Kerblam! Warehouse | Illustration by David Auden Nash
Cracking booster packs is a delightful pastime for Magic: The Gathering players and trading card players in general. The sweet melody of angels or the loud fireworks that proverbially go off in someone's head when they pull the card they want from a booster pack is sweet bliss.
But in those many adventures of cracking packs, one thing accumulates much faster than your collection of Magic rares and mythics, and that's bulk cards. With so many bulk cards laying around, what do you do with them? For one, you can ship them to local people or entities that will pay you money for receiving your collection.
I’ll highlight the best ideas for shipping out bulk Magic cards so that they arrive safely and pristine to your target recipient. Now that you have bulked up your collection, it's time to pass on the love of the game to somebody else by getting your surplus cards shipped out to make room for new additions to your Magic collection.
What Is Bulk?
Armored Transport | Illustration by Cliff Childs
Bulk Magic cards are essentially the extra chaff that’s in your collection. They’re the cheaper commons, uncommons, and bulk rare cards that are $1 and under that you’ve pulled the most from cracking packs.
These bulk cards may not be the best with their usefulness and abilities, so they’re usually only played in Limited formats rather than Constructed formats like Standard or Modern. Bulk cards sometimes just sit in storage in collection box for when you need to make a budget deck or as a starter pack for getting a friend or family member into Magic. You can get at least a little bit of value of out of your bulk collection by selling your cards and then by trying one of these various ways to ship them to a card store or private card buyer.
Send Bulk Magic Cards In Card Storage Boxes
The best way to package bulk Magic cards is by utilizing the long, corrugated card storage boxes that hold about 600 to 800 cards each. The more cards that each box can hold, the better. Of course, these boxes aren’t strong enough to ship individually.
You’ll need a strong shipping box that can hold all or some of these long boxes to get them shipped safely to the destination. Use packing peanuts, shipping paper, soft packing foam sheets, or bubble wrap to cushion all the long boxes of packaged bulk that are placed into the strong shipping box.
For extra reassurance that your cards won't fly around everywhere during the shipping process, tape down both ends of where the long boxes close before placing them in the shipping box. The last thing you want the recipient to experience is a whole pile of disorganized cards when they open that package.
For Smaller Bulk Shipments, Use a Bubble Mailer
Maybe you don’t have hundreds and thousands of bulk Magic cards that need to be shipped in big boxes at one time. If you plan to only send 100 to 200 bulk cards per bulk shipment, you can save shipping costs by utilizing a bubble mailer rather than a mini box. You could split 100 cards into piles of 25 or 200 cards into piles of 50 and stack them up vertically in a 4” x 8” bubble mailer.
Purchasing these bubble mailers on Amazon can work out to about 20 cents per envelope rather than buying only a pack of 2 or 3 from a local store. This is your best option for envelopes if you plan to ship out your bulk by 100 to 200 cards at a time.
To give the cards an extra layer of protection inside the bubble mailer, put a penny sleeve on each card. You don’t want the cards to fray or bend at the edges while in transit. Once each card pile is sleeved, wrap it up in a very thin piece of cardboard and tape the edges together so the cards don’t move around during shipment.
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- 🍀【Strong Self Sealing Adhesive】 Our padded envelopes is using four-season adhesive, which can maintain strong stickiness throughout the year, even if the weather is very hot or cold. The strong stickiness prevents your items from being secretly replaced during transportation. The adhesive is covered with silver strip, which are easily peel off the strip and seal the bag.
- 🍀【Sturdy & Durable Construction】 The thicken shipping bags covers with strong kraft paper material, making them not easily punctured. Beside, the bubble bags features with excellent shockproof and tearing proof effects because of the interior built with bubble lined wall construction and the reinforce sealing on the edge. They can keep your stuff safely to destination even though using on harsh environment.
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Shipping Carriers
There are various shipping carriers that you can use to ship bulk Magic cards. Each one has its unique perks, so find the one that works best for you depending on how many cards you are shipping at once.
To give you an idea of the weight of bulk cards, about 540 cards come in a booster box which weighs about 2.1 lbs. If you’re shipping 1,000 of your bulk cards to a recipient, that’ll be around 4 lbs. The overall weight can be influenced depending on how many foil rares that you may have, which are slightly thicker and heavier than normal commons and uncommons.
Be mindful of the boxes you’re utilizing to send your bulk Magic cards no matter the carrier you decide to use. A higher edge crush test (ECT) means that you cards will be the most protected. The standard ECT value is 32 lbs for smaller boxes.
If you’re shipping to a card store, leave your cards unsleeved as some may charge a de-sleeving fee. However, if you’re shipping to a private buyer, go the extra mile to protect the cards by putting them at least in a penny sleeve so that they don’t fray or bend at the edges during the shipping process.
FedEx
If you’re shipping the cards to a different country, FedEx may be your best bet as they support 220 countries and surrounding territories. However, keep in mind that shipping to worldwide countries like Europe could make it less valuable when shipping bulk Magic cards.
As long as you sign up for a FedEx virtual account, you can get all your shipping supplies for free, which can cut down on the expenses of shipping your bulk. The best part is that once you weigh the bulk cards package, you can calculate shipping costs by entering the address of the FedEx shipping center and the recipient address to receive a quote before you ship.
USPS
The United States Postal Service (USPS) also has a shipping rate calculator for you to discover how much you’ll be spending to send your bulk cards. USPS is the best carrier if you’re shipping under 4,300 cards at a time. Even if you have to ship more than 4,300 cards, about 6,000 cards can fit inside the large flat rate box for about $22 to $25.
UPS
Shipping via UPS Ground gives you the most savings when shipping your bulk cards, which can still reach the recipient in 1 to 5 business days depending on how far they are from you. This is most effective for you’re shipping to a domestic address within the United States. According to UPS, about 90% of the packages sent via UPS Ground arrive to the recipient in 3 days or quicker. UPS also offers a shipping rate calculator.
Shipping Bulk Magic Cards to Another Country
Shipping your bulk Magic cards internationally rather than domestically can incur more fees that can make it less valuable to sell your bulk in the first place. For example, you may need to apply for a permit to be able to legally send goods to another country. Especially if you’re shipping from the United States to Europe, costs that add up can include customs and taxes, fuel costs for flying the package to another country, and other shipping and handling charges that would be much higher than undergoing the domestic shipping process.
Wrap Up
Soul Transfer | Illustration by Lorenzo Mastroianni
Shipping your bulk Magic cards can make it easy for you to clear out your cabinets while the Magic player or card buyer receives more additions to their collection without having to go too far. However, if you and the card buyer live close by, local meet-ups can reduce your shipping costs. If you’d rather not go through the hassle of selling your bulk and are okay with giving back to the community, there’s also the option of donating your bulk Magic cards to different organizations that teach kids about the game.
We know you’re itching to crack more packs and that, eventually, your bulk collection will accumulate again. Draftsim is your destination for all things Magic: The Gathering, where you can do more than figure out what to do with all your bulk. Get inspiration for deckbuilding ideas with our deck guides, or try running a draft simulator from any Magic set! As always, you can get the latest updates by following the Draftsim Facebook page.
Until then, find your solution for taming that bulk collection so you can make room for more of the best cards!
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