Richard Blankman

Jul 1, 202310 min read

Where to Find Trading Cards in New York City

To the uninitiated, collecting cards might seem bizarre, if not downright wasteful. But to those who have cracked open a sealed pack of cards, smelled the fresh cardboard, and felt the gambler’s rush of seeing what’s inside, no further justification is needed. (That said, one does not need to gamble to enjoy card collecting. See my article on the 6 types of card collectors.)

Many of us have an itch to collect—no matter the reason—and cards are a compact and endlessly deep way to scratch that itch. Like most collectors, I have specific types of cards that I love to collect and learn about, but sometimes all I’m looking for is the unusual or the unique: little pieces of cardboard that remind me of a specific time or place.

Advantages of Card Shopping in NYC

One of the advantages of living in New York City is that a single subway ride can lead me to an entire world. There are major gaming shops near Times Square, small card stores deep in the different boroughs, and everything in between. In my time exploring this city, I have found trading cards all over the place, sometimes unexpectedly. If anyone visiting or living in New York City also collects cards, I wanted to share the fruits of my exploration.

It is important to note that this information is only accurate as of this writing. I have seen loose sports cards at Mother of Junk before, but not when I was last there. Neither Lids nor GameStop used to sell booster packs, but currently they both do. Additionally, I cannot claim to have seen it all. This city is just too big. I have only been to Staten Island and the Bronx—two entire boroughs!—a handful of times, and never in pursuit of cards. In addition to geographic blind spots, I am aware that there are many different type of collectors. You and I don’t engage with the hobby identically, and I may very well have missed an entire category of cards!

That said, if you live in or are traveling to New York City and want to add some new cards to your collection, you have come to the right guide for where to find trading cards. There are many different types of cards out there, and over the years I’ve taken note whenever I spotted them. Let’s dig into where those spots are.

Sealed Cards

Prepandemic, sealed packs of trading cards weren’t hard to find. Any Target had them, and I often spotted them at Rite-Aid, CVS, and other convenience stores. Then, during the pandemic, a trading card craze swept the country. My theory is card collecting was a hobby perfect for the pandemic. It could be done at home, didn’t require much space, and was perfect for sinking a stimulus check into. Once stores started to open up and people were regularly visiting Target again, something changed: the packs of cards were gone.

Finding Sealed Trading Cards During the Pandemic

If you did find them, you struck gold. In mid-2020, a pack of Pokémon or baseball cards bought at retail price easily sold for two to three times that online. In fact, I remember the MLB Flagship Store in Manhattan opening mid-pandemic and instituting a strict limit of one box of cards per person. It was one of the only times across several years that I found sealed boxes of in-demand sports sets like Topps Bowman Chrome in a retail environment and for retail price.

This scarcity did not last forever. Within a few months, the MLB Store did away with the one box limit because it stopped mattering. Supply caught up to demand. A reseller today buying cards at Target hoping to make a quick buck on Ebay is in for a rude shock. They’re not hard to find currently, a phenomenon reminiscent of buying cards in the 1990s. While I have no interest in trying to predict the future, it’s worth being mindful that the ubiquity of trading cards in the 90s resulted in a card market bubble that popped catastrophically. Most sports cards from that period can be difficult to even give away today.

The Future of Sealed Cards

Of course, there is simply no telling how the card market will evolve. The almost opposite phenomenon happened with Magic: The Gathering, for instance. It started in the 90s, typically a death knell for a card’s value today. However, its rarest cards ended up being under-printed. Most sports cards that sold for $100 in the early 90s sell for just a few dollars today. But some of the $100 Magic cards back then now sell in the thousands.

Where to Find Sealed Cards in New York City

Sealed booster packs and card products are not hard to find currently and are sold across a few categories of retail shops. The list below is not exhaustive but includes some specific destinations and ideas of what to look out for.

