Sell Your Bulk Pokemon Cards

Checking the buylist light

01Today’s rates

Category	Cash per 1,000	Cash per card	Credit per 1,000	Credit per card
Commons and uncommons, sorted	$15	1.5c	$19	1.9c
Commons and uncommons, unsorted	$9	0.9c	$11	1.1c
Trainers, non holo bulk	$12	1.2c	$15	1.5c
Reverse holo commons and uncommons	$30	3c	$38	3.8c
Non holo rares	$25	2.5c	$31	3.1c
Holo rares	$35	3.5c	$44	4.4c
ACE SPEC	$100	10c	$125	12.5c
V and GX	$250	25c	$313	31.3c
ex and EX	$300	30c	$375	37.5c
VMAX and VSTAR	$400	40c	$500	50c
Illustration Rare, full art, secret	$450	45c	$563	56.3c
Basic energy	Not accepted. Pull it before you ship; energy adds weight and nothing else.

Rates as of August 28, 2026. Store credit pays 25 percent more than cash. Unsorted bulk is accepted at 60 percent of these rates. English, Near Mint, unsleeved.

02How it works

Count and submit

Enter your counts by category in the portal. You get an instant estimate and a submission ID. The estimate is not an offer; it is the math on your numbers.

Box and mail

Ship to the address on your confirmation with your ID on the box. Inbound shipping is your cost; tracking is strongly recommended.

We recount

Every box is counted by hand. Our count governs, and any category that moves more than 10 percent shows side by side in your offer.

Accept, then get paid

The final offer lands by email. Accept it and payment follows by PayPal, or store credit worth 25 percent more. Payment always comes last, after verification, never on the spot.

Start a submission

A fanned pile of Pokemon card backs resting on a blue couch — Every closet has a pile like this. Ours pays for it.

03What we accept, illustrated

Heatran card 100/172 from Brilliant Stars, an example of a non holo rare with the black star rarity symbol — **Non holo rare, $25 per 1,000**Black star symbol, flat artwork. Rarity comes from the symbol, never the shine.

Moltres card 021/172 from Brilliant Stars, an example of a holo rare where the artwork shines — **Holo rare, $35 per 1,000**The artwork itself shines. A reverse holo shines everywhere except the artwork and counts in its own category.

Charizard V alt art card 154/172 from Brilliant Stars, an example of the V class tier — **V and GX class, 25 cents per card**The card name says V or GX. Full art framing does not change the tier; the name does.

Pikachu ex card 149/128, an example of the ex class tier with full art framing — **ex and EX class, 30 cents per card**Modern ex and vintage EX both land here. VMAX, VSTAR, and Illustration Rares each have their own higher lines in the table.

Rows of Pokemon cards inside a gray storage box on a wood table: a packed row of several hundred cards stood on edge at the left, small face up stacks part way through sorting in the middle, and toploaders and a Trainer card in the row behind — Mid sort. One row per pile.

04How to sort

Back to the rates

Sorted commons and uncommons pay $15 per 1,000. The same cards unsorted pay $9. That premium is the entire argument for sorting, and earning it takes one pass down the box, not five.

The piles

Build this pileIt pays

Basic energyNot bought
Pull these out first. We do not buy them, and they are postage weight and nothing else.
Commons and uncommons$15 per 1,000
A circle or a diamond at the bottom of the card, flat artwork. One pile, not two.
Non holo rares$25 per 1,000
A star at the bottom of the card, and the artwork stays flat.
Holo rares$35 per 1,000
A star at the bottom, and the artwork itself shines.
Reverse holos$30 per 1,000
The background shines and the artwork does not. If the symbol is a star, it moves up to holo rares instead.
Trainers$12 per 1,000
The word TRAINER runs across the top instead of a Pokemon name. If a trainer shines, the higher value category wins and it moves up to the holo pile.
The special pile10c to 45c per card
V, ex, GX, VMAX, VSTAR, full art, Illustration Rare, ACE SPEC. One pile while you sort, split into its five lines when you fill in the form.

One box, one row, or one banded stack per pile, and nothing else. Every pile above is a line on the rate table, which is the point: a pile that exists is a number on your offer.

A single Pokemon card standing upright at the front of a packed row of cards inside a storage box, its artwork facing the camera — The special pile is the one that leaves here again as singles, so stand those up as you find them. Everything else gets counted by the thousand.

The one pass

Is it a basic energy?Out of the box
Does the background shine while the artwork does not?Reverse holos
That is a reverse holofoil: the foil is printed on the background of the card and not on the picture. One exception. If the symbol at the bottom is a star, it is a reverse holo rare, and the higher value category rule sends it to the holo rare pile instead.
Does the artwork itself shine?Holo rares
Otherwise, read the symbol at the bottom of the card.Star: non holo raresCircle or diamond: commons and uncommons
Does the word TRAINER run across the top?Trainers
Trainer is the third card type, alongside Pokemon and Energy, and it says so on the card. That header is the fastest tell in the box.
Does it wear a big special frame? V, ex, GX, VMAX, VSTAR, full art, Illustration Rare, ACE SPEC.The special pile
This one overrides every step above it, because it is the only pile we pay by the card instead of by the thousand.

What not to do

Do not alphabetize.Nothing in our count cares what letter a card starts with, and putting a box in order is the slowest thing you can do to it.
Do not sort by set.We pay by category, not by set. Splitting a box by set turns one evening into five and pays exactly the same at the end of it.
Do not sleeve bulk.Sleeves come off at our counter and go in the bin, and on the way here they add real postage weight to a box you are paying to ship.
Do not split by type or color.Fire, water, and grass all pay the same rate. The pile is the category, never the color on the card.

