THE COLLECTOR’S GUIDE TO MARVEL TRADING CARDS

Valuing Cards

There are two ways of judging value when you’re starting your collection. “Rule number one,” Barrionuevo says, “if you love the card, it’s valuable to you.”

CGC’S FAUSTO BARRIONUEVO TALKS ABOUT THE INS, OUTS, AND JOYS OF COLLECTING MARVEL CARDS.

BY JIM DANDENEAU

FAUSTO BARRIONUEVO IS A GEEK. We say this with the utmost respect: we are a veritable Den of them, after all. He, like most of us, got his start in nerdery early. “I was seven, and I came across something Silver Surfer,” he tells us. “And I was like, ‘This character is really cool,’ and I very quickly got a 1992 or ’93 Marvel Universe card for the first time and read about the character. It [had] Ron Lim art on the front and the power ratings and bio on the back. The card taught me everything about the character.” From there, he set out to collect every Silver Surfer card made, and that eventually set him up in the position he’s in today—senior advisor and Marvel card expert for Certified Collectibles Group, the company that grades and preserves all sorts of collectibles, from trading cards to comics to stamps to pretty much anything one could collect. He is passionate about Marvel cards and collecting in general and was thrilled to share his knowledge and experience with new and old collectors alike.

There are cards that are objectively valuable. The Sketchagraph cards from 1998’s Skybox Marvel Creator’s Collection set are obscenely valuable, but there was one chase card that could only be found if someone collected a set of them and mailed them off to a redemption center. They would receive in return a Spider-Man card, sketched by beloved artist Mike Wieringo, with Wieringo and Stan Lee’s autographs on the back. Only about 30 of those exist in the wild now. “That card is super coveted,” Barrionuevo tells us, “because it’s impossible to get.”

But there are cards that are personally valuable, too. “[The point of collecting] is to have pieces in your collection that either have some sentimental value or to keep track of the history of the thing,” he says. So Marvel’s Sleepwalker isn’t going to light the collector’s market on fire, even if, for some ridiculous reason, Marvel decides to make him the centerpiece of Phase 8 of the MCU. But if you’re someone who enjoys the character, loves his design, and loves the stories he’s in, then you should grab as many cards as you can with Sleepwalker on them because people should rep what they love.

Priority Targets

That said, if you’re a new collector who’s trying to pick out new items with long-term value, there is some useful guidance available.

Card companies do recognize the collectibility of their products now, and they design pieces of their sets with collectors in mind. “A lot of cards right now [have] parallels and variants, and sometimes they’re hard numbered,” Barrionuevo says. “So if you’d like one particular card, you could kind of find that card and a very low number and hunt for that.”

There is also pop culture value. Sleepwalker isn’t likely to be in an MCU production, but if he ever is, expect a spike. Loki is one of Marvel’s oldest villains, the character who birthed the Avengers in-universe, and a mastermind behind several big event comics. But when it was announced that he got his own TV show, the value of relevant memorabilia (like those early Impel cards) skyrocketed and then stabilized at a fairly high level.

Protecting Your Collection

There are also cards that are graded. Barrionuevo’s team at CGC looks at the condition of cards, assigns them a number grade based on how well taken care of they are, and then locks them up in a hard plastic case to protect them from wear and the elements.

And a good distinction between graded cards and other

TOP: 2022 Marvel Fleer Ultra Avengers Emerald Medallion Thor MIDDLE: 1990 Marvel Universe #54 Loki Trading Card CGC 9

BOTTOM: Gambit 1994 Marvel Universe Series V #100 CGC 9.5 memorabilia like comics is that graded cards are still usable. A graded comic is sealed away and can’t be used again—you need to have an extra copy if you want to read it. But a graded card can be displayed, and both front and back can still be seen.

One Neat Trick To Collecting Marvel Cards

Ultimately, the most important thing you can do as a collector is to love what you’re collecting. There’s no special trick to it—if you’re in it for the money, there’s plenty of that to find, but it hollows out the experience. “These cards were designed by people who care about their jobs and want to do cool things,” he says. “When you’re a hobbyist, it’s about being part of the community.” It’s about sharing what you love with people who love the same things. That’s where the real value of collecting these cards comes from.

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