Trading Card Collecting Definitions

SummaryAn alphabetical listing of HobbyDefinitions

Trading Card Collecting Definitions

1/1 - One of one. A card that is the only one created by the manufacturer. No other versions exist, it is 1 of a total of 1 examples. A 1/1 card will have the serial number on the back or front of the card as 1/1 FACTORY STAMPED by the Manufacturer. More details can be found here: One of One

9 Pocket Sheet - A plastic sheet that has nine pockets arranged 3 x 3. These are used to display trading cards. They are 3-hole punched to enable storage in a 3-ring binder. Most popular manufacturer is UltraPRO. More details can be found here: PlasticSheets.

ACC or American Card Catalog - Reference book last published in 1960 by hobby pioneer JeffersonBurdick. Despite the fact that most are oblivious to the system's origin, the Burdick/ACC system of lettered-prefixes and numbered-suffixes to classify pre-war and 1950s card sets is still in use by The Hobby today.

Acetate - A thin, sturdy transparent plastic. Cards made out of acetate were pioneered by draft pick manufacturer Classic in the early 90s, and are occasionally seen today. They are used in the Ice product released by UpperDeckHockey. See also PETG.

Airbrushed - A card of a recently traded player whose uniform has been artifically altered to reflect his new team. So called because -- up until recently -- such photos were changed using an artist's tool called an "airbrush." A good example of airbrushing is the 1957 Topps MickeyMantle where a person is airbrushed out of the background. 1980s ToppsTraded sets were infamous for their very liberal use of the airbrushing. But with the advent of digital imagery (i.e. Photoshop) and the ease and speed that it offers, card manufacturers have abandoned the technique.

Little known hobby fact: In 1989 Upper Deck took a picture of the San Bernardino Spirit's starting centerfielder, and "airbrushed" it to look like he was wearing a Seattle Mariners hat.

Artist Proof - ParallelCards issued in Pinnacle Brands products. First inserted into packs of 1994 Pinnacle baseball with a press run of 1000 copies, ArtistProof parallels would be inserted into a variety of Pinnacle Brands products until the company's 1998 demise.

Autographed Insert - Autographed cards are InsertCards that are pulled from a pack already autographed by the depicted player. Often abbreviated as "AU" by price guides. More details here: AutographCards, Cut Autograph, Sticker Autograph, and HardSignedAutograph

Backdoored - A card that has been stolen from the manufacturer. More details here: Backdoored

Base Set - The main set, or "core," of a particular trading card product. In other words, any card which is not an insert card or is a Short-Print. More details can be found here: BaseSet

Baseball Heroes - A consecutively numbered series of cards, randomly inserted into packs of UpperDeck baseball products. More details can be found here: BaseballHeroes

Big Four - The four rarest, and most valuable, cards from the American Tobacco Company's ATC 1909-11 T206 set. The Big Four consists of two short-printed cards HonusWagner and EddiePlank, and two error cards LarryDoyle and SherryMagee. For a great reference on these four cards, and other T206 cards, check out the T-206 Museum. (http://www.t206museum.com)

Blank-Back - A card with (literally) nothing on the printed on its back. Most blank-backs are manufacturing defects, and as such carry very little (if any) value.

Blanket - A piece of fabric, wrapped around a packs of cigarettes, that sometimes featured baseball players. Most blankets measured 5" X 7", and date back to the early part of the 20th Century.

Bonus Box - A trading card product that is packaged with a non-trading card related collectible packaged as a chiptopper. An example of a "bonus box" product is 2001 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Baseball, where each 24-pack wax box was packaged with an autographed baseball.

Book Value - A card's published monetary value. This might (and usually does) refer to Beckett magazine's listed price, but applies to any other price guide, monthly or annual. Except for pre-WWII material, Beckett is usually the authoritative book value for cards from the four major sports. It is based on a range of reported sale values for cards, and also is commonly used among traders in order to come up with even deals.

Border - The part of a card that surrounds the photo. Traditionally, most cards were printed with white borders, while many modern cards have colored borders or even no borders whatsoever (see Full Bleed). A card's centering is based on how well these borders are aligned.

Box - A full container of unopened packs. Also called wax or a waxbox. Boxes come in all kinds of configurations now, based on the cost of the packs, but between the 1970s and 1994, most base brands came in thirty-six pack boxes. Today the typical waxbox yields twenty-four packs.

Box Blaster - Slang term given to a made-for-retail wax box. Such boxes are distributed by the Vintage Trading Card Company and sold at mass-market retailers like K-Mart, Wal-Mart and Target. Box blasters contain anywhere from seven to 17 packs, and sell from $9.99 to $29.99. UpperDeck has also started releasing Blaster Boxes designed specifically for retail outlets.

