FAQ's

Currently, we are only buying cards in each of our stores. Before you come down, the best thing to do is call 0798-2232437. We can give you advice, and let you know when is best to pop instore.
Before we get into details, when we make an offer for your cards we generally pay between 40% and 65% of the current selling price for cards we need, and sometimes pennies for others, regardless of the asking price elsewhere. We are the place to come to if you want to sell all your cards at once, without any work or selling fees or 48 trips to the Post Office. 

IMPORTANT RULES
We can only buy your cards. We cannot buy cards from third parties.
We can only trade or buy from Customers aged 18 or older. If you are under 18, you must bring a Parent/Guardian and they MUST bring their ID (see below)
We require Photo ID (Passport/Driving Licence), as well as proof of a current address (Utility bill etc.)
Payments of cash over £20.00 are made by Bank Transfer.

Pokemon
To speed up the appraisal process, and to get a better offer the best thing to do is separate the common and uncommon cards from the rares. Standard energy cards have no value, code cards have no value.

Classic Pokemon – Base Set, Jungle, Fossil, Team Rocket Base 2
Firstly, I’m sorry to tell you that you aren’t a millionaire. This stuff is super common, and is the thing we are offered most. Everybody has a folder in the loft or under the bed.
Commons and Uncommons bulk we pay a 1p-5p each in store credit, less in cash.
Standard rares 10p-50p, Holo Rares £1-£5 in store credit, less in cash.
Exceptions to this are Charizard, Blastoise and Venusaur from Base Set, and Dark Charizard Holo from Team Rocket. We can’t quote for these without seeing them as prices vary wildly.
Everything else we have to check the prices on rarer cards and promo cards.
Please remember that everything from this era was HUGELY mass produced and we’ve bought more of this in the last 2 years than in the previous 10 years.
If you cards have any kind of damage (chips, dinks, scuffs, scratches or your name written on the back in biro) the price offered will be lower.
If your cards are minty mint, then we are happy to pay more.

2001-2007
Commons and uncommons are usually 1p-5p, but can vary hugely. Everything else we have to check the prices on rarer cards and promo cards.

2008- Present
Commons and Uncommons bulk we pay a penny each in store credit, less in cash.
Standard rares 3p-5p, Holo Rares 5p-10p in store credit, less in cash. Reverse Holo’s have the same price as the standard cards. In theory they are rarer, but in practice nobody cares. 
Everything else we have to check the prices on rarer and herd-to-find cards, but more common EX’s, V’s and Trainer Gallery cards are USUALLY between 30p and 50p.

Yu-gi-oh!
Unfortunately we cannot accept common cards. 1^st Edition cards for Yu-gi-oh! Are sometimes more common than the unlimited cards, unless it’s a incredibly sought after card.
Yugioh cards prices vary wildy, but even most of the rares are still worth pennies.
Also a quick note about Yugioh foil cards (Super Rares and Secret Rares)
Foil cards that come in Starter Decks or Collector Tins or Hidden Arsenal packs (the card code usually starts with HA, SD or CT) have a much lower value than rares that come from packs, as technically they are common. There's one or more in every pack.
If a lot of the cards you have are from starter decks or tins the offer will be a lot lower than for rarer cards, even though they are sometimes listed as the same rarity.

Also Please Note: Card Empire DO NOT accept counterfeit cards of any kind. If the cards we receive are counterfeit we will inform you and offer to dispose of them.
Card Empire DO NOT Buy, Sell or Trade counterfeit cards.

We use the completed auctions on eBay as an up-to date guide for the latest pricing for the cards we buy.
We usually pay 40% - 65% of the lowest selling price if it's something we need, or less if it's something we are well stocked on, regardless of the prices on this or any other website. We just don't want you taking time and effort bring your cards in with an unreal expectation of what your cards are actually worth.

