Sports cards - Baseball cards - Trading cards

I'm sure at one point or another you may have purchased a pack of baseball cards, whether they are for yourself or others. We all had the concerns of what sports cards we would get and the condition in which they came --and were kept-- in. The number one sports cards producer, Topps, has helped to take the guess work out of the card industry. How have they done this? They've created a unique card collecting site named Etopps.

What is Etopps? Well, Etopps is an online community that allows you to buy, sell and trade exclusive cards from Topps Inc. Currently, sports offered are Baseball, Basketball cards & Football cards. Etopps has also recently signed a deal with the WWE to begin producing wrestling trading cards.

Etopps itself operates as a quasi style stock market, with a pricing system that looks similar to that of a NYSE stock.

New sports cards are offered each Monday and are given an IPO price (Initial Public Offering) and a Print Run, which is the maximum number of cards that will be produced of the player in question. At the end of the week all buy orders are calculated and the sports cards are then distributed to a purchasers account.

The online trading cards and selling capabilities helps to create a liquid market. By liquid, we mean it is very easy to buy and sell an Etopps card. Traditional sports cards are typically traded on

Once inside your account, you will know have four different options. The first is to hold keep your sports cards. The second is to trade your card with others in the Etopps community. The third option is to have a physical card shipped to you. But you will have to pay a shipping few and you will lose the liquidity of the online Etopps market. The fourth and final option is to sell your sports card to another Etopper. Selling is mostly done on Ebay, and obviously the goal is to sell your card for more than you paid for it. The trick is, like with any market, is to buy low and sell high.

Next time around will take a more in-depth look into some of the strategies involved with trading in the Etopps marketplace.