Brick - A group of cards (usually about 50) that are shrink-wrapped and sold as a unit. Generally, the top and bottom cards of a brick will have a superstar, but the other cards in the brick will be Commons.

Broder - Generic term used to describe an unlicensed card. More details can be found here: Broder

Bundled Product - A product -- often TradedSets -- featuring cards from more than one base set. More details can be found here: BundledProduct

Cabinet - Term used to describe a series of oversized trading cards issued during the late 19th and early 20th Century. So-called because of the large format (6" X 8"), and their preferred method of display: in curio cabinets. The most well known -- not to mention the most collected -- cabinets are the Turkey Reds (designated as T-3 by the ACC). Because of their size, to receive a single card a collector had to redeem coupons that were inserted into packs of cigarettes. This accounts for the general scarcity of cabinet cards.

Cameo - A player's appearance in the background of another player's card, is sometimes referred to as a cameo. More details here: Cameos

Card Show - A gathering of sports card and memorabilia collectors and dealers. The first cardshows began in the early 1970’s. Today there are dozens and dozens of card shows being held every weekend all over the United States. A complete listing of card shows is published in every month's BeckettBaseballMonthly magazine. Shows fall into one of two types: Smaller regional shows attended by local dealers and collectors, usually setup in a local shopping mall or motel ballroom, and large national shows attended by dealers and collectors from all over the United States. The largest sports collectibles show is TheNational Sports Collectors Convention held each Summer in a different major city. Other major shows include the annual Chicago SportsFest, Kit Young's Hawaii Trade Conference, and the quarterly EPSCC show in Ft. Washington, PA ("The Philly Show"). Listings for CardShows

Cello Pack - A pack of cards that are wrapped in transparent cellophane, usually consisting of more cards than a regular WaxPack of the same brand. Also referred to as a JumboPack. The cellophane wrapper allowed a potential buyer to see the top and bottom card in the pack. Because of this, unopened cello packs with a major star, or rookie, showing on the top of bottom, sell for a premium. The use of cellophane wrappers was phased out in the late 80s. More details here: PackSearching

Centering - A reference to the distances between the borders of a card and how they measure to each other. More details here: Centering

CerealCards - Like many other items, cereal uses promotional items to get users to buy their product. Cereal issues in the trading card world include Wheaties, QuakerOats, and more.

Certificate Of Authenticity (COA) - A document that is used to verify the legitimacy (usually an autograph) of a collectible. COA's usually are not worth the paper they are printed on, unless it shares a counterfeit-proof serially-numbered hologram that is attached to the item, the COA bears the signature of a notary public, or written verification by the manufacturer. COA's are only as good as the person/business who issues them.

Checklist - A list of all of the cards found in a particular set. The list is always in numerical order if the cards are numbered.

Chiptopper - An additional item that is inserted into a wax box. Usually an oversize card, or an additional pack of cards. Also known as a box loader. More details here: Bonus Box.

Chrome - Possibly the single hottest brand of cards on the market. These cards a mostly affiliated with prospectors, those who invest into prospects they think will become good in the near future, and want to get their cards now in hopes they go up. Chrome autos and chrome rookie cards and base cards have a "shiny" surface and have many parallels. The parallels (in order of rarity), are Superfractor, Red Refractor, Orange Refractor, GoldRefractor, Blue Refractor, XFractor, Refractor, and then base chrome and base (which is non chrome).

Chromium - A steel-gray, lustrous, hard, metallic, element that takes a high polish. Atomic Number 24. As it refers to trading cards, chromium (when placed on a trading card) gives ordinary cardboard a brilliant shine. More details here: Chrome, Refractor

Collating - The act of sorting loose cards in a set order. Usually this refers to sorting by a set's sequential number, often after breaking a wax box

Collation - The distribution of the cards in a wax box. A wax box with good "collation" will have very few, if any doubles, and will yield the stated number of InsertCards. Bad collation means that you don't get an even distribution of cards in the packs. That is, if there are 12 cards per pack and 500 cards in the set, you would have to buy 42 packs for a "perfect collation." Anything above this is personal opinion. However, if your getting duplicates inside the same pack, then the box has been badly collated.

Common - A term used to describe a base-set card that does not feature a rookie or super star player. Commons are usually the cards in the set that have the least value. However, with the trend towards "short-printed" base sets, the term "common" has been redefined to describe all the non-SPed cards, regardless of player.

