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You have two realistic routes: sell to a shop, or sell privately. A shop will pay you less than a private buyer would, and will pay you today. A private sale will usually net you more and will take considerably longer, with the risk sitting on your side of the table.
Neither is the right answer for everybody, and any shop that tells you selling to them is always the best option is not being straight with you. Here is how each route actually works in Canada, and how to get a fair outcome from whichever you choose.
This is worth saying plainly, because it is often dressed up.
When a shop buys your cards, it takes on three things you no longer carry:
The gap between what a shop pays and what a card sells for is what covers those three things. It is not a markup for its own sake, and it is not a swindle — but it is real, and you should factor it in rather than be surprised by it at the counter.
What you get in exchange is speed and certainty. One transaction, one payment, no listings, no shipping, no disputes, no waiting.
| Selling to a shop | Selling privately | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical return | Lower | Higher |
| Time to money | Same day | Weeks to months |
| Effort | Bring the cards in | Photograph, list, pack, ship, handle disputes |
| Bulk and low-value cards | Handled in one lot | Very hard to move at all |
| Who carries the risk | The shop | You |
| Fees | None to you | Marketplace and payment fees, shipping |
The row that decides it for most people is the bulk row. A collection is usually a small number of cards worth selling individually and a very large number that are not. Private sale works well for the former and barely functions for the latter. Shops take both.
Be honest with yourself about which situation you are in.
Sell privately when you have a small number of individually significant cards, you know what they are, you have time, and you are comfortable packing and shipping properly. A handful of high-demand singles is exactly the case where the extra return justifies the extra work.
Sell to a shop when you have volume, mixed condition, or no time; when you inherited a collection and do not want to become an expert in it; or when the difference between two figures matters less to you than being finished.
Do both — this is the option people forget. Pull the ten or twenty cards worth listing individually, sell those privately, and take the rest to a shop as one lot. Most shops, including ours, are fine with this. We would rather buy the bulk than lose the customer.
This affects your offer more than anything else you can control.
Most shops offer both, and credit is normally the higher figure. That is not a trick — credit costs the shop less because it comes back as a sale.
Take credit if you buy cards anyway. Take cash if you do not. Do not take credit because the number is bigger if you have no intention of spending it.
Usually not, unless you already know the card justifies it.
Grading has become more practical for Canadians. PSA stopped accepting direct submissions from Canadian collectors to its United States facilities in April 2025, and then opened PSA Canada, with a receiving centre in Mississauga, Ontario in addition to its Halifax submission centre. Submissions handled through PSA Canada avoid the cross-border duty and tariff friction that made grading painful for Canadians in 2025, because the company bundles submissions under a single temporary import bond rather than each collector arranging their own.
That is a genuine improvement. It does not change the underlying arithmetic:
Grade a card when it is genuinely high-end and you are confident of the condition. Otherwise sell it raw. Any shop pushing you to grade a marginal card before selling to them should be asked why.
If you sell privately, this is where money gets lost.
Canada Post Lettermail does not include tracking by default. Untracked Lettermail cannot be traced at all if it goes missing, and you will have no way to prove delivery in a dispute. It is the cheapest option and it is the wrong one for anything you would be upset to lose.
Expedited Parcel includes tracking, and Priority, Xpresspost and Expedited Parcel all include a base level of liability coverage, with additional coverage purchasable in increments. Note that if you buy additional coverage above the lowest tier, the Signature option becomes mandatory on most services.
Pack properly: sleeve, rigid holder, taped between card stock, then into a bubble mailer or a small box. Do not send a card in a plain envelope.
Three things you are entitled to ask any buyer:
Get more than one offer if the collection is significant. That is not an insult to a shop; it is normal, and any shop worth dealing with expects it.
We buy Pokémon cards, including bulk, and we ship and buy Canada-wide from our shop at 410 Third Street in London, Ontario. Our process, what we look for and how to send a collection in are set out on sell your Pokémon cards and Pokémon buyback Canada.
We are particularly interested in older material and in specific chase cards, so if you have vintage Pokémon or Charizard cards in the collection, flag them separately when you get in touch — those get individual assessment rather than going into a lot.
And if after reading this you conclude that selling privately is the better route for your particular cards, that is a legitimate conclusion. Ask us anyway — we would rather tell you honestly that a card is worth listing yourself than buy it cheaply from someone who did not know.
Because the shop takes on inventory risk, the labour of sorting, listing, storing and shipping every card, and the capital cost of holding stock that may sit for months. The gap between the buy price and the sale price covers those costs. What you get in return is immediate payment and no further work.
No. Sorting bulk commons and uncommons by set takes hours and does not change the offer, because bulk is assessed by volume. Do separate obvious holos, full arts and older cards from bulk — that part does matter.
Store credit is normally offered at a higher figure than cash, because it costs the shop less. Take it if you were going to buy cards anyway. If you have no intention of spending it, take the cash — a larger number you cannot use is not a better deal.
Usually not. Grading costs money, takes time, and can come back lower than expected. It is worth it for genuinely high-end cards in strong condition. PSA now operates a Canadian receiving centre in Mississauga and a submission centre in Halifax, which removes the cross-border friction, but the underlying arithmetic is unchanged.
Not Lettermail, which is untracked by default and cannot be traced if lost. Use a service that includes tracking, such as Expedited Parcel, which also carries a base level of liability coverage with more available to purchase. Pack the card in a sleeve and rigid holder inside a padded mailer.
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EA Collectibles – Canada's Trusted Pokemon & Trading Card Game Store
410 Third Street, London, Ontario N5W 4W6 | (519) 852-3570 | Free Shipping on Orders $50+
Serving London, St. Thomas, Woodstock, Stratford, Sarnia & all of Canada since 2020