If there’s already a thread about 1 of these please link! Giving 10 dollars to the person with the best answers out of appreciation for taking time to help✌🏻
Here we go:
What is the best way for taking pictures of cards/sealed items, specifically for selling on eBay?
What is the best way for shipping cards/sealed items?
What is the best way to store cards/sealed items?
How do you store your most valuable cards? Would you recommend buying a safe?
What lightning do you use when examining ungraded cards?
What label printer do you use?
Is weighing still possible in modern Pokemon? If not, what set was the last where packs could’ve been weighed?
With cards I’m referring to graded as well as loose cards, with sealed items I mean booster boxes, collection boxes, ETB’s, tins, loose packs etc.
That’s all for now, if I come up with any more I’ll update the post! Big shoutout to this forum & the Pokemon community as a whole, much love
Just a heads up that none of your questions have an answer that every member on the forum agrees with. I only have a few years in the hobby, but have quite a bit of experience trying to answer these questions myself, so I’ll give you my hot take:
1. What is the best way for taking pictures of cards/sealed items, specifically for selling on eBay?
I started out with one of those $20-$30 popup boxes with the two LED strip mini-studios, graduated to a table with backdrop/nice camera/tripod/card stand/lighting setup and finally now use a flatbed scanner. The scanner is cheaper, makes card look amazing, and is much easier to use. I mainly sell PSA graded cards, which the scanner is great for, but I imagine it’d also work pretty well for raw cards.
2. What is the best way for shipping cards/sealed items?
Depends on the item of course.
A single raw card w/o tracking: card → penny sleeve → top loader → coin envelope. Probably won’t have an issue just throwing a stamp on these but probably should purchase a non-machineable stamp from the post office to make sure it doesn’t get shredded.
A single raw card that needs tracking: card → penny sleeve → card saver → two pieces of cardboard held together by a rubber band → bubble mailer.
A single PSA card: slab → two pieces of cardboard held together by a rubber band → bubble mailer.
An entire set of cards:
Expensive but great presentation: Penny sleeve or ultra pro sleeve → any modern binder with side inserting pockets → bubble wrap → box.
Cheap: Penny sleeve or ultra pro sleeve → team bag (or multiple depending on size) → wrapped in bubble wrap → package.
Booster box: Many way to do these, but it basically boils down to an appropriately sized box with an appropriate amount of void fill.
3. What is the best way to store cards/sealed items?
Humidity is the enemy. This is less of an issue with cards that are sealed in PSA cases, but PSA cases are not impervious to damage. There was a member on E4 that had a bunch of PSA cards in a safe, but because that safe was airtight and the humidity was high inside, the cards inside the cases warped very badly.
A popular option for slab storage is Pelican-like cases. These cases have very rigid outsides but customizable foam inserts that allow you to make a row or two to store the cards. There are a ton of offbrand options for these cases that are much cheaper than Pelican.
For raw cards in sets, modern card binders work well. Modern card binders being side-loaded, without metal rings. Tons of company options that you can look into, I like DEX. The jury’s out on whether to put cards in penny sleeves, perfect fits, perfect fits + ultra pro, or just ultra pros, but I don’t think anyone advocates putting the naked card into the pockets without any other protection.
Some people prefer to store all their cards in card savers. I have had humidity issues with card savers in the past. I’ve noticed that the tightness of the card saver allows moisture to sit at the corners pretty easily.
You may want to look into “dry cabinets”, originally marketed towards the photography community, which are now being co-opted by the collecting community due to their low cost and convenience. I store all of my cards in card savers (which need to be submitted for grading) in a dry cabinet so that humidity is a non-issue. Before the dry cabinet I would constantly have to rotate desiccant packets inside of a ziploc bag.
4. How do you store your most valuable cards? Would you recommend buying a safe?
Part of this is answered in #3 wrt how to store graded cards. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are members on the forum with a million dollar collection sitting in a couple of unlocked Pelican cases.
However, many members on the forum do have safes. It really depends on your situation (e.g., who’s coming into your house, who knows about your collection, safety of your neighborhood, etc. etc.). Just remember that humidity can be an issue inside safes since many are airtight. A wireless hygrometer (humidity sensor) can be very helpful keeping track of that humidity. I highly suggest a SensorPush hygrometer - it connects to an app on your phone and is basically set it and forget it. You can set alarms/notifications if the humidity goes above or below a certain level.
Some people use off-site storage for their most valuable items, e.g., bank deposit boxes or paid storage facilities. An option that is growing in popularity, and lauded by some in the community with very expensive collections, is PWCC Vault. I don’t have any experience with them, however.