Condition - The physical state of a trading card. After the player and the set, condition is the most telling factor in determining price and desirability of a card. Corners, edges, surface, gloss, grain, color registration centering, depth of color and focus are the basic qualities to look for. With increased technology poured into card making, there are new facets that must be looked at including print-lines, gold foil registration (location), scratches in metallic surfaces, and the condition of the hologram on UpperDeck cards. More details here: Grading and Card Condition

Counterfeit - A card created to look like an exisiting card and meant to defraud. Produced after the original issuance of the original copied card and not printed by the card manufacturer. Not to be confused with Broder cards. More details here: Counterfeit

Crack - A slang term used to describe the act of opening a sealed wax box. (i.e. "I just cracked a box of 2001 Donruss baseball and all I got was a lousy Adam Pettyjohn rookie.") Not to be confused with the illicit substance of the same name, but can be just as addictive. Also known as "pack busting" or "breaking."

Crease - A crease is a bend or fold in the surface of a card. A crease is heavier or more damaging than a wrinkle. A crease can break the surface of a card.

Custom Cards - Cards made up by collectors. These are often made for players who don't have many of their own officially released cards. More details here: CustomCards

Cut Autograph - An insert card with an autograph mounted to it. The autograph in question is "cut" out of a previously signed document. Most cut autograph cards feature deceased personalities and are often the only autographed trading cards available of such players. The source for such autographs are usually old contracts, cancelled checks, personal letters, and the like. A cut autograph should not be confused with a Sticker Autograph, as the source document was never intended for use on a trading card. More details can be found here: CutAutographs, AutographedCards

Death Bump - A brief, momentary, spike in the value of a player's collectibles in the immediate aftermath of his death.

An prime example of a death bump occured in October 2006 when New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle was killed in an airplane accident. In the days following his death, copies of Lidle's 1998 Topps rookie card -- which previous to the accident had been selling for about a quarter -- were being sold on eBay for as much as $10 each. Over the next couple of weeks, the price would drop and eventually settle in the $2-$4 range.

Diamond Cut - A production flaw. A card typically has borders that run parallel to the edges. If the border appears narrower at one end than the other, the card is diamondcut. That is if the card is still the standard rectangle shape. If not, it's a miscut.

DiamondKings - A subset (1982-1991, 2003-2005), insert set (1992-98, 2001-2005) and later, stand-alone product (2002-05) produced by Donruss. Notable for featuring the spectacular artwork of the Baseball Hall of Fame's artist-in-residence DickPerez from 1982-96.

Die-cut - A card that has been mechanically cut (on purpose) in a shape other than the standard 2.5" x 3.5" rectangle. Originally appearing in the early part of the century in sets like BatterUps, where the card around the player was cut and the background folded back so the card could stand, the process periodically resurfaced in sets like the 1969 Topps DeckleEdges. In the '90s, The Hobby rediscovered die-cutting, usually as ParallelCard or simply as a design element. The first die-cuts in this particular era were the 1993 SP baseball Platinum Power inserts.

Ding - Hobby term used to describe a damaged card corner that has been bumped or hit causing the corner to bend or crumple.

Distributor - A hobby dealer who buys directly from the card manufacturers in large quantities, usually shipped to them before its planned release date, who then "distributes" product to other dealers. Whereas dealers make up the primary, or retail level of The Hobby, distributors are the wholesalers. Distributors operate under unique rules. The term Distributor is descriptive in that they distribute the products through established sales channels. Distributors are an important part of the sports card industry, since they buy in quantity before a product is made they can help decide the quantity of a product that a manufacturer produces.

Doctoring - The act of altering a card in order to improve the cards appearance. Some acts of doctoring include pressing, trimming, coloring and cleaning.

Dual Front - A card where the design on the reverse side is the same as on the obverse. The Team Pinnacle inserts of the mid-90s are an example of a dual front card.

Dufex - A unique printing technique developed by the F. J. Warren (http://www.fjwarren.co.uk) company of Great Britian; most famously employed in The Hobby by Pinnacle Brands.

Elite - Series of inserts, and later a stand-alone product, released by Donruss.

Error Card - A card with erroneous information, spelling , or other error. Most errors are not corrected by the producing card company.

Event Worn - A trading card with an item mounted to it that has not been used in an actual game. More than likely, the term "event worn" refers to a game jersey that has been worn (often for only a couple of seconds) at a league-organized player photo shoot, such as the annual NFL Player's Rookie Premiere. For more information on the Rookie Premiere, and impact of event worn cards, check out this ESPN.com article. http://espn.go.com/sportsbusiness/s/2003/0711/1579655.html More details here: PhotoShootJerseys

Factory set - A complete set cards, put together by the manufacturer, and sold in a special package, quite often with special insert cards unavailable in packs. More details here: FactorySet

Fake - Another term used when describing a Counterfeit card.

Flipping - Purchasing a card or trading for a card with the sole intent of selling or trading it to another person. Cardspeak for arbitrage.

