How it works

Buying

Where does the purchase actually happen?

On eBay. Every card links to its live listing, and checkout, payment and buyer protection all stay there. Agora is a nicer window onto the same inventory — it is not a separate shop with separate stock.

Are these prices current?

Yes. The collection re-syncs from eBay every few hours, so prices, bids and sold status follow whatever the listing says. If a card has just sold, it can linger here for a couple of hours until the next sync.

What's the difference between "Buy It Now" and "current bid"?

A Buy It Now card has a fixed price you can pay immediately. An auction shows the current bid and the time left — the final price isn't settled until it ends, so auctions can't be bought directly and aren't eligible for the direct discount.

Paying direct

What is it?

On Buy It Now cards you can pay me directly instead of going through eBay, and take a discount for doing it. eBay charges sellers roughly 13% of every sale; buying direct skips that fee, and the discount is me handing part of it back to you.

How do I do it?

Open a card, press Pay direct, and the popout shows the exact amount and a reference code like AG-065239. Pay that amount and put the code in the payment note — the code is how I know which card the payment is for.

Am I protected?

Paying direct skips eBay, so it also skips eBay's Money Back Guarantee. Payments go to a PayPal business account as Goods & Services, which carries PayPal's own buyer protection. That is a real protection, but it is not eBay's.

If you would rather have eBay's protection, buy on eBay. The card is the same either way and I am happy with either — the discount exists because the fee does, not because direct is better for me in some hidden way.

Why isn't it on every card?

Buy It Now cards only. An auction has no settled price until it closes, so there's nothing to discount — most of the collection is auctions, so most cards show only "Buy on eBay". A card can also show only that because it has already sold.

Shipping

How do cards ship?

Tracked, in a top loader and team bag, within two business days. Graded slabs ship in a fitted box. Shipping terms shown on an eBay listing are the ones that apply to that listing.

Can I combine several cards?

Yes — message me before paying and I'll sort combined shipping rather than charging you twice.

Reading a card

Card listings are dense with shorthand. Here's what the labels on each card mean.

RC

Rookie card — a player's first officially licensed card. Usually the most sought-after card of a given player.

Auto

Autographed. "On-card" means signed directly on the card; a sticker auto is signed on a sticker applied at the factory.

Patch / Relic

Contains a piece of memorabilia — jersey, glove, bat — embedded in the card.

/99

The print run: only 99 of this card exist. A smaller number means a scarcer card. Shown on the card as a numbered badge.

Serial

Where a card sits within its print run, e.g. 12/99 is the twelfth of ninety-nine. Not every numbered card shows one.

Parallel

A colour or finish variant of a base card — Silver, Gold, Refractor, Prizm and so on. Parallels are usually scarcer than the base version.

Insert

A themed subset within a set, like Kaboom! or Downtown, sitting outside the base numbering.

PSA / BGS / SGC

Grading companies. A graded card has been authenticated, assessed and sealed in a tamper-evident slab.

PSA 10

The grade, from 1 to 10. 10 is gem mint; 9 is mint. Grade drives value enormously — the same card can be worth many times more at 10 than at 9.

Raw

Ungraded. Condition is as described and shown in the photos.

Where does this information come from?

Directly from the eBay listing's item specifics — the structured fields filled in when the card was listed — rather than being retyped here. Anything I got wrong on eBay will be wrong here too, so if something looks off, tell me and I'll fix it at the source.

Trading

How does a trade work?

Open any card on a shop that takes trades and offer cards of your own — linked from your storefront, or photographed if you don't have one — with cash either way if that squares it. The seller accepts or passes. If they accept, the card comes off their shop and you each post your half.

How do I know the other side will actually send it?

You don't, and neither does any site — two strangers posting each other cards is outside anything software can force. What Agora does is make finishing provable and not finishing expensive. After a trade is accepted, each side marks their half shipped, with a tracking number, and marks the other half received when it lands. When both have, the trade is complete. Every step is on a trail both of you can read.

What if I forget to mark it received?

Nothing bad. Forgetting is never a failure. Three weeks after a half was shipped, if nobody has reported a problem with it, it counts as received — so a trade where both sides shipped finishes on its own, and both of you get credit for it. The only way a trade fails is if the other side reports that it never came.

What is a Trade Score?

A count of trades a person has completed against trades that fell through on their side. It sits on every offer they make and every offer they receive, the way a shop's eBay feedback does, and a shop's record is shown before you offer. A completed trade counts for both people. A failed one counts only against whoever didn't deliver.

They never sent it. What now?

If you've marked your own half shipped, two weeks have passed since the trade was accepted, and nothing has arrived, you can report it. The trade is marked failed against the other side and goes on their score. If the seller hadn't yet sent their card, it goes back on their shop. Reports are on the trail, and the site can reverse one that turns out to be wrong.

Why does it want a tracking number?

Because it's the one thing that proves you sent it. It's shown to the other party and nobody else, and you can't report a trade failed unless you gave one yourself.