Collector guide
How to store and ship trading cards safely
Most damage happens in two places: loose in a box, and bending in the mail. A few cheap supplies prevent both.
Storing cards
- Sleeve every card you care about in a soft penny sleeve to protect the surface.
- Valuable raw cards go into a top loader or a semi-rigid holder after the sleeve.
- Keep them dry and out of direct sunlight. Moisture can make cards curl, and sunlight fades them.
- Store cards upright in a box made for cards, not loose in a drawer, and don't use rubber bands.
- Graded slabs can scratch each other, so store them upright and not stacked loose.
Shipping a raw card
- Penny sleeve, then a top loader.
- Close the top so the card can't slide out. Use painter's tape across the opening, or a team bag over the top loader. Never put tape on the card itself.
- For extra stiffness, sandwich the top loader between two pieces of cardboard.
- Use a tracked service for anything you'd be upset to lose.
Shipping a graded slab
- Wrap the slab in bubble wrap so it can't move.
- Put it in a small box rather than a padded envelope, with padding on all sides.
- Use tracking, and add insurance for valuable slabs.
How this shop ships (US only for now): raw cards go in a penny sleeve and top loader inside a protected plain envelope, without tracking under $20 and tracked from $20 up; graded slabs are bubble-wrapped, boxed and tracked, and higher-value cards ship insured through USPS. With PayPal here, shipping is $1.00 for a raw card under $20, $7.99 for a raw card $20 and up, and $7.99 for a graded slab, with combined shipping on multiple cards.