Counting and packing

Count in hundreds
Stack a hundred, band it, start the next one. Our recount governs the offer, and a banded hundred is what makes a recount quick. That is the whole reason we ask.
Label every pile
Category and count, on a sticky note or straight on the box flap. Holo rares 400. Trainers 1,200. That is everything a label needs to say.
Pack it tight
Fill the gaps so nothing slides in transit. Cards that move around arrive with soft corners, and corners are condition.
Submission ID on the outside
It is the difference between your recount starting the day the box lands and starting the day someone works out whose box it is.

Honestly, how long does it take. A monster box runs roughly 3,000 to 5,000 cards and sorts in about an evening once the piles are laid out on the table. On 5,000 commons and uncommons that evening is the difference between $75 and $45, and the bigger half of the gain is everything else in the box: reverse holos, holo rares, and the special pile only reach their own lines when they are in their own piles. If you would rather not sort, ship it unsorted. Unsorted bulk is genuinely welcome at 60 percent of the rates, and a box that never gets mailed because sorting felt like homework helps nobody.

05The rules we buy by

English cards only, Near Mint, unsleeved, sorted into the categories above. Unsorted accepted at 60 percent of sorted rates.
No basic energy. Pull it before you pack; it adds postage weight and earns nothing.
When a card fits two categories, the higher value category wins. A reverse holo rare counts as a holo rare, not a reverse holo common.
Inbound shipping is your cost and your risk until the box reaches us. Use tracking. We are not responsible for packages we have not received.
Mail to: Monster & Shield, 2552 Bengal Rd, North Charleston, SC 29406. Your submission ID goes on the box.

06Where to sell bulk Pokemon cards without the guesswork

Selling bulk is the part of the hobby with the least information in it. Half the shops that buy bulk never publish what they pay. The other half quote rates that only work if you drive the box to their counter. Selling card by card on a marketplace turns a closet cleanout into a second job. A buylist built for mail was the missing option, so that is what this page is.

The rates above are the actual numbers, on the open page, compared against every published competitor we can find each month. Cash lands via PayPal after your box is verified. Store credit pays 25 percent more and spends anywhere on the site, which turns a monster box into whole stacks of the exact card you want instead of pocket change. Between submission and payout you are never in the dark: a private status page tracks arrival, recount, offer, and payment, with an email at every step.

One honest note about pace, because it is the tradeoff mail buylists carry: from the day you ship to money in hand is typically one to two weeks, most of it postal transit and our recount queue. What you get for the wait is a verified count, a paper trail, and rates that do not need a haggle. If your bulk is sorted and Near Mint, you will not find a better published cash rate for commons and uncommons, and if someone posts one, tell us and watch this table move.

07Selling questions, answered straight

How much can I sell my bulk Pokemon cards for?

Sorted commons and uncommons earn $15 per 1,000 in cash or $19 in store credit. Reverse holos earn $30 per 1,000, holo rares $35, and the top tiers pay per card: 25 cents for V and GX class, 30 cents for ex, 40 cents for VMAX and VSTAR, and 45 cents for Illustration Rares, full arts, and secrets. The table above is the live price list; a 5,000 card closet cleanout with a normal mix typically lands between $75 and $150.

How do I actually sell you my cards?

Fill out the submission form with your counts by category and you get an instant estimate, a submission ID, and mailing instructions. Ship the box to us with your ID written on it. We recount everything by hand, email you a final offer, and pay when you accept. The whole trail lives on a private status page we email you.

When and how do I get paid?

After your cards arrive, our recount is done, and you accept the final offer. Nobody who buys bulk through the mail pays on the spot, and anyone promising instant payment before verifying a box is pricing that risk into a worse rate. Payment goes out by PayPal, or as store credit worth 25 percent more if you would rather turn bulk into singles or whole stacks from the shop.

Do I have to sort my cards first?

No, but sorting pays. Bulk sorted into our categories earns full rate; unsorted boxes earn 60 percent of the sorted rate because the sorting labor moves to our counter. If your collection is big, an afternoon of sorting is the best hourly rate in the hobby.

What counts as a reverse holo?

A reverse holofoil is a card of any rarity with the foil printed on the background of the card and not on the picture of the Pokemon, the Trainer, or the special energy. Tilt it under a light: if the frame and border shine while the picture stays flat, it is a reverse holo, and reverse holo commons and uncommons pay $30 per 1,000. One exception. A reverse holo with a star at the bottom is a reverse holo rare, and our higher value category rule pays it as a holo rare at $35 instead.

Do you buy basic energy cards?

No, and pulling them is the first move of any sort. Basic energy is the one thing on this page we do not buy, and it still costs you postage on the way here, so every energy card in the box is money spent shipping weight. Every category we do buy has its own line on the rate table above.

Does the rarity symbol decide what my cards pay?

Mostly. The symbol printed at the bottom of the card is the base read: a circle is a common, a diamond is an uncommon, and a star is a rare. Commons and uncommons share one line at $15 per 1,000, and rares split by whether the artwork shines, $25 flat or $35 holo. Two piles ignore the symbol. Reverse holos are read off the background foil, and anything wearing a V, ex, GX, VMAX, VSTAR, full art, Illustration Rare, or ACE SPEC frame is paid per card whatever its symbol says.

What if your count does not match mine?

Our recount governs the offer, and that cuts both ways: we regularly count more than sellers declared. If any category shifts more than 10 percent from what you declared, the offer email shows your count and ours side by side so you can see exactly where the difference is before deciding.

What happens if I decline the offer?

You choose at submission time: cards returned at your shipping cost, or donated. Decline the offer and we execute your choice, no hard feelings. Offers stay open 14 days with a reminder at day 10, so there is room to think.