Foil Pack - Another name for a basic pack of cards. In 1989 UpperDeck debuted their baseball set in a new kind of packaging, with opaque foil backed paper. The foil pack prevented PackSearching, was easier to open, and (naturally) prevented Wax Stains. Foil packs are still referred by many as WaxPacks.

Food Issues - Premium items (cards, stickers, photos, or other souvenirs) that are included with the purchase of a food item, or included in product packaging. More details here: FoodIssues

Fractured Set - A product with multiple levels of short-printed base set cards, usually built around a theme. Commonly known to most collector's as "The Gold, Silver, Bronze Thing." More details here: FracturedSet

Full Bleed - A card without a border along it's sides. Also known as a borderless card. Most premium and super-premium cards are now issued in a full bleed format.

Game Used - A trading card with an item that has been used in an actual game mounted to it. More details here: GameWorn, GameWornJerseys, PhotoShootJerseys

Gem Mint - A card grade that is higher than Mint.

Gloss - The sheen on the surface of a card. Most cards are printed with some sort of gloss on the front, although the vast majority of today's cards are glossed on both sides. See also UV Coating.

Glossy Set - Similar to Topps' Tiffany sets, in 1987 Fleer produced a high-end version of their base and update sets.

GoldLeafRookies - A continuous series of insert cards released in Leaf baseball sets.

Grade - The physical condition of a card.

Graded Card - A card that has been inspected, graded and sealed by a professional card grading company. More details here: CardGrading

Grading - Graded card, grading cards, etc. - Grading is the act of evaluating the physical condition of a card. More details here: CardGrading

Gum stain - Similar to a wax stain. Back in the day when cards came with a slab of "stale gum," it created condition problems for the cards against which it rubbed. The gum would melt due to heat or humidity, and foul the surface of the card. It is possible to nearly completely remove a gum stain, but some residue is almost always left.

HOFer (pronounced "huffer") - Acronynm for "Hall of Famer." Not to be confused with one who abuses inhalants.

Hand-Collated Set - As the name implies, a set put together the old-fashioned way: ripping opening packs and collating the cards out. This contrasts with Factory Sets that come directly from the manufacturer.

Hard-Signed Autograph - An autographed insert card which the player depicted has actually signed. This is opposed to a Sticker Autograph where the player signs a sheet of stickers which are affixed to a card at a later date. Hard-signed (also known as "Player-Touched") autographed cards are generally more in demand by collectors than sticker autographs, because the subject does not have to squeeze their autograph into a limited space, resulting in more aestheticly pleasing card. More details here: HardSignedAutograph, Sticker Autograph, AutographCards

High numbers - The last handful of cards in a base set. More details here: HighNumbers

Hologram - A three dimensional image printed on a two dimensional surface. More details here: Hologram

Insert - A card that is separate from the main set (BaseSet) that is pulled from the same packs as those cards. More details here: InsertCards

In The Game - A trading card compant that specializes in hockey cards. More details here: InTheGame

Jumbo Pack - A pack of cards containing more cards than regular WaxPacks of the same brand. More details here: Cello Pack and Magazine Pack

Layering - A separation or "peeling away" of one or more layers of card stock, usually in the corners.

Low-numbers - Akin to their loftier brethren the HighNumbers low-numbers are simply cards that make up the first series of a particular set.

Master Set - One copy of every card issued in a set, including inserts and parallels. More details here: MasterSet

Memorabilia Card - See GameWorn

Mirrors - A series of cards of the same player, all using the same design (and in many cases the same photos), over and over again repeatedly. Usually comemorating a statistical milestone.

The first example of a "mirrored" card was in the 1999 Topps baseball set. '99 Topps included two special cards of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa celebrating the 1998 Home Run chase. The first series had a special card of McGwire (#220) that was done with 70 different variations -- one for each of his 70 home runs the previous season. The design of all 70 cards were identical, with the exception of a number in the background on the obverse side, and a brief description on the reverse side of the home run. Collectively, the odds of finding any one of the 70 card #220s was the same as any other base set card. However, each specific variation was printed in 1/70th of the quantity of a regular base set card. For the second series of '99 Topps, they did the same for Sammy Sosa's 66 home run season. (For the record, a set of 1999 Topps is considered complete with only one McGwire and one Sosa.)

Mirrors came into their own in 2005 when Topps released the first batch of Barry Bonds Home Run History inserts. The goal was to produce one card for every one of Barry Bonds' home runs. A similar mirrored set was introduced for Mickey Mantle in 2006.

As with most things, too much of a good -- if you can call this "good" -- was spoiled by overuse. The whole mirror concept "jumped the shark" in 2007, when Topps produced a mirrored insert in honor of Negro Leaguer Josh Gibson. The only problem was that the exact number of homers Gibson hit is completely unknown. But that minor detail didn't stop Topps from producing a 110-card mirrored insert of Gibson anyway.

