Most Pokémon cards are worth very little. That's not cynicism, it's print-run math. The skill is finding the few cards in a stack of thousands that matter, and doing it without checking every one. Here's the sorting sequence we use...
You've seen it on every marketplace. A listing is priced off the highest sale on record. A "Near Mint" Base Set Charizard has whitening you can see from across the room. A price guide number hasn't moved since spring. Pokémon...
One hundred forty-six cards of Frankenstein, Dracula, King Kong and the rest, from the height of the monster-kid craze. In the late 1950s, classic horror films hit television, and a generation of kids fell in love with monsters. Nu-Card, a...
Two hundred eighty-eight cards that showed American kids the wars of the late 1930s in shocking color. In 1938, the world was sliding toward war, and Philadelphia's Gum, Inc. put that reality into penny packs of gum. Horrors of War,...
1965 Topps Battle: A Collector's Guide Sixty-six Norman Saunders paintings of World War II, in the tradition of Civil War News and Horrors of War. Three years after Civil War News and Mars Attacks, Topps turned Norman Saunders loose on...
George Reeves in sixty-six black-and-white photos, issued the same year Batman took over America. In 1966, Batmania was everywhere, and Topps released five Batman sets. It also gave the Man of Steel his own set. The 1966 Topps Superman cards...
King of the Wild Frontier in two series, with the orange backs and the scarcer green backs. In 1955, Disney's Davy Crockett episodes set off one of the biggest crazes of the decade. Kids across America wanted coonskin caps, and...
Topps' cards of Apollo 11, from training to the first steps on the Moon, in two versions that are easy to confuse. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon while Michael Collins orbited above....
A vampire soap opera, two 66-card series and some of the most fragile cards of the 1960s. Dark Shadows began as an ordinary gothic daytime drama in 1966. Then Barnabas Collins, a vampire from the 1790s played by Jonathan Frid,...
One hundred fifty-six front-page headlines, from the fall of Troy to the conquest of Everest, plus a scratch-off surprise. In 1954, Topps turned history into headlines. Scoop presents 156 historical events as newspaper "top stories," each with a banner headline...
Eighty-eight painted battle scenes, newspaper-style backs and a pack of Confederate "money": Topps' Civil War centennial set. The Civil War centennial began in 1961, and Topps marked it with one of the most ambitious non-sports sets of its era. Civil...
Beatlemania in wax packs: Topps' 1964 Beatles sets, how to tell them apart, and how to collect them. The Beatles landed in New York in February 1964 and played The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9. By spring, Topps had...
Forty-four more Norman Saunders paintings, and a set whose backs build six puzzles. After the Black Bat set, Topps went back to the Batcave for a second painted series. The 44-card Red Bat set, also called the A Series, kept Norman...
The set so gruesome that Topps hid its own name, and the most famous non-sports issue of the 1960s. In 1962, Topps released a 55-card set about a Martian invasion of Earth. It was so violent, and so lurid for...
Ninety-six cards of Depression-era Disney, with a pun on every one. By 1935, Mickey Mouse was seven years old and already the most famous cartoon character in the world. Philadelphia's Gum, Inc. put him into bubble gum packs with a...
The Man of Steel's first trading cards, and one of the great pre-war non-sports sets. Superman debuted in Action Comics #1 in 1938. Two years later, he was the biggest character in American comics, and Philadelphia's Gum, Inc. put him...
The photo set of the 1966 Batman craze, with a riddle on every back and a decoder in the pack. Topps' painted Batman sets get most of the attention, but the 38-card Riddler Back set is the one that puts Adam...
Where Star Wars collecting on cardboard began: 66 blue-bordered cards and 11 stickers. When Star Wars opened in May 1977, nobody, including the toy companies, was ready for it. Topps was. Its first Star Wars series, known to collectors by...
Norman Saunders' most outrageous Batman paintings, plus a back variation that challenges master-set builders. The 44-card Blue Bat set, also called the B Series, was the third painted Batman set Topps issued in 1966, and it's the most delightfully strange. Robin...
Fifty-five photo cards, a corny joke on the back, and a back variation most sellers never mention. Of Topps' five Batman sets from 1966, Bat Laffs is the one that doesn't take itself seriously at all. That's saying something in...