Here's how we price your cards
1) Got to Ebay.co.uk
2) Type the title and card code number into the search bar (TDGS-EN000 for Yugioh, Charizard 4/102 for Pokemon etc.) and hit enter.
You'll see your card with a price next to it.
3) Under 'Item Location' click on 'Worldwide'
4) Under 'Show Only' click on 'Completed Listings'
5) Then top right you'll see a 'Sort' dropdown menu. Click on it and select 'Lowest Price'
6) If the price at the top is shown in green, this is the price your card has sold for recently.
7) Selling your cards on eBay costs £1.20 per card when listed individually. Take away £1.20 from the lowest sold price.
8) If you list and sell your card at 99p as a lot of people do, you lose 21p per card, as well as all the time you've spent.
9) We have to compete with current online selling prices, so sometimes common cards can be worth less than a penny, and the more common rare cards can be worth between 1p-5p each. If the cards you are trading in are what's left after you've removed all the good ones then the offer will reflect this.

You may make more money selling the cards yourself. Don't forget the hours or days it'll take to create the ebay listings, then the 15p-50p per card it'll cost to list them, then the cost of picking, packing and sending the item, plus your time to do all the above. Then there are the finishing fees, and PayPal fees too. If you list and sell your card at £1.00, your total fees will be 45p, plus postage if it sells first time. The hidden cost of eBay is the cost to re-list the cards which usually eats into the extra you may make on odd items.

We accept cards that are as-new, and cards that have light wear. If you have played with the cards then they are worth about 10% - 50% of the value of new cards, depending on its condition.
If you have played with the card, and it has light wear, we need you to mark the card as 'used'
when listing the cards. Light wear means scuffs on the back of the card.
We CANNOT accept cards that have creases, folds or are damaged in any other way. Please check the condition of your cards carefully, as if cards are received in poor condition, then you will be responsible for the cost of return postage.

Also Please Note: Card Empire DO NOT accept counterfeit cards of any kind.
If the cards we receive are counterfeit we will inform you and offer to dispose of them.
Card Empire DO NOT Buy, Sell or Trade counterfeit cards.

Hi Everyone!
I've just had a customer offer me some of his cards, and using my own calculations against me :) he valued them at the recent finishing prices on ebay. His calculations included the price he would sell them including the FREE POSTAGE that eBay like you to use (as they then earn 10% of your postage costs too.)
He had 94 cards, some multiples, but 74 different cards in the offering. The ebay finishing prices valued them at £120.00, so he felt that between £60 and £70 was a fair price. Sounds good so far?

I sat down and had a look,
1) The free postage element of the cards value totalled 94 x 53p (second class post) totalling £49.82. That's how much you'd have to pay to send the cards out.
2) Then there's ebay fees - 74 listings @ 10p per listing (£7.40), plus 10% of the finishing price (£12.00) That's £19.40.
3) Then there are PayPal fees. These are the biggest hidden cost for selling low value items on ebay. The cost amounts to about 30p PER ITEM when sold individually. So that's £27.98 for his cards.
4) Total all these fees together and you have £97.20

So on a sale of £120.00, you would receive £20.80 out of the £120.00.

Then there's your time:-
To create 74 listings, scan the cards and upload them all to ebay. Let's say you are a computer genius. This would probably take about 2 hours in total.

Then there's the time for 'handling'. No-one want to pay for this so you'll have to include this in your free postage :) To pick, pack and send the cards, It'll take about 3 mins per item to deal with the emails, send out invoices, wait for payment and print the invoice. So that's about 4 hours work.

Plus you'll have to go to the post office about 5 times which takes maybe another 2 hours in total.

Then there are a couple of extra costs:-

1) Your invoice and ink (let's say the paper and ink are 1p each I think that's fair) - 94p
2) Packing - For a top loader to stop the card getting damaged in transit plus a cheap envelope - let's say 10p per card so that's another £9.40.
3) Returns and lost items - out of 94 items you'll have a customer who returned it and wants a refund, and a customer who's item was lost in the post. Let's call that £2.00 in losses

So from £120.00 total received for your 94 cards you'll end up with - £8.36.
You'll have to work for 8+ hours - that's £0.98 per hour.

Now you can nit-pick about the maths but this even if things were 4 times better you'd still not achieve a reasonable return, and this assumes everything sells first time and DOES NOT even include the cost of the cards in the first place!

My biggest revelation from all this is EVERY item sold on ebay for 99p with Free Postage costs the seller at least £1.10 to sell.
They are giving you the card for free and paying for selling it too!