Miscut -A card that shows a part of the adjacent card on one side, and a correrponding amount of its card is cut off. More details here: Diamond Cut.

Multi Sport - A product that combines players from several different sports into one set, in approximately equal distribution throughout the set. More details can be found here: Multi Sport Cards

NNOF (No Name On Front) - Usually refers to Frank Thomas's 1990 Topps error card, which was printed without his name on the front of the card.

The National - Slang term for "The National Sports Collectors Convention" (NSCC). More details here: TheNational

Notch - An indentation found along the side of a card, mostly caused by a rubber band being wrapped around the card.

O-Pee-Chee (OPC) - A Canadian company that produced, under a sub-license from Topps, bi-lingual baseball and hockey cards for the Canadian market. More details here: OPeeChee

Obverse - Term used to describe the "front" side of a trading card. The term is borrowed from numismatics (coin collecting). More details here: Reverse and DualFront.

Oddball - A card that is either not part of a mainstream set or a pre-[1990] insert. Most items that come under this definition are food issues (1970s era Burger King), regional issues, team issues, police sets, test issues, non-traditional card-like items (1989 Topps Head Ups), redemption issues (80s era Topps Glossies), or things that came in packs but before inserts became what they are today (1965 Topps Embossed and their ilk).

Off-Center - A card with uneven borders, meaning that the border on one side of the card is thicker than the opposite border. More details here: Centering

One-of-One - A card, usually ParallelCards, that are literally a one-of-a-kind item. More details here: One of One

Pack Searching -- More details here: PackSearching

(1) - The act of opening up a pack, looking for specific cards, and then attempting to reseal the pack.
(2) - The act of determining if there are any valuable cards in a pack, without opening the pack up.
(3) - The exploitation of a noticable pattern in a wax boxes' collation.

Parallel - An insert card that is similar in design to its base set counterpart but differs in a small variation. Examples include Finest Refractors, StadiumClub FirstDayIssues, and Topps Tiffany. More details here: ParallelCards

Parallel Brand - A product whose base set is almost identical to a previously released product, except for some small variation. More details here: ParallelBrand

Parenth-RC - A card from a 2006 or later baseball card product, bearing the MLBPA's standardized "ROOKIE CARD" icon, of a player whose true Rookie Card was issued in a pre-2006 set. So named because such cards are listed by Beckett with the familiar RC tag, but in parenthesis: (RC). The poster child of the parenth-RC is Washington Nationals third baseman RyanZimmerman. All of his 2006 cards sport the "ROOKIE CARD" logo. However, his true rookie cards appear in 2005 products (BowmanChrome Draft Picks and Prospects, BowmanSterling, and others). More details here: RookieCards

Penny Sleeve - Soft, plastic sleeves that collector's place trading cards in to prevent scratches and smudges. These are often placed in TopLoaders along with the card to prevent damage to the card. They derive their name from the low purchase cost: a pack of 100 for a buck. More details here: PennySleeves.

PETG - Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol. A high-gloss, transparent, and sturdy plastic. In 2006, Upper Deck began printing PETG trading cards.

Philly Show - Slang term to describe the quarterly Philadelphia Sports Card & Memorabilia Show. The show is organized and promoted by the Eastern Pennsylvania Sports Collector's Club (EPSCC). The Philadelphia Sports Card & Memorabilia Show is America’s oldest card show under the same management. Begun in September 1975 as an annual event, the Philly Show now runs four times a year. In 1993, the Philly Show moved to its current home, the Fort Washington Expo Center in the Philadelphia suburbs. In February 2006, The Fort Washington Expo Center was sold and will be redeveloped into office space. The show has now relocated to the new Greater Reading Expo Center, located 55 miles northwest of Philadelphia. The show's website is located at http://www.phillyshow.org/

Player Collectors - collectors who choose to focus their collections around collecting cards featuring a certain player. More details here: PlayerCollectors

Poly pack - A method of packaging using various kinds of plastic. Introduced as an alternative to wax, poly packs did server their purpose: preventing wax stains. Unfortunately, the material's transparency left packs vulnerable to searching. Poly-packs made their debut in 1988 Score, but were phased out by the end of 1993.

Population Report - A periodical published by one of the professional grading houses, that reports on the number graded and condition of a particular card. Also known as a pop report. Each of the three major graders, BGS, PSA, and SGC, make available their population reports over the internet.

Pre-War - A card that was produced prior to the start of World War II. More details here: PreWar

Press Plate - A metal sheet used in the printing process. More details here: PrintingPlates

Price Guide - A periodical that lists the values of cards. The most widely used price guides are Beckett's monthly sport-specific magazines. Others include Tuff Stuff, Sports Cards magazine, Sports Collector's Digest or SCD and Canadian Sportscard Collector.