“Geek Culture” Shops: Best Buy, GameStop, Nintendo New York, PopFuzz
Sports and Sportswear Shops: MLB Flagship Store, NBA Store, NHL Shop, Lids
Game, Toy, and Comic Shops: Forbidden Planet, Twenty Sided Store, NY Luggage Electronics, Action City Comics, Midtown Comics, Anyone Comics
Megamarts: Target, Costco
Convenience stores: Walgreens/Duane Reade, CVS, Rite-Aid

With the proliferation of cards these last few years, booster packs are bound to pop up everywhere. I've even spotted Magic products sold by sidewalk vendors around Union Square and Pokémon packs sold in tourist shops along Canal Street in Chinatown.

sealed packs of Pokémon cards sold alongside other toys

Graded Cards

Graded cards are not generally for the novice or pennypinching collector, although they have become more common in recent years. They are tough to find in a retail environment and far more commonly bought and sold at trade shows and online.

Recent Trends in Card Grading

Grading is a desirable way to protect a card and assess its value as it determines which versions of a card are the best ones—the ones with no scratches or defects and perfect centering. It is at its most useful when the card being graded is old and rare. But even for newer, more common cards, when thousands of people have a certain card, there is status conferred onto a copy with a museum-level of preservation and numerically shown to be the best of the best. (I’ll bite my tongue regarding how I personally feel about grading modern-era cards that aren’t otherwise valuable.)

For many years, they were primarily a way of ensuring authenticity for heavily-counterfeited cards with the most sought-after copies being the ones in the best condition. However, grading became a fad during the pandemic, with the major grading company PSA so backed up that they had to raise their rate to nearly $100 per card to grade and had some customers waiting over a year to receive their graded cards back. As a result, across the country there are mainly two categories of stores carrying graded cards. First, there are established collectibles shops that had them prepandemic, and second, there are newer stores that sell graded cards alongside sneakers, skateboards, designer toys, and other trendy goods.

Where to Find Graded Cards in NYC

In NYC, the two main, established collectible shops where I’ve seen graded sports cards are Brigandi Coins & Collectibles and Alex’s MVP Cards & Comics. Additionally, stores that carry a wide range of sports card singles (see next section: Sports Card Singles) will usually have graded cards sold alongside ungraded cards.

The only trendy goods shop where I’ve seen graded Pokémon cards so far is Capsule NYC, but I will be the first to admit that there are many trendy shops that I have not seen yet. Trendy shops by their very definition will come and go often and range in inventory. Any place that sells collectible sneakers might be worth a quick check.

graded baseball cards sold alongside other sports collectibles

Sports Card Singles

If you are looking for individual ungraded sports cards, even with how many stores exist in New York City, your options remain limited. Ebay, and more generally the internet, has more or less replaced the local card store, especially in a city as expensive as NYC. Chameleon Comics used to be a hole-in-the-wall card shop and one of the best destinations for sports cards in the city, but it closed not long before the pandemic. I remember going in on one of their last days open and buying a heavily-discounted loose box of 70s-era sports cards from a justifiably bitter employee.

The best place I know of is Alex’s MVP Cards & Comics in the Upper East Side. I would not go in expecting amazing deals; think of it like a very large vendor at a card show. But it will have what you’re looking for: vintage and modern, lots of sports, different conditions, non-sport options, and so on. Beyond that, your options are slim. If getting to deeper brooklyn isn’t a hassle for you, there are a lots to be found at The Hot Corner and E and J Boutique.

I sometimes see a street vendor in Union Square along 14th Street near Union Square West, and reliably see a kiosk along the center strip of the Turnstyle Underground Market, both of whom have sports card singles for sale. However, expect to pay $5 for cards worth 50 cents and absurd prices for cards actually worth a few dollars. You’re not just paying for the cards here, you’re paying for their real estate.

Trading Card Game (TCG) Singles

Here, I'm referring to cards where, unlike sports cards, there is a game that comprises the cards. My experience is singles from trading card games—most notably Pokémon, but also occasionally Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and others—are a little more common than sports cards to spot around the city. A quick technical note: from a game design standpoint, I realize there is a difference among trading card games (TCGs), collectible card games (CCGs), roleplaying card games (RPCGs), and other similar types of games, but in this article I lump them all together under the TCG moniker.

