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How to sell trading cards online: A practical guide
How to sell trading cards, assess their value, choose the right marketplace, and get paid fast
How to Sell Trading Cards Online: A Practical Guide
How to Sell Trading Cards Online: A Practical Guide
You don’t have to be a hardcore collector or a hobby shop owner to want to know how to sell trading cards. Maybe you’re looking to offload an old (but potentially valuable) binder from your own collection. Or perhaps you’ve stumbled across a box full of cards in a family member’s attic or basement. Whatever the reason, you’ll want to know:
- How much are these cards worth?
- Is anyone interested in buying them?
- Where’s the best place to sell cards?
The good news is that if you want to sell trading cards online, you have plenty of options. In this guide, we’ll cover how to:
- Assess the value of your cards
- Digitize your card collection
- Find software and hardware solutions that let you sell cards faster
With a little legwork and the right tools, you can turn a motley assortment of trading cards into some extra spending money. If you’re lucky, you might even find that you have a particularly valuable card on hand.
With so many options available, there’s never been a better time to learn how to sell trading cards online. There are traditional auction houses, more casual marketplaces, and even online classified ads for finding local sales. The following options are fantastic opportunities to display your collection to interested buyers, so choose the one that fits your needs.
Online marketplaces to sell trading cards
- eBay remains one of the most popular online auction houses on the planet, with an audience of millions of shoppers looking for all types of trading cards. In 2022, eBay also acquired TCGPlayer, which is another excellent resource for buying and selling cards.
- Facebook is a great way to link up with local sellers through its Marketplace or find larger online communities with Groups.
- dcsports87 is a sports card consignment shop that takes care of all the hard work for you. All you have to do is send your cards in, and dcsports87 will sell them on eBay and send you up to 96% of the profits.
- CollX is an all-in-one app where you can scan your cards, get price estimates, and sell them when you’re ready. It’s also compatible with the Card Dealer Pro scanning software.
- WhatNot is an online marketplace where you can buy and sell almost any kind of collectible, including trading cards. This app has a large, active user base, so you can sell cards quickly.
Benefits of selling trading cards online
- Access to a large customer base: Online marketplaces offer instant, centralized access to a massive audience of interested buyers. By listing on a platform like eBay, you won’t need to hunt down customers — they’ll come to you.
- Ease of listing: While each marketplace has its own flow for listing trading cards, many have simplified the process to a few simple steps:
- Create an account
- Upload scanned images of your card
- Fill out a description, and set the post live
- Worry-free payments: When you sell trading cards online through portals like eBay or TCGPlayer, you won’t need to chase down payments. Link a bank or PayPal account to your profile and the platform will handle the rest, depositing proceeds within a few business days.
Did You Know? PCMag reviewed the RICOH fi-8170 scanner, giving it four out of five stars and a coveted Editors’ Choice award. The article praised the fi-8170’s quick scanning speed, simple connectivity, and comprehensive PaperStream Capture software.
Ultimately, a trading card is worth what people are willing to pay for it. Before listing your cards online, you need to know what that value is. Factors like rarity and condition combine to form the card’s final sale price. The following resources will guide you toward a rough estimate of what you can expect to make when you sell trading cards online.
Online trading cards price guides
- eBay doesn’t explicitly provide pricing guides, but searching for your card on and filtering results by “Sold Listings” can provide insight into what people have paid for your card.
- CollX helps you get price estimates for your cards as soon as you scan or take photos of them.
- WhatNot is a live marketplace where you can see trading card prices in real time. Be aware that prices can fluctuate quickly.
Factors that influence trading card prices
- Condition: A card’s condition is one of the strongest price drivers across all trading card categories. Collectors of Pokémon®, sports cards, and other TCGs place high value on pristine cards. Grading typically evaluates:
- Centering of the player image
- Sharp corners
- Edges
- Surface scratches
- Numbered cards: Certain cards have extremely limited print runs and are stamped with serial numbers (e.g., 15/99, 1/10). These cards are often more valuable due to their scarcity. Even players with modest followings can have high‑value cards if they appear in rare numbered sets.
- Variants (Parallels): Many sets include alternate versions of standard cards using:
- Alternate photography or artwork
- Holographic or foil treatments
- Premium or glossy card stock
Because variants are generally produced in smaller quantities, they tend to be more desirable and valuable to collectors.
Read more about the specifics of selling Pokemon and sports cards in How to Sell Pokemon Cards Online and How to Sell Sports Cards Online.
Each marketplace is unique. There are different audiences, rules, and requirements to follow, and fee structures that determine how much money you’ll need to pay once the sale is complete. Despite these differences, the actual process for selling and shipping your cards on each platform is very similar. First, you’ll need to make a digital scan of your card collection.
Scanning your trading card collection
- Digital images of your cards should accurately represent the physical card. To maximize accuracy, capture the front and back of the card at a resolution between 300 and 600 dots per inch (DPI) and avoid automated touch-ups or filters.
- For rare, expensive, or professionally graded cards, use a flatbed scanner to prevent damage while capturing the image.
- For most cards, using an automated feeder is acceptable as long as it doesn’t bend or crease the card in the process. Scanners able to scan ID cards can handle trading cards with little or no issue. Place the card into a toploader to protect it during the scan.
A step-by-step guide to trading card sales
- List your card: Typically, this involves:
- Uploading one or more images of your card along with a description of what you’re selling
- Using clean scans of both the front and back of the card
- Ensuring your description provides enough information about the quality of the card to inform potential buyers
- Setting your initial price — either a lower starting bid for an auction or a higher buyout amount for direct sales
- Activating your listing
- Share your listing and wait for payment: While your chosen marketplace will display your listing when buyers search for it, you can increase the chances someone will buy it by posting it on social media or online card-collecting communities. If someone does agree to buy your card, you may need to wait for payment to appear in your account before shipping it to them.
- Ship the card: Place the trading card in a penny sleeve to protect it from scratches, then place that into a toploader to prevent bends during shipment. You can wrap the toploader between two cardboard slats to protect it even further. Place this into a bubble mailer and ship it to the address the listing provides.
Read more about selling YuGiOh cards in How to Sell YuGiOh Cards Online.
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Before you sell trading cards online from your collection, you’ll need to scan the cards in question. Ricoh offers high-end scanners and state-of-the-art scanning software to help you do just that. If you want to digitize your trading card collection, these scanners can help make the process easy:
- The RICOH fi-8170 is a compact desktop scanner that can digitize large quantities of trading cards in a short time. You can scan up to 70 double-sided pages per minute with a 100-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF).
- If your collection needs a lighter touch, consider the RICOH fi-8250. This flatbed scanner can handle up to 50 pages per minute while keeping your cards completely flat.
- The RICOH ScanSnap SV600 is an ideal choice for collectors with especially valuable and fragile cards. This overhead scanner doesn’t actually touch the cards in question, but it can still digitize a whole page in three seconds.
Our fi Series scanners are compatible with the RICOH PaperStream Capture software. PaperStream is a simple, intuitive scanning software solution that can digitize and sort your cards automatically. PaperStream Capture produces crystal-clear images and can even index card text for easy searching later on. Click here to learn more about our PaperStream-compatible scanners.
Note: Information and external links are provided for your convenience and for educational purposes only, and shall not be construed, or relied upon, as legal or financial advice. PFU America, Inc. makes no representations about the contents, features, or specifications on such third-party sites, software, and/or offerings (collectively “Third-Party Offerings”) and shall not be responsible for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of such Third-Party Offerings. Please consult with a licensed professional regarding your specific situation as regulations may be subject to change.