The Card Empire Manchester Store is inside the world famous Afflecks Palace, now just known as Afflecks.
The Address is:-
Card Empire
1st Floor, Afflecks
52 Church Street,
Northern Quarter,
Manchester, M4 1PW
If you want to find the shop quickly, the best thing to do is go through the Oldham Street entrance and go up the spiral staircase to the first floor. we are directly behind the poster shop.
Opening Times are
10.30 am to 6.00 pm Monday to Friday
10.00 am to 6.00 pm Saturday
11.00 am to 5.00 pm Sunday.

Card Empire
Stall 17,
Stockport Market Hall
Stockport
SK1 1ES

TUESDAY 9.00-4.30
THURSDAY 9.00-4.30
FRIDAY 9.00-4.30
SATURDAY 9.00-4.30

Card Empire Liverpool Address
Unit 68, St. John's Market,
St John's Shopping Centre
Liverpool L1 1NW

Liverpool Store Opening Hours
Monday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

St Johns Market is inside St Johns Shopping Centre, which is directly opposite Liverpool Lime St Station.
If you enter the Market from the street outside, we are on the right as you come through the doors.
If you enter the Market from the shopping centre, turn second left and we are at the end of the aisle.

How can I find the Card Empire Sheffield Store Address and what are the Opening Times?

Card Empire Sheffield Address
Unit 30/31 Moor Market,
77, The Moor
Sheffield City Centre S1 4PF

Sheffield Store Opening Hours
Monday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Moor Market is on the main shopping street in Sheffield, opposite Sainsbury’s
If you enter the Market from The Moor entrance, just walk down the incline, and head straight ahead towards the Food Court. We are the 5^th store on the left.

Each rare/foil card is shipped in it's own sleeve. Up to 25 common cards are put into a single larger sleeve for protection. then each order is placed in another sleeve, with a plastic top loader to protect the cards en route.
For smaller orders, the order is then placed inside the invoice, and then sent in a bubble envelope.
For larger orders, cards are packed in a similar way and sent in suitable sized boxed.
We have never had any cards damaged in the post.

Hope that clears up any points for everyone.

What condition are the 'used' cards on the site?
The used cards on the site are all ones that have been traded in from collections. We quality check the cards, and we remove any with bad damage (creases, folds, tears etc). The used cards we sell usually have either light scuffs on the back, or sometimes a light whitening around the edges. There's no nasty surprises here. Sometimes the cards traded in have not been played with, and are in a similar condition to the new cards.
We have a very special rule with the new and used cards.
Cards sold as new are pack pulled by us. Cards traded in are always sold as used. (even if they are near mint/mint)
Also Please Note: Card Empire DO NOT accept counterfeit cards of any kind.
Card Empire DO NOT Buy, Sell or Trade counterfeit cards.

To get the correct postage to your country just send a quick email and we can send you a quote.

In the U.K.
Orders are sent by Second Class Post in the UK, which usually takes 2-3 working days to arrive.

Europe
Orders usually take 7-10 working days to arrive.

Rest of the World
Orders Usually take 7-10 days to arrive, but can take up to 28 days.

We DO NOT buy, sell or trade counterfeit cards or counterfeit or bootleg product of any kind. Everything on this site is 100% genuine.
New product is purchased from Manufacturer approved and appointed wholesalers, or from the Manufacturer themselves.
Used product goes through a rigorous appraisal process. We have on more then one occasion identified and disposed of counterfeit product that was offered as genuine.
We offer a no-quibble 100% money back guarantee on all our products.
You can buy with confidence knowing the items you receive are the real thing.

For new customers we have to send the order to the cardholder address. This is to protect you and us from credit card and postal fraud, and is a requirement of your credit/debit card company or Paypal.

Once we have sent an order to the cardholder address we can then send subsequent orders to an alternate address, but we may require proof of delivery adding to your order (Recorded, Special Delivery, International Signed For) just in case, even if it's not usually a requirement with the order you've placed.

As usual, we don't profit from any postal fees, we just want to make sure that we are protecting you, and ourselves.

I hope you understand.