Promo - A card which is used as a promotional item: hence the name "promo." This does not refer to unlicensed Broder cards. More details here: PromoCards

Pull - A slang term used to describe removing a card from a pack, or to describe a good card that has been removed from a pack.

rec.collecting.cards.discuss or RCCD - A Usenet newsgroup dedicated to the discussion of sports trading cards. It also doubled as a forum for like-minded individuals to discuss other topics of interest such as sports, pop culture, sprinkled in from time-to-time with a flame war or two. RCCD was created in November of 1994, and before the emergence of web-based bulletin boards (beckett.com's Message Boards, sportcardforum.com, sportscardsherrif.com, et al) it was the premier destination for sports card news and discussion. RCCD hit its peak in late 2000 when it was receiving 2500 to 3000 postings a month. By 2003 however, traffic had been reduced to less than 100 posts a month. Currently RCCD receives about 10 to 20 posts per month (mostly spam). But during its brief "golden age" (1998-2001) RCCD attracted a number of notable personalities, who brought with them their many of whom have moved on to Beckett.com and other boards. So much so, that in the year 2000 a RCCD "Hall of Fame" was established.

Rack Pack - A packaging type designed to hang from one end of a peg board rack. A rack pack consists of a long strip of cellophane broken into three compartments, each compartment containing about as many cards as a regular wax pack (give or take a few cards). The earliest known example of this type of packaging was 1957 Topps Baseball. Until the release of 2001 Fleer Platinum baseball, 1995 Stadium Club Baseball was the last product to come packaged in rack packs.

Ratio - The stated odds of receiving an insert or a short-printed base card. These are usually stated on the wrapper or box like this: "20 Rookie Subset cards 1:4." This means that on average, one Rookie Subset card will be found in every fourth pack.

Raw Card - A card that has not been slabbed, or otherwise professionally graded.

Redemption Card - A coupon inserted into packs that can be redeemed for a special card or set of the player or set designated. These are often used for AutographCards which were not available to be inserted in packs when the product is released. More details here: RedemptionCards

Refractor - ParallelCards, often associated with Topps' Chrome stock cards (Finest, Bowman'sBest, BowmanChrome, etc.), that refracts light into a bright spectrum. The effect is accomplished by the placing of an ultra-thin, transparent, plastic Fresnel lens on top of the card. In the early days, such lenses would not fit properly on an uncutsheet, leading to the dreaded Refractor Line. Refractors are tough to spot at first, but once you see one you'll be able to spot others easily. Beginning in the mid-90s, Topps has added a notation on the back to specify refractors. Though now lumped in with all the other parallels, 1993 Finest Refractors are still sought-after, and their never-confirmed-nor-denied print run of 241 copies remains the benchmark for scarcity.

Regional Premium - some players will carry additional value in certain locations. Obvious examples are in the market the player plays in, but also his hometown area, or a locale where he played prior to making the jump to the professional ranks.

Replacement Card - Cards issued in lieu of another card to which the collector was originally entitled. Replacement cards were in full force during early 2007 as UpperDeck cleaned up many of its outstanding RedemptionCards.

Retail Pack - A version of a trading card product that is made available exclusively at mass-market retail outlets such as Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, and the like. When insert-mania reached its climax in the mid-90s, a common strategy used by manufacturers was to produce an exclusive insert set available only in the "Hobby" version, and another set of inserts for the "retail" version, and yet a third for Jumbo Packs, and a fourth for Rack Packs. The practice of "hobby/retail" inserts, has declined, mostly due to complaints from hobby dealers.

Reprint - Is a printing of a card(s) after the original printing. Sometimes but not always reprints are marked as such.

Reverse - Term used to describe to back of a trading card. Like obverse, the term is borrowed from numismatics. The reverse side of a card usually contains the card number, statistics, and sometimes additional photography.

Rip Cards - insert cards where one card is inserted into another. More details here: RipCards

Rip & Pull - A popular internet show where collector Robert Fourriel rips packs and pulls out cards. The show can be seen on http://www.ripandpull.com or on You tube.

Rookie Card - A player's regular issue card from an officially licenced brand issued in the first year the player is eligible to appear on a trading card. More details here: RookieCards

SP - A premium level product produced by The UpperDeck Company. More details here: SP

SPx - Another premium level product produced by The UpperDeck Company. More details here: SPx

Serial Number - A unique marking, either by a machine or by hand, stating the production run of a particular card. Not to be confused with sequential numbering, which merely indicates how many cards are in the set. More details here: SerialNumbering

Set - A complete run of all the cards from an issue, collated as one unit. More details here: BaseSet, FactorySet

Set Collectors - Collectors who focus their efforts on completing sets. More details here: SetCollectors

Short Set - Term used to describe a BaseSet devoid of any ShortPrints.