5. What lightning do you use when examining ungraded cards?
I use a pretty standard magnifying desk lamp that has a bright ring of LEDs. I don’t use the magnifier all that much. Others can probably give a better answer for this, although I’m not sure if there’s any one brand/model in particular that’s used in the community. I’d be interested to know if there is, however!
Some use a jeweler’s loupe in order to see very fine detail. Some super advanced members have electronic microscopes to really get in close.
6. What label printer do you use?
My Zebra LP2844 is a workhorse and can be bought for about $100 off of eBay. Right now I have it networked to use wirelessly thanks to a helpful youtube tutorial, and it’s made my shipping life so much easier.
7. Is weighing still possible in modern Pokemon? If not, what set was the last where packs could’ve been weighed?
I don’t know the answer to these two questions, unfortunately.
Put card (unsleeved) on flat, smooth, black backdrop in a room/area with decent lighting. Take clear, relatively close-up pictures of front and back. If the card is a holo, take a few angled shots of the holo using the flash or have a direct light aimed at the card. And if the card has any flaws that weren’t visible in the straight-on photos such as a crease/dent/bend etc., then take photos of those flaws, too. For PSA-graded cards, you can use a flatbed scanner (or just take regular photos, which should be sufficient for cards that aren’t 5 or 6 figures lol).
For single cards: put card in penny sleeve and then into toploader (make sure the opening of the sleeve is not facing toward the open edge of the toploader – this way the card doesn’t slide into the tape on the open edge). Then put a tiny piece of tape on the open edge. For orders under $25, I just ship the card(s) in a PWE with a single forever stamp. For orders over $25, I ship the card(s) in a bubble mailer.
It depends – are you just looking to store cards in a way that best preserves condition? Or are you looking to store them for viewing purposes? If you want to just preserve condition, just place each card in a new penny sleeve and into a card storage box (I have a gazillion of the 330 count BCW cardboard storage boxes and I use them to store incomplete sets and the like). I personally use perfect fits + Dragonshield Clear sleeves because I’m paranoid about the cards getting surface damage, but penny sleeves are cheaper and should be totally fine. I store my complete sets in binders (a mix of Ultra Pro and Ultimate Guard 9-pocket binders). I store them upright in my bedroom, which I keep at between 40% and 50% humidity at all times. I’m very detail-oriented and picky about condition and I’ve never noticed any degradation of the quality of my cards over time (although I’ve only been seriously collecting Pokemon cards since last fall so maybe a more veteran collector could give you their experience over the long-term. But I’ve stored my Magic cards the same way for ~13 years and similarly haven’t had any issues).
Refer to number 3; I keep all my cards like this, including valuable-ish cards (like raw PSA 8/9 quality gold stars, exs, e-Series holos, etc.). If you’re talking about cards that are individually five or six figures, then maybe a safe would make sense (and potentially store them at an offsite location – and insure the cards/items, obviously). But I also live in a very safe place – if you live in a city or a less safe area, storing everything of personally significant value offsite might be wise.
I just use the iPhone flashlight pointed directly at the card. I have unusually strong vision so this is generally sufficient for my purposes. But if your vision isn’t as great, you could also use a jeweler’s loupe.
Printing shipping labels or what? I print return address labels using the Avery label sheets and I just print them using a normal printer. For eBay/PayPal shipping labels, I just print them on plain white paper and use clear packing tape the tape the edges onto the mailer.
I have no clue; I’ll let someone else answer this one.
I personally just take pictures on an iPhone or Ipad and it’s worked great for me, maybe not necessarily the best way to do it but I almost never get asked for more pictures
With low value stuff i just sleeve it, put it in a toploader, and tape the top shut so the card doesn’t fall out. For the higher end stuff I ship using a sleeve, toploader, bubble wrap, and a bubble mailer or mini box. For packs I’ve only sold one, but it was heavy base set so I wrapped it in bubble wrap, put it in a tin, put bubble wrap around the tin and put it in a box with priority mail 2 day.
I store my cards in a side loading ultra pro binder in sleeves. For packs i use these, they look great and are cheaper than most pack cases
I don’t own any cards or packs over $600 (yet) so I can’t really help with this, sorry
I use a very bright desk lamp when pregrading cards or assessing condition
Not sure what exactly you’re asking here
Weighing can still be done, but only with 3 card dollar tree packs. Regular pack wise I believe legendary treasures was the last weighable set. @psacollectibles, hope that helps!