The images we receive from the manufacturers prior to release are sometimes of an open box.
Don't worry, all the boxes we sell are factory sealed and are untouched by human hand :)

In short, no.
All boxes of Yugioh and Pokemon come with a plastic seal which has the companies' logo on it. If you are buying a box from a company or individual without a FACTORY seal then this might not be the contents the manufacturer expected. This happens where unscrupulous sellers (particularly on auction sites) open boxes, find the packs with the best cards then sell the rest off cheaply. If you are offered 24 packs for less than the price of a box, or sellers have more than 24 packs on offer for Yu-Gi-Oh or 36 packs for Pokemon or Magic the Gathering stop and ask yourself why would they open more than one box at a time? and why are the packs cheaper when they are loose? Hopefully then you'll make an informed choice and get the best cards in your purchase.

Guide to Yu-Gi-Oh! Card Rarity.

Yu-Gi-Oh! player and collectors should know the different rarities for the cards. Here is a quick list:
Common: Common cards have no special quirks to them. No holofoil, no fancy lettering, just your standard card. They also come in three flavors (note that there is no visual way to determine if a Common is under any of the below rarities).
Normal Common: Your standard common card, and the easiest to find.
Short Print Common: As the name suggests, these common cards are printed in short supply, and while more common than the other rarities, they aren't as common as your typical commons..
Super Short Print Common: Much rarer than the Short Print commons, but more rare than the other rarities.

Rare: Rare cards are regular Common cards with their names printed in silver foil. These are the most common rarity of card to find next to Common cards.
Super Rare: Super Rare cards have the card art printed in a holographic foil.
Ultra Rare: Ultra Rare cards are a combination of Super and normal Rare cards, with foild lettering and holofoil art, except that the name is printed in gold foil instead of silver.
Secret Rare: Secret Rares (also known as Promo Rares) are the same as the Ultra Rare cards, except that the foil on the name is holographic silver, while the holofoil art is polarized, giving a cross-hatched look to it.
Ultimate Rare: Similar to the Ultra Rares, except that both the art, borders, and card 'buttons' (depicting the card type and, with monsters, their level) are embossed in a relief effect. These cards are generally reprints of Super and Ultra (and in the English game, normal Rare) cards of the recent sets, within those recent sets (meaning that you can sometimes get an Ultra Rare card and its Ultimate Rare counterpart in the same set). Be careful with these cards, as their unique printing also makes them thinner and flimsier than normal cards.
Parallel Rare: Simply an Ultra Rare card with the same polarizing effect of a Secret Rare over the ENTIRE card. These cards are the trickiest to find, as they're only printed as certain promos, and their appearance can also be mistaken as being fake.
Ghost Rare: Ghost Rare is a new rarity introduced in the TCG version of Tactical Evolution. It appears to have a very shiny silver lettering, much like a Secret Rare, with some colors removed from the card image, and the entire card appears to be holographic. The overall effect of these changes is a pale, "Ghost-like" appearance to the card art, especially when scanned.
Gold Ultra Rare: Gold Ultra Rare is a new type of rarity introduced in the Gold Series. It has gold lettering and a holographic foil image like an Ultra Rare, but also has a holographic gold image border, lore text border, and card border. On Monster Cards, the Level Stars are embossed in gold foil, similar to what is found on Ultimate Rares.

This is a really good question we received by e-mail. It always makes me wonder when I see packs of cards selling for less than they cost on auction sites, as they must have been 'scaled' or 'picked'
Our answer is simple. No we dont 'pick' the packs before we sell them, as we are wholly against that practice. We have a lot of customers who buy packs on a regular basis from us, which hopefully shows we run our business ethically.
With the addition of reverse holo's in each pack, I think that has 'foiled' (pun intended) the pickers from raiding premium packs from local shops.

We  take great delight in shuffling the packs when we open boxes, as some people used to try and count the packs, and anyone caught rubbing the packs is told in no uncertain terms that packs they pick in this way are £10 per pack. They usually put them back :)
I just want to make sure that the person buying the last pack has the same chance as the first. I hope that clears up an important point for everyone.

And my favourite story about this is a customer who bought the 21st pack out of a box of 24 packs of Extreme Victory from the Card Empire stand at the Telford Show a few years ago pulled the 'Tour Guide from the Underworld' card, with a value of over £100.00. I love it when customers pull great cards. They do too! :)