Short-print - A BaseSet card that is printed in less quantities than other cards in the same set. Also called an "SP." More details here: ShortPrints

Show Stamp - A card that is issued with an embossed or foil logo by a manufacturer at a card show. More details here: ShowStampedCards

Sketch Card - A card an artist has drawn or painted original art on. Sketchcards have been issued with such products as 2005 Topps Gallery baseball and Topps GarbagePailKids.

Sketchafex - Type of sketchcard made by the Rittenhouse card company.

Sketchagraph - Type of sketchcard made by the Fleer card company.

Skip-numbered - A type of numbering for a set, where all consecutive numbers in a range do not always correspond to a card. More details here: SkipNumbering

Slab

(1) - A card that has been permanently encased in a plastic holder, by a professional grading service.
(2) - The plastic holder a graded card has been encased in.

Standard Size - Term used to describe the length and width (2½" by 3½") of most American trading cards. Since 1957, when Topps reduced the size of their cards from 2 5/8" by 3 3/4", the 2½" X 3½" format has been the industry standard. Size is of particular importance to note when purchasing expensive cards. Some cards may be trimmed by the seller because of a border or corner flaw.

Stated Odds - The odds of pulling a certain insert or parallel out of a pack or box. For example: the stated off of pulling a jersey card out of 06-07 UD Hockey is 1:12 packs

Sticker Autograph - An insert card that features an autographed sticker affixed to the card. Sticker autographs should not be confused with a Cut Autograph, as the stickers are signed with the intent of being mounted onto a trading card. More details here: HardSignedAutograph, Sticker Autographs, AutographCards

Stock - Material a card is printed on. Usually this is paper-based, although in recent years, cards have been printed on acetate, chromium, wood, and fabric. The thickness of a card's stock is measured in "points." Most trading cards are printed on 12-point stock, with another one or two points of UV Coating sprayed on each side, for a total of 15 points. One trend of the early-to-mid 1990s was the use of thicker card stocks. For example 1993-96 Flair was printed on 24-point card stock, with 3 points of gloss on each side. This meant that a 1993 Flair card was twice as thick (30 points) as a 1993 FleerUltra card (15 points). Most cards today are still printed on 12-point stock with 3 points of gloss. Because of their nature, GameUsed are printed on heavier stock (anywhere from 55 to 80 points).

Sorting - Much the same as collating. Putting cards in order based on the numbering by the manufacturer or some other system - alphabetical, by team, etc.

T206 - The ACC designation for the 1909-11 American Tobacco set. Considered by many to be the greatest baseball card set ever made -- certainly of the PreWar era. Produced over a three year period, 520 different 1 1/2" X 2 5/8" cards would be randomly inserted into packs of sixteen different ATC cigarette brands. But the essence -- if not the mystique -- of T206 can be summed up by the "[Big Four]:" HonusWagner, EddiePlank and the error cards of LarryDoyle and SherryMagee. The term "T-206" was first coined by hobby pioneer JeffersonBurdick, who first published his landmark AmericanCardCatalog, or ACC, in the mid-1930s. Burdick used a system that assigned a letter prefix to distinguish the type of card such as T for tobacco and a sequential number for the set. An excellent resource for T206 cards is T206.org (http://www.t206.org)

T.C.G. - Topps Chewing Gum. Up until the mid 1980s, Topps referred to themselves as the "Topps Chewing Gum Company." The initials "T.C.G." appeared, in very small print, on each Topps trading card. It wasn't until the trading card business began to surpass gum did they change the name to just Topps.

Team Bag - Re-sealable bag that holds 3 1/8 x 4 inch cards

Team Card - A card that depicts an entire team.

Team Collectors - Collectors who focus their efforts on collecting cards featuring players of a specific team. More details here: TeamCollectors

Team Issue - A card, or set of cards that is issued directly by the team, often as an arena giveaway or sold locally. These cards are often very difficult to come by for player collectors, as they often don't find their way into the hands of traditional collectors, or people who make them available on the secondary market. These cards are more common for minor league teams, which also contributes to their being difficult to find.

