Woody's World - Cats, guitars and sports cards

Definition of some common collecting terms

Like most activities, card collecting has its own collection of terms. Here's a list of some of these terms together with a definition.

Term	Definition
1/1	This represents a card that is completely unique. Only one was produced, and this is it. Read as "one of one". (See numbered card below)
Autograph (Auto)	When referring to a card, this means that the card has the player's autograph on the card. The auto may be "on-card", in which case it was actually signed on the card itself, or it may be a "sticker", which is signed separately from the card and then glued to the card. Autos may be an original feature of the card - that is, it came signed from the manufacturer - in which case it probably has some sort of authentication on the card. Or it may have been (allegedly) signed by the player at a later date - at a card show or by mail, for example. There is a flourishing market for fake autographs, so beware of buying any autograph that's not authenticated.
Base set	For a given brand, year and type of card, the Base set is the most common set. It consists of those cards you're most likely to find if you open a pack. The cards are generally numbered in sequence from 1 up to however many cards there are in the set. It does not include parallels (see parallel) or inserts (see insert).
Beckett	Beckett produces a number of magazines for different sports as well as a website. Their purpose is to provide retail prices for virtually all mainstream cards. They generally show a "high" value which they call "full retail price" - that is, the price a dealer might be expected to charge - and a "low" value which they claim is about the lowest price you could find for the card. I find the website price guide much easier to use than the magazines, more complete by far and also more timely, but more expensive. Most collectors treat the Beckett prices as guidelines rather than absolutes. Prices may vary widely from the Beckett listing for many reasons, but they at least provide a starting point for negotiations. (See Book Value)
Blaster box	This describes a small box offered for sale usually in a retail store such as Target. It probably contains just a few packs of a specific set.
Book value (BV)	This is the generally accepted price for a given card. Almost always book value means the value Beckett has assigned to it. (See Beckett)
Chrome	Chrome cards were introduced by Topps in the 1990's. They have a metallic look with a distinctive rainbow sheen. Bowman Chrome rookie cards are frequently the most popular rookie cards. (See refractor)
Common	A common is a run-of-the-mill card in the set. It may be a card of an undistinguished player or otherwise has little value.
Die-cut	Die-cut cards are cut in some unusual way and are not the ordinary rectangular shape.
Error card	An error card, as its name implies, contains some kind of error. It might be an obvious error, such as a picture of a wrong player on the front, or it might be something subtle, such as a bad statistic on the back. A corrected error is one which was caught by the manufacturer during production and fixed before all the cards were printed. An uncorrected error is one that was never corrected, either because it was not noticed or because the manufacturer thought it too insignificant to fix. (There's also a chance that the "error" was actually intentionally put in by the manufacturer.) Some people collect error cards, and in many cases a card can be more valuable with the error than in its corrected form.
Game-used	In the 1990's card manufacturers began to create cards that had pieces of a player's uniform or bat actually embedded in the card. These pieces were usually noted as having been used by the player in a professional game. These pieces have been extended to include all kinds of things: gloves, stadium seats, hub cap and tire pieces (NASCAR), and I don't know what all. The cards today may hold several different pieces of game-used equipment as well as an autograph. (See memorabilia)
Hit	A hit generally is a valuable card taken from a pack or box. Collectors frequently ask "how many hits are in that box?", meaning (usually) how many autos or memorabilia cards can you expect to find in that box.
Hobby box	A hobby box is a box of cards of a particular brand sold in a hobby shop. The hobby box usually contains more cards than the retail box (see Retail box) with greater odds of finding memorabilia cards or other inserts.
Insert	An insert is any special card included in a pack other than a variation (see variation) or a parallel (see parallel). The variety of inserts offered today seems to be nearly endless.
Memorabilia	A memorabilia card has inserted in it or on it some piece of something (see game-used) that is normally associated with the person shown on the card. An amazing variety of things are cut up to make memorabilia cards.
Numbered card	Most cards have some sort of number. Usually the base set cards (see base set) are numbered from 1 up to however many cards are in the set. Inserts may be numbered sequentially or they may be prefixed with some letters. This is not what is meant by a numbered card. Certain sets are limited to a specific number of cards. Each card in that set has a specially printed entry on the card which indicates how many of that card were produced and which one of that set this particular card is. For example, a card numbered "37/50" is identified as the 37th of 50 cards which were produced of this type. Such a card would be described as �numbered to 50�. This particular card would be referenced as �numbered 37 of 50�. (See 1/1)
Parallel	A parallel is an alternate version of a base set card (see base set) which differs in some way from the corresponding base card. Textually it is the same as the base card - same picture on the front, same details on the back - but typically it has a different color border or background than the base card. It may be numbered. (See numbered card). For a given parallel type there is one parallel card for each base set card.
Pull	As a verb, pull means to find a card in a pack or box. As a noun it means that which was found in the box. Usually when a collector refers to a pull it means something unusually valuable - an auto, for example. Pull and hit are very similar, but I would say that "hit" refers to the potential that a card is in a pack or box, while "pull" means that such a card was actually found when the pack or box was opened.
Redemption	Sometimes the card company for whatever reason cannot have an autograph card actually physically signed by the person at the time the cards are produced. In that case the company will include a redemption card which must be mailed in or redeemed online by the finder. The company will then mail the card to the collector when it becomes available. Redemption cards typically have an expiration date.
Refractor	A refractor is a form of chrome card (see chrome) which is especially shiny and rainbow-like. They are usually identified on the back as "refractor". Topps has many rarer versions of refractors called "x-fractors", "superfractors", etc. Refractors are generally more valuable than base chrome cards.
Reprint	Companies will occasionally create cards which are identical to older classic cards, except that they are (or should be!) identified as "Reprint".
Retail box	A retail box is a box of cards of a particular brand sold in a store such as Target or Wal-mart. The retail box sometimes contains cards not found in the hobby box (see hobby box), but generally it will contain fewer cards than the hobby box and fewer inserts.
Short print (SP)	A short print is a base set card (see base set) which is printed in a lower quantity than other base cards. There is usually no way to tell by looking at the cards which are short-printed. The Beckett website price guide is a good place to find this out (see Beckett).
Subset	A subset is a collection of regular base set cards (see Base set) which deal with a particular topic. For example, 1960 Topps baseball has cards 117 to 147 which are labeled "1960 Rookie Star". They can be considered a subset of the entire set.
Variation	A variation is a version of a base set card (see base set) which is numbered the same as the regular card but is different in some way. It differs from a parallel (see Parallel) in that there is not a variation for each base set card, but only a few scattered throughout the set. For example, recent Topps sets have included variations which may show the same player as the base card but in a different pose or background, or they may show a completely different player (usually a hall of famer).
Vintage	Cards produced before 1980 are frequently called vintage. I personally would like to consider vintage to be cards produced in the 1960's or earlier.
Wax	Cards used to come in boxes (and packs) that were sealed inside waxed paper. For sentimental reasons, I guess, boxes are still referred to as "wax", even though they are uniformly wrapped in cellophane these days. Hence you may hear a collector refer to opening (or "busting") some "wax", meaning he's opening a box or a pack.