Determining Sports & Trading Cards Value

Introduction

The world of sports, trading card game (TCG), collecting card game (CCG) or any other meaningful card worth the purpose of exchanging, collecting, or displaying is filled with its own unique marketplace jargon, and science.

Especially with the sale and trade of these (particularly cards of more specialized/ expensive sets), cards are varying in interest for specific details such as player, general condition, age, if it’s graded, and other factors which will be covered in a later section.

Objectives

The learning objectives of this page are to:

Be able to determine rough values of trading cards.
Properly examine the physical condition of the card.

Prerequisites

This information displayed does not have any prior knowledge needed, and will therefore convey information as if the reader has no knowledge of the topic.

Determining What You Have

There are various ways to actually know what you are holding, assuming you do not want to purchase an item, without knowing what it is. To determine what you have you must find the; title, card history, rarity, and even sentimental value.

Titles

The title of the card is the physical description of that card, this includes set/series origin, year of manufacture, manufacturer, player or character, and other specialty attributes like being a holographic or certain tint color. Cards are sometimes given a number to identify them in a set.

Set/Series

Sets or series is simply the production line of a certain group of cards. Cards may have sub-series, i.e. holographics’ or tint color. For the majority of the time the set will not be character or character attribute specific, this is especially true for TCG, and CCG. For example a line of cards with a baseball players WAR, or the leading player in goals could be the basis on a new production line.

Grade

A card grade, typically referred to as the grade number or physical condition label. Is usually a card that has been graded by a grading service to determine the cards; authenticity, accuracy of manufacture (precise edge, accuracy of printing, etc.), and actual condition of the card.

Rarity & Specialty Attributes

Specialty attributes can are used to differentiate base cards with specialty cards. Base cards are just quite literally the base version of the card, then the base card is modified with tinting, holographics, and other physical elements.

Determining Rough Value

To determine the rough value of a card, you must take into account the title, if it is graded or not, physical condition if not graded, and its specialty attributes.

To put this in example I will use 2023, Bj Qjulari, Donruss, Rookie Revolution.

- First take into account the year, it’s a fairly new card. So this doesn’t matter too much.

- Take into account the player, is this player a popular player, does this player have any particular interest that could make it more valuable?

- The Donruss series is fairly recognizable set, making this more valuable.