There seemed to be a postpandemic phenomenon of buying and selling TCG singles. There was unquestionably a major Pokémon craze, with many people digging up childhood collections and cracking packs for the first time in decades. Ebay became—and continues to be—a hotspot for buying and selling individual Pokémon cards. The brick-and-mortar places that sell loose TCG singles were generally around before the pandemic: comic shops, collectible stores, and other places with knowledgeable employees and the materials and infrastructure for organizing, displaying, and pricing the cards. One notable exception is BOOKOFF USA, which did not used to carry cards but currently has many loose, unsorted Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon cards priced at $1 each.

Here are some other stores in NYC that I have seen carrying loose, ungraded TCG singles:

sets of non-sports cards sold alongside other card products and accessories

…And Everything Else

All of the above stores generally know what they have. You might find excellent deals and diamonds in the rough, but you’re extremely unlikely to get, say, a $1,000 card for $2. In fact, cards are often priced slightly higher that Ebay because of the costs of running a store in person.

Thrift Stores

Thrift stores are an interesting category, however. There, if someone recently donated a binder with around $1,000 worth of Magic cards in it, you might actually get it for $2. My biggest find so far was a sealed box of 2015–16 Upper Deck NHL Star Rookies for 99 cents. It goes without saying thrift stores are not a guarantee. Skip over more boutique clothing-focused thrift shops and look for places with “miscellaneous shelves” that have games, toys, binders, and other trading card-adjacent items. In my experience, Goodwill is the current best thrift store brand for keeping cards on shelves and pricing them reasonably. Don’t bother with the Salvation Army locations, which I’ve found generally have both the least desirable items and the highest prices. In any thrift store, Pokémon, Magic, and sports cards don’t sit for very long; many resellers recognize the potential value and snap them up fast. Though I imagine the dedicated card hunter should at least briefly investigate any thrift store, some specific ones other than Goodwill where I’ve found and purchased cards are Out of the Closet in Brooklyn and Broadway Thrift Shop in Queens.

Estate Sales and Other Second-Hand Stores

Additionally, estate sales, garage sales, and flea markets can be adventuresome—though on average unlikely—places to find cards. I have found loose baseball cards and a binder of Pokémon cards at estate sales, for instance. The most reliable source I’ve found for estate sales is EstateSales.net. Be prepared for long treks to estates in deep Brooklyn and Queens, a lot of rummaging through attics and drawers, and a high likelihood you don’t find anything. Garage and yard sales are tough, as while New York City has a lot of people, it doesn’t have a lot of garages or yards. Craigslist seems to be the best source to find people advertising those. I did once find a briefcase full of vintage baseball cards at a church yard sale that was advertised on Craigslist. I have not personally been impressed by NYC’s flea market scene, at least as it pertains to cards, but there are quite a few flea markets to explore, and I have spotted loose sports cards at them before.

Eclectic Retail Stores

Lastly are the eclectic retail stores that have a variety and rotating inventory of collectibles, including trading cards. For example, I’ve seen Lights of Broadway cards at Theatre Circle and other theater-themed cards at the Broadway Makers Marketplace in the Turnstile Underground Market. Plenty of bookstores (too many to name) carry tarot cards, and plenty of gaming stores (also too many to name) carry playing cards and other miscellaneous game cards.

How and Where to Find Trading Cards in New York City

In my opinion, one of the joys of card collecting is that there is no one “right” way to do it. There is no telling what you’ll find among the retail jungle of New York City. Hell, if you collect business cards, literally any store can become a place where to find trading cards. in New York Store. One thing that makes this city special is how much is available in just a few square miles. It seems that every day I’m surprised by another place that carries trading cards and fascinated by another type of trading card altogether. Best of luck in your card collecting adventure!

RICHARD BLANKMAN