What If Pokémon Cards Are Damaged in the Post?

A parcel of cards can arrive crushed, soaked or not at all, and the question of who carries that loss is worth settling before you post rather than afterwards. The short answer for most sales is that the risk sits with the sender until the cards arrive, which means the packing and the insurance are the seller’s problem.

That is our own position, stated plainly: shipping and insurance are the seller’s responsibility. It is worth explaining why, and what to do about it.

Why the risk sits with the sender

Until the cards are in the buyer’s hands, nobody else can verify what was in the parcel or what condition it was in. A buyer who agreed to carry transit risk would be agreeing to pay for cards they never saw, on the word of the person selling them.

This is not a quirk of one buyer. Marketplaces work the same way — a seller is generally responsible for the item arriving as described, and “the carrier crushed it” does not usually transfer that. It is also why the tracking and the packing matter so much in a dispute: they are the only evidence that exists.

The practical consequence is that a seller should treat the journey as part of the sale rather than as an afterthought that happens once the deal is done.

What insurance actually does and does not do

Two things surprise people.

Collectables are frequently excluded or capped. Many carriers limit or exclude trading cards, coins, stamps and similar categories, or cap them far below the parcel value. A declared value is not the same as covered value. The exclusions are in the terms, and the time to read them is before you choose the service.

Cover follows packing. A claim generally requires that the item was packed adequately for the journey. Cards loose in an envelope that arrive bent are, from the carrier’s view, a packing failure rather than a handling failure. That assessment is made by them, not you.

So insurance is worth having and is not a substitute for packing. It is the thing that covers the parcel going missing entirely, which is the loss you genuinely cannot pack against.

The evidence to gather before you seal the box

This is the part almost everyone skips, and it is the part that decides claims.

Photograph the cards. Fronts and backs of anything individually valuable, in good light, before they go anywhere. This doubles as the record of condition, which matters for the sale as much as for any claim. Our guide to photographing cards for an offer covers doing it quickly.

Photograph them packed. Cards in sleeves, sleeves in loaders, loaders in the box. This is what demonstrates adequate packing.

Photograph the sealed parcel with the label on. Ties the contents to the tracking number.

Keep the receipt and the tracking. Obvious, routinely lost.

Five minutes, and it converts a dispute about memory into a dispute about evidence.

Packing that removes the question

The packing standard is not complicated, and it is the same whether the cards are going to us or to a marketplace buyer.

Anything worth more than a few dollars: penny sleeve first, then a top loader. Sleeve inside loader, in that order. The sleeve stops the loader scuffing the surface; the loader stops the card bending.

Loaders then need to be immobilized — between two pieces of rigid card, or in a bubble mailer with enough padding that nothing shifts. A loader rattling around a box is a loader that arrives with dinged corners.

Bulk and commons travel in rows in a sturdy box, packed tightly enough that the rows cannot slide when the box is turned over. Empty space is what does the damage.

Tape the box, never the cards. Tape on a card is permanent.

One distinction worth keeping straight, because it trips people up: PSA asks for a semi-rigid holder and specifically not a top loader for cards submitted to them for grading. That is their handling requirement, not a general shipping rule. Cards coming to us want the sleeve and loader. Our shipping guide has the full detail.

Choosing a service for what you are actually sending

The right postal service depends on the value, and the mistake runs in both directions.

Low-value bulk sent by a tracked, insured premium service can cost more in postage than the cards are worth. That is a real loss, just a quieter one than damage.

A single valuable card sent in a plain envelope to save a few dollars is the expensive mistake. Cheap services generally have no tracking, no cover and no evidence trail, so a card that vanishes simply vanishes.

The dividing line most sellers settle on is whether losing the parcel entirely would genuinely hurt. If it would, pay for tracking and signature, and check the collectables exclusion before assuming the insurance applies. If it would not, send it cheaply and accept the small risk knowingly.

One thing worth doing regardless of value: use a service with tracking that shows delivery. Proof of delivery is what settles the far more common dispute — not damage, but a buyer saying nothing arrived.

If something does go wrong

Work in this order.

Do not unpack more than you must. Photograph the parcel as it arrived, damage and all, before removing anything. Carriers ask for this and it cannot be recreated.

Tell the other party immediately. A message the same day reads very differently from one a fortnight later.

Open the claim within the carrier’s window. These are shorter than people expect, sometimes a matter of days for damage.

Keep the packaging. Carriers sometimes ask to inspect it, and disposing of it can end a claim.

If the cards are wet rather than crushed, speed matters more than paperwork. Damp cards stick, warp and grow mold that spreads to whatever they touch — the water damage guide covers what to do in the first hour.

What we do at our end

For completeness, since the question follows naturally: cards are reviewed on arrival and payment follows that review. If a parcel arrives damaged, we photograph it as received before anything is opened, and you get those photographs. That is the same evidence you would need for a claim.

We do not pay before seeing the cards, and we would be wary of anyone who offered to. An offer made from photographs is conditional on the photographs being accurate, and the arrival is when that gets checked.

The damage that happens before the post office

Worth naming, because it is more common than carrier damage: cards get hurt between the shelf and the box.

Pulling a stack out of a tight binder page scuffs edges. Sliding a card into a loader at an angle dings a corner. Rubber bands leave permanent indentations and, given a few months, permanent marks. Stacking loaded cards under something heavy bows them.

None of that is the carrier’s doing, and all of it happens in the hour before despatch, usually in a hurry. Slow down for that hour. Take cards out of pages one at a time, seat each one in its sleeve before the loader goes anywhere near it, and lay the packed loaders flat rather than standing them up.

If the collection has been stored badly for years rather than minutes, the damage is already done and honest photographs are the right response — our storage guide covers stopping it getting worse.

The short version

The sender carries the risk, insurance often excludes collectables, and claims are won on photographs taken before the parcel was sealed. Sleeve, loader, immobilize, tape the box.

If you are about to send a collection and want the condition documented properly first, send us the photos — the same set works for the offer and for any claim you hope never to make.