⋆ ★ K-pop Photocard Buying & Trading, a Beginners Guide ★ ⋆

my very small minho pob collection (3 cards not pictured)

Last week I talked briefly about k-pop, touching a bit on photocards/photocard collecting. I realized that this is a bit niche, and the culture behind trading and selling photocards and other types of k-pop merchandise online is pretty interesting to me, so I decided to talk about it this week!

This is sort of a “beginners guide” to buying and trading photocards, and I’ll go over everything you would need to get into collecting (terms, acronyms, trading etiquette, stuff like that) I’ll mostly be focusing on trading through instagram since that’s the platform I use the most, so this may be different on other platforms or even in different countries. But, generally, this guide should get you set up on anything you may need to know to get started!

BACKGROUND

Photocards are small pictures of K-pop idols (or their shadows looking at you Irene) that come in merchandise. Most photocards are sold as physical album inclusions, but you can also get photocards from other types of merch or events. These are some of the main types of photocards, though some groups may not have all of these depending on their age and popularity:

Album Photocards, which I talked about above, come as inclusions within an album. These are generally the most common type of photocard that people collect, and GENERALLY are less rare than other types (with many exceptions, such as an album going out of print, “OOP”)
Broadcast Photocards are maybe the hardest to get your hands on behind polaroids, as these photocards are only handed out in-person to fans who can attend music shows (like m-countdown) during promotions.
Lucky Draws and other Event-Exclusive photocards can be difficult to source too, since many of these events are only in-person, in Korea. A lucky draw is essentially just a big machine of photcards that you can pay to play by buying albums (1 album purchase = 1 turn, expensive), and other event-exclusive photo cards can be from pop-up cafes or merch stores.
POB’s and Store Exclusive Photocards are usually only printed during the pre-order sales of albums. Many stores (such as ktown4u, MMT, SubK, Makestar, Target, etc.) will have a pre-order benefit (POB) card that you can get by simply pre-ordering the album through their store, and will no longer be produced after that window has ended. Older POB’s can be extremely difficult to find, and the cheapest way to get POB’s for a new album is to join group orders.
Polaroids are exactly what they sound like, and tend to be the hardest + most expensive type of photocard to collect. I think polaroids are given out a few different ways, but mostly through fansigns or raffled off at events. Usually, if someone is looking to sell/trade their polaroid, they will literally flip it over/blur out the idol’s face to maintain its rarity, since only the idol, staff, and the owner have ever seen this particular photo, and it's the only one of its kind.
LOMO cards are unofficial, fan made photocards. Good to know in case you aren't aware that these cards are unofficial, and you shouldn't be spending a lot of money on one.

Something to note is the difference between a card being “rare” and a card being "in-demand". Some album pc’s become super popular, usually because a certain member is popular, the pose is cute, etc. Some people market these pc’s as “rare” to get better sales/trades, even though the card is still in-print and the album is easy to buy. Make sure to double check whether or not a pc is ACTUALLY rare (a.k.a OOP, an event-exclusive card, POB, whatever) before trading anything more valuable for it. An in-demand album pc for a POB is never a good trade, unless you're the one with the album pc borderline scamming someone.

HOW TO START COLLECTING

First, you should at least roughly figure out what/who you want to collect. I’d recommend only starting out with one or two members of a group, and focusing mostly on album pc’s, but of course you can start however you’d like! Personally, I started out by collecting Momo’s FOL album cards (FOL just came out at the time), and once I got all of those cards, went back to the era before that, and kept going until I opened up my Momo collection to all her album cards (and started a more collections)

I would recommend TWICE for first-time collectors, since there are many TWICE collectors and their pc’s aren't usually expensive. But, of course, collect whatever you’d like! Many collectors have “Wishlists” (WL’s) which become almost necessary when trading. Try to look up “____ wishlist” or “____ template” and you will find a handy chart of all that person’s photocards. I personally like @/makeawishtrading on twitter’s templates, here is a link to their google drive folder that has wishlists for a ton of groups

Again, in the beginning try to focus on album pc’s only, since POB’s and other types of cards can get pretty expensive and you might fall for some bad deals + scams if you start with those right away. See if you like collecting first and get a grasp on the community before investing in the bigger cards!

