Shipping policy

We ship cards bought from the store. Collection services are separate: we do not accept cards by mail, and everything on this page is about outbound orders only.

Where we ship

United States addresses only, including APO and FPO. We do not ship internationally and cannot use a freight forwarder on your behalf.

We ship to the address you enter at checkout. We do not deliver in person, and an order cannot be collected at an appointment.

What shipping costs

One shipping charge per order, set by how many cards are in it. Up to three cards fit in a plain envelope and travel at letter rate. A fourth will not fit under the thickness the post office allows a letter, so the order becomes a parcel and the postage jumps. The same table prices the product page and the checkout, so the figure you see is the figure you pay.

Delivery estimates are the carrier’s, counted from the day the package is accepted. They are estimates, not guarantees, and we have no control over them once the package is scanned in.

Orders of $150 or more ship free, whatever the card count. The $150 free-shipping threshold never reaches Bubble mailer, signed for and insured: signature confirmation and insurance are a real cost on an order that size, and we would rather charge for them than quietly drop them.

Anything shipping as “Plain envelope, not tracked” travels as a letter, which the post office does not scan, so there is no tracking number to give you. Any order can be upgraded to Bubble mailer, tracked for $9.50 on the payment page, and that one is scanned end to end. It is the only way a small order gets a delivery record, which matters for the claim rules below.

Some items — our card packs — already have the shipping in the price. An order holding one of them ships free, and anything else you add to that order rides along in the same mailer at no extra charge. That holds even where the order total would otherwise call for Bubble mailer, signed for and insured — it still ships that way, and there is still nothing to add.

Orders of $250 or more ship with signature confirmation and insurance. Someone has to be there to sign; we cannot waive it.

How long we take to ship

We pack and hand over orders within 2 business days of payment, excluding weekends and United States federal holidays. Orders placed on a weekend or a holiday go out on the next business day.

Where an order ships tracked you get the number by email as soon as the label is created. The label being created is not the same as the carrier having the package; the first real scan is.

How cards are packed

Every card ships in a penny sleeve inside a top loader, then in a team bag. Which envelope it travels in depends on how many cards are in the order and is named in the shipping table above: up to three cards go in a plain envelope, four or more in a bubble mailer. A graded card is the exception to the count. It ships in its slab, in a mailer, boxed and braced so the slab cannot move, however few cards are in the order - a slab does not fit a letter - and we do not charge you the difference.

Multiple cards in one order ship together in one package unless the order is large enough that splitting it is safer.

Tracking, lost packages and damage

Bubble mailers ship with tracking; plain envelopes are letters and carry none. Where there is a tracking number you get it by email. If tracking stops moving for several days, email us before opening a dispute: we can see things on the carrier side that you cannot.

Where a tracked package goes missing or arrives damaged we open the claim with the carrier. That claim is how we get our own money back and it takes weeks rather than days; it is not what decides your refund. A letter is never scanned at all, so a missing one has no carrier claim behind it — which is a difference in what we can recover, and in what a carrier can say about your order. Where the carrier has recorded an order as delivered we cannot refund it, whichever service carried it, because there is nothing left to claim and nothing to wait for. Tell us either way: the returns policy says what happens next.

If a letter-rate order has not arrived 21 days after it shipped, and the carrier has not recorded it as delivered, tell us and we refund it in full. There is no claim to make on a letter, so we carry that cost ourselves rather than leave it with you.

If a tracked order has not arrived 21 days after it shipped, and the carrier has not recorded it as delivered, we refund it in full on the same terms as a letter: one clock and one exception, whichever service carried the order. What the upgrade buys is the delivery record, and the record cuts both ways - it is what lets us claim against the carrier, a claim that is ours to chase rather than yours to wait on, and it is also the one thing that can show an order as delivered. The returns policy has the whole of it.

That is the whole of the difference, and it does not all run one way. A letter is almost never scanned at all, so the exception above can only really bite on the service you paid extra for: the delivery scan that lets us claim against a carrier is the same scan that can show an order as delivered and end your refund. Tracking buys the record and the recovery, not a better refund. We would rather price the upgrade honestly than sell it as cover it does not give.

Address errors

Check your address before you pay. Once a label is created we cannot change it, and the carrier will not redirect a package for us.

A package that comes back to us undeliverable is sent again once the postage is paid a second time, or refunded less the original shipping if you would rather not. The address came from your order and we have already paid to send it once.