imperfections, including errors due to manufacturer defects and micuts, centering, staining, sharp edges, and creases.

Therefore, getting an exact value for the trading cards in your collection can be tricky if your cards are not professionally graded. If you do decide to get your cards graded, or if your cards are already slabbed and graded, looking at recent sold auctions and sales on reputable websites can give you a much better idea of how much your cards are worth. Please note though that different grading companies can affect the value of the card. Some graders are more widely accepted in the hobby than others. We recommend doing your research before submitting your collection to a grading company that may not carry the same weight on the secondary market as a better, more established company.