So you’ve come to the point where you think the time is right to get rid of your old baseball cards. Except, naturally, you don’t just want to throw those beauties away – they once meant a great deal to you after all!
That means the best route to go down is to sell them on sites like Ebay to people who are genuinely looking to collect your cards.
This way you’ll also have control of who you want to sell them to and how you go about packing and shipping them so that they make it to their new owner intact and on time.
With this in mind, you’ll need to go through a number of steps in order to ship your cards in the correct manner because you need to consider things such as how many cards you’re shipping and how you should pack them so that they don’t get ruined.
In this guide, we’ll go through these steps with you so that you know exactly how to ship your baseball cards!
How Do I Ship Baseball Cards?
There are six fairly simple steps that you need to follow in order to go about shipping your prized baseball cards. Below we’ve detailed these steps so that you know exactly what to do!
Step 1: Get The Correct Equipment
Firstly, it’s important you make sure you have all of the necessary equipment you’re going to need in order to actually pack up the baseball cards and ship them in the correct manner.
You might have seen a lot of different opinions floating around about how to ship cards – some people claim it’s best to wrap every card up individually using hard cases and dividers, whilst others say to simply throw them into an envelope and that should be job done.
The thing about baseball cards is that they’re not the most valuable thing on the planet, so you don’t need to take the time and effort to wrap each one individually, but they’re also worth enough that you shouldn’t just be shoving them into an envelope and hoping they get to their destination intact.
With all of these considerations in mind.
Here’s the equipment you’ll really need to pack up your baseball cards:
- Toploaders
- Team bags (if you’re shipping multiple cards)
- Penny Sleeves
- Card Savers
- Stamps
- Blue Painters Tape
- Cardboard strips for placing between cards
- Weighing scales
- Enveloped or any other packaging
Step 2: Figure Out The Size Of Your Order
For this step, you need to check out the weight and size requirements that your country has in place for shipping items and from that you can figure out how much it will cost you to ship the amount of cards you’re planning on sending.
For example, it will be far cheaper for you if you only have a few cards that aren’t worth a lot, meaning you can just send them in a simple, plain envelope.
But, the likelihood is you have cards that are worth a decent amount so you’ll want to take extra care of them, which will obviously cost you more money.
It might seem a bit complicated at first as there are lots of different sizes and weights to wrap your head around, but you’ll figure it out eventually after reading everything carefully!
Step 3: Prepare Your Cards For Shipping
Now to the crucial stage of getting your baseball cards all packed up and ready to send off to their new owner!
Because you’ve already figured out the amount of cards you’re shipping, how much it will cost, and their value, you can now determine how you’ll need to pack them.
Whether you’re sending one or multiple cards, the best way to pack them is to package them in a penny sleeve together, place them in a toploader and then tape the toploader shut.
Then tape the cards to a piece of cardboard and put another piece of cardboard on top of them, so they won’t move around too much during shipping.
Now tape the two pieces of cardboard together and place them in an envelope with protective bubble wrap.
If, when packing multiple cards, they don’t all fit in the toploaders, you can use team bags instead.
Step 4: Apply The Postage To Your Parcel
This is where your weighing scales come in – now that you’ve got your baseball cards all packed up and ready to send, you need to weigh the parcel to see how much the shipping costs will be.
You’ll usually need a few stamps or more for this kind of packaging, but another option is for you to also buy packaging (such as protective style envelopes) that are pre-paid already for the postage costs.
Step 5: Send Off Your Parcel
It’s now finally time to send off your parcel, so find your closest mailbox and pop it in there, ready for the courier to pick it up and send it off to the rightful new owner of your baseball cards!
If you’ve taken all of the necessary steps with the packaging process, your cards should be well protected and should definitely arrive to the buyer in one piece and in great condition.
Step 6: Send The Buyer A Courtesy Message
Out of courtesy, it’s a good idea to send your customer a message to let them know that their parcel is on its way.
This will also keep them off your back if the parcel takes longer than usual to arrive for them, because they’ll know that it’s an issue with the post rather than the fact that you simply haven’t sent them on their way yet!
Final Thoughts
Baseball cards are great for collecting and if you’ve reached the point where you want to sell yours, there’s bound to be numerous collectors out there wanting to pay you for your cards.
Ebay is a great place to sell them, and we hope this article has helped you understand exactly what steps you need to take when it comes to shipping your prized baseball cards!
Apart from being such an interesting hobby that can take you in so many directions. It keeps you in touch with your younger self. I still feel the same level of excitement when adding a new card to the collection.
I'm still learning, and I always will be. I hope you find my posts helpful.
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