What to Do with Bulk Pokémon Cards

Sort bulk Pokémon cards before you decide anything, then keep the cards you will use. Trade or give away the spares someone else will use, and sell only what is left to a buyer whose terms you have checked. Bulk is the pile of commons, uncommons and spare non-foil cards that remains once everything you want has come out. The order matters, because a card that goes off in a bulk lot is gone for good.

Separate the cards before treating them as bulk

Bulk describes a pile, not what is in it. Most pack leftovers are ordinary commons and uncommons, and there is no way to know in advance whether anything else is in there, so look at each card once before it goes into a bulk stack.

Start with what the card is. The Silver Tempest edition of the official rulebook labels two marks on its diagram of a card: the expansion symbol and the collector card number. Our guide to Pokémon card set symbols matches symbols to set names.

Then look at rarity. The printed set list Pokémon published for Silver Tempest, for example, uses a circle for common, a diamond for uncommon and a star for rare, with extra letters after the star for holo rares and the higher rarities. Anything with a star goes on a separate pile to look at properly. Our guide to Pokémon rarity symbols shows each mark.

Put any card with foil on its face on that separate pile too, until you know what it is. Our guide to holo and reverse holo cards explains the difference between the two.

Sort by language next. English and Japanese cards are different printings, and a buyer or trader who takes one may not take the other. Our guide to Japanese and English Pokémon cards explains how to tell them apart.

Condition is the last check. One large European card-selling site publishes seven condition grades, from Mint down to Poor. On its scale, a card whose borders have been touched up with a pen is always Poor, and a card bent so badly it might no longer be tournament legal is Played. Water damage ranges from Light Played to Poor depending on how bad it is. Pull damaged cards into their own stack now, because almost every later route treats them differently.

Finally, check the pile against what you collect. If you are working towards a full set or a master set, a missing common is not bulk to you, however ordinary it is.

Keep cards useful for a collection or deck

A sorting method only helps if you can repeat it the next time a pile turns up. The simplest is to sort by set first and then by collector number within each set. It is slower than sorting by Pokémon type, but gaps become obvious. It also matches the printed set lists Pokémon publishes, which come with check boxes. Our list of Pokémon card sets in order gives you the order of the piles.

If anyone in the house plays, hold back deck cards before anything leaves. The official rulebook says a deck must be exactly 60 cards, with no more than four cards of the same name except basic Energy. Keep up to four of any card someone might play, and keep a good stack of basic Energy. Our guide to building a Pokémon deck covers what a playable 60 looks like.

Store what you keep flat and dry, in the same order you sorted it, so the next sort starts from a tidy base. Our guide to storing Pokémon cards covers boxes and binders.

Trade, donate or reuse cards

Spare cards are often more use in someone else's collection than in a bulk lot. Trading duplicates with friends or at a local play session costs only time, and a common can come back to you as a card you want. Agree what is being swapped before cards change hands, and keep trades between children visible to the adults involved. Our guide to trading Pokémon cards fairly covers the steps in more detail.

Giving cards away is a good end for bulk, as long as the people receiving them want them. A school club or a local shop that runs Pokémon play sessions might put a box of commons to use, but each decides for itself what it can take. Ask first, and never leave a box on a doorstep. Send cards roughly sorted, with damaged and marked cards taken out. Bundling the basic Energy together lets a newcomer build a deck straight away.

Cards too worn to play or give away still have a use at home, as practice for a child learning to shuffle and sleeve before touching the cards they care about.

Check the terms of a bulk buyer

Some shops and collectors buy bulk at a stated rate. We do not run a buying service, and we are not quoting anyone's rate here, because rates and rules change and only the buyer's own current terms count. Read the terms on the day you plan to post, save a dated copy, and check these points before you count a single card.

• Which categories they accept: commons and uncommons only, or reverse holos, holo rares, Trainer cards and basic Energy as well.
• The lowest condition they accept, how they define it, and what happens to cards below it.
• Which languages they accept.
• The minimum quantity, and whether they count by card or by weight.
• Who pays postage, whether they supply a label, and who carries the risk while the parcel travels.
• How and when they pay, and whether rejected cards come back to you or stay with them.

If the terms do not answer one of these, ask in writing before you post. A rate with no conditions attached is not one you can plan around.

Count and package a bulk submission

Count carefully and keep the sheet below, which has one row per pile. Fill in the quantity first, then split each pile into what you keep, what goes to trade or donation, and what is left for a buyer. Write each pile's condition in the buyer's own terms, since different buyers draw the lines in different places.

Count in stacks of fifty or a hundred and mark each stack with a slip of paper rather than a tight rubber band. Recount any pile you expect to be paid for. If the buyer's count differs from yours, your sheet is the only proof of your count.

When the count is done, the parcel should go out with these in it and in this state.

• The count sheet, with your name and any reference the buyer gave you, plus a copy you keep.
• Cards in stacks facing the same way, held with paper slips or in card storage boxes.
• A rigid box that fits the stacks closely, with any gaps filled with paper so nothing slides.
• A plastic bag around the cards inside the box, in case the parcel gets wet.
• Tape along every seam, and the address label flat on the largest face.
• A photo of the open box before you seal it, and the receipt from the post office counter.

Weigh and measure the packed box, then check its size and weight band on the carrier's own online calculator rather than guessing.

Compare effort and net proceeds

Selling bulk is mostly labour. Before you post anything, fill in the worksheet below with your own figures. There are no typical figures here, because no honest typical figure exists for every buyer and every pile.

The worksheet rests on these assumptions, and if any fails, G shrinks.

• The buyer's count matches yours.
• The rate you read is still the rate when the parcel arrives.
• Payment arrives as the terms say.
• The parcel arrives.

If G looks small next to H, the trade and donation routes earlier on this page may suit the cards better. For anything you set aside as a possible single sale, our guide to selling Pokémon cards covers listing cards one at a time.

If you are about to send a box, read our guide to posting Pokémon cards safely in the UK before you seal it. It covers which service to pick and how to pack cards so they arrive as they left.