Third Party Grading - A third-party grading company is a company that evaluates the physical condition of cards submitted by customers. More details here: CardGrading

Tiffany - A special high grade "premium" version of its sets produced by Topps. Between 1984 and 1991, Topps sold Tiffany sets exclusively to hobby dealers, and were marketed to collectors interested in an "investment quality" set. Topps Tiffany sets were printed by Topps' European division in Ireland, who also produced the regular ToppsTraded sets. Like the Traded sets, the Tiffany cards were printed on high-grade white card stock (as opposed to the "shoebox gray" stock that the regular cards were printed on) and finished with a high-gloss coating. The production of the sets was never publicly released, however the earlier sets 1984, 1985 and 1986 Topps and 1989 Bowman are believed to be in very limited supply. With the advent of premium and super-premium brands like StadiumClub, and the lack of interest in these sets, Topps discontinued the Tiffany line in 1991. However, Topps brought back the Tiffany concept for its "2000 Topps LimitedEdition" set. Beckett currently recognizes Tiffany cards as ParallelCards and as such, makes them ineligible for the RC tag. In fact, you could make the argument the Topps Tiffany was the first ParallelBrand.

Tin - A full container of unopened packs. Come in all kinds of configurations now, based on the cost of the packs, Today the typical tin can yield anywhere from 1 pack to 24 packs. A lot of the higer end products tend to use tins e.g. The Cup Hockey

Top Loader - TopLoaders are a type of card holder. The holder is rigid with the top of the holder is open. The card slides into the holder from the top. Many collectors use a soft or pennysleeve on the card before placing into a toploader. More details here: CardStorage

Topical subset - A collection of cards that follow some sort of theme, but might cover all brands, players, even sports. Fairly common topics include cards showing players with their kids, players playing other sports, players with cameras, star players on other player's cards (e.g. 1992-'93 FleerUltra Harold Miner, which shows MichaelJordan defending his shot), players from your hometown, players signing autographs (great to get autographed), or father-son-grandson links like the Boone's, Bonds', and Griffey's in baseball, the Howe's in hockey and the Barry's in basketball.

Trade Page - A listing of cards which a collector has available for trade. Most commonly a web page.

Traded set - A close relative of HighNumbers but with some major differences. More details here: TradedSets

Trimmed card - A card whose edges and/or corners have been intentionally shaved and/or cut. A card may be trimmed to remove any evidence of wear, or ding corners. Trimmed cards have very little, if any, value.

UV Coating - Beginning with 1991 StadiumClub baseball, most new sets are produced with a glossy finish commonly called UV. It's NOT protection against ultra-violet rays, so don't even think about leaving your cards out in the sun, or they'll fade.

Uncut Sheet - A complete sheet of cards before they are cut into individual units. When cards are printed in the factory, they are printed on large sheets known as forms. For many years, Topps printed their annual baseball set using a 132-card form. The forms are occasionally found for sale, though in most cases they are Backdoored (stolen property). Until the last few years, they were only rarely made available by the card makers. They are still rare, but there are some authorized special editions floating around. In 1984 Topps produced a special run of it's baseball set as part of a promotion with Nestle, that was available exclusively in uncut sheet format.

Variation Card - One of two or more cards from the same series with the same card number differing from one another in some aspect caused by the manufacturer. This can happen when a card manufacturer notices an error in one or more of the cards, makes the necessary changes, and then resumes the print run for that card.

Vending Box - A method of packaging, used primarily by Topps, that -- as the name suggests -- were originally used to stock card vending machines. More details here: VendingBox

Vintage - A very subjective term, used to describe "eras" of cards. A lot of people draw the line between what is considered "vintage" and "modern" somewhere in the '70s, usually calling 1970, 1973 or 1975 the last year of vintage. Most tend to draw the line at 1980, as it was the last year Topps had a monopoly in baseball cards. A great resource for vintage-era baseball cards is http://www.oldbaseball.com More details here: PreWar

Want List - A list of cards or sets that either a dealer or collector wants to buy. Hence the name Want List.

Wax - A generic term usually used to describe either a single pack or a full box of packs. The term comes from the type of packaging originally used (wax paper) but has held over as manufacturers switched to other types of packaging.

Wax Case - Term used to describe a container of wax boxes that is shipped from the card maker's production facility to the wholesaler or dealer. For much of the 80s and 90s, a typical case yielded twenty wax boxes. But with the advent of premuim, super-premium, and ultra-premium products, manufacturers have cut down case size to keep them somewhat affordable. Now as few as four boxes might comprise a case. If you get into buying cases, make sure of the exact composition before ponying up; case sizes have been known to change from one series to another.

Wax Pack - An unopened pack of trading cards. More details here: WaxPack

Wax Stain - A blemish on a card caused by wax. Packs used to be sealed with wax paper, and the wax would melt onto the card. Wax stains can be at least partially removed by scraping lightly with pantyhose.

Wrapper - Device used to package sports cards. Wrappers usually also contain information about the contents including ratio's for limited insert cards, sweepstakes details, and NPN information.

XRC (eXtended Rookie Card) - Term used by Beckett to describe a RookieCards from a 1980s era "extended" or "traded" set. More details here: XRC