What's Hot in Trading Cards

Today's trading cards owe much of their popularity to the success of baseball cards, which gained critical acclaim in the middle of the 20th century. By limiting production and only releasing very small quantities of certain cards, trading cards have an ever-growing back-end (or aftermarket) appeal.

Aside from trading cards being a lucrative collector's item, they are fun for kids of all ages. A single pack of cards is quite inexpensive, and almost always contains at least one "rare" card. Some children love to trade cards with their friends so that they can complete an entire "set" of cards.

Although sports cards are the mainstay of the trading card market, manufacturers have found much success by branching out to comic books, TV shows, and Japanese video games and anime. For example, are few popular non-sports trading cards are:

Pokemon Trading Cards

Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Cards

Marvel Comics Trading Cards

DC Comics Trading Cards

Harry Potter Trading Cards

Star Wars Trading Cards

Today, hot items include trading cards that feature pop-culture themes and franchises, such as the Harry Potter and Yu-Gi-Oh trading cards. Generally speaking, the success of a trading card set is directly correlated with the success of the franchise to which it belongs.

For example, most Star Trek trading cards aren't fetching premium prices these days because the Star Trek franchise popularity has been dwindling. However, since the Harry Potter books and movies seem to be exceeding in every way, the Harry Potter trading cards are still well-received.

Another hot item: CCG's

New to the market in the past five years are Collectible Card Games, or CCG's for short. These products resemble trading cards in size and shape, and are sold in packs, just like trading cards.

The only difference is that they can be used to actually play a game with other people! Just like trading cards, certain cards are rare or uncommon, thus being worth more money in the secondary market. A few popular CCG's today include:

Magic: The Gathering

Pokemon

Digimon

Warlord

Comic-related

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