Then, materials. This can be pretty expensive and daunting, especially if you watch a ton of pc collectors use super cute washi tape and binders, and you (like me) are a broke student :’). Here I’ll just put a big list of packing/storage materials that I think are either necessary (red) or recommended (blue), you can start trading and collecting with little investment if you forget about cutesy extras. Keep in mind that these are for people who want to buy/trade themselves. Some of these materials many not apply if you plan to only purchase cards

Sleeves are necessary if you plan to trade or sell. Cards without some kind of protection WILL get scratched and damaged in shipping, and that damage IS your fault. I recommend buying clear card sleeves (Dragon Shield is my favorite), but anything PVC free works. If purely for shipping, I guess PVC sleeves are fine, but for storage and in general you need PVC free sleeves to prevent discoloration. If you don’t have the means to get card sleeves, you can cut and tape a zip-loc bag or something similar to size.
Side note: some people like to double sleeve their cards, i.e. put a smaller sleeve on the pc and then a bigger sleeve over everything. This isn’t necessary, but can help keep cards safe. If you’re on a budget, don't worry about double sleeving. If you are only buying cards and have binder sleeves, then strictly speaking card sleeves are not necessary, but recommended.
Toploaders or Cardboard are also necessary for selling and trading. The sleeve will stop the card from getting scratched, and a toploader will stop the card from being bent/ripped while in transit. Toploaders are preferred, since they are thinner and less likely to get wet, but cutting two pieces of cardboard and taping the card down between them also does the trick. Make sure to cut the cardboard a bit bigger than the pc itself to avoid denting the card, though. There are also cardboard/paper alternatives to toploaders that work well, such as Mighty Shield.
Not necessary if you are only buying cards, but you can save the toploaders you receive and re-use them for displaying the cards or selling/trading in the future.
A Greeting Card or Something similar is necessary to stop the card from moving around in the envelope during transit, which prevents damage from unnecessary movement. Greeting cards are most popular, but really anything here will work. Just tape down your pc (in a toploader + sleeve) to something and it'll be good to go!
Not necessary if you are only buying cards, but you can save + reuse cards
Envelopes are obviously necessary. You can easily make your own envelopes with printer paper if you don't have the means to buy some, or if you just want to use up some old paper.
obviously not necessary if you are only buying cards
Stamps are also obviously necessary. Stamps/shipping can be daunting, and depends a lot on how shipping in your country works, but for starting out I recommend shipping stamped (untracked) exclusively within your country *if possible* to keep it simple. If not, and google isn't helping, try asking older people or going in-person to a post office and asking for help.
also obviously not necessary if you are only buying cards
Tape is a bit controversial, because it's necessary to keep everything in-place, but some types of tape are worse than others. If you really, truly, can't buy anything else, regular clear tape will work, but try to avoid it, clear tape can stick to a photocard and damage it. Do not use duct tape on the inner sleeve by the pc, since it can make it hard to open for the other person without damaging it. Something like artists tape or washi tape (washi tape is perfect) is ideal, since it sticks well without damaging the photocard.
not necessary if you are only buying cards
Post-it notes are optional but nice, since it makes it so that the person receiving the card can re-use it for other trades (woo hoo recycling). But, if you don't have one, it's not a big deal to write on the card itself, or just a ripped up piece of paper taped inside.
Binders are optional, but the safest way to store your collection. You can buy binders with a set amount of sleeves pre-attached, or a 3 ring binder & buy the sleeves separately, whatever you prefer! There are many different sizes, just make sure that with whatever binder you get that the card sleeves will fit (check measurements, some card sleeves are a bit big)
Binder Sleeves are only necessary if you have a binder that you want to put your cards into. Same as above, make sure the binder sleeves fit, and also make sure these are PVC free!

If you have a little bit of cash to spend after that, then I would think about buying those cool holographic sleeves, cute washi tape, stickers, and other stationary/organization stuff. But, at bare minimum, that's what you need to get started! Seems like a lot, and if you are buying it all at once it can be expensive, but once you get into collecting it becomes a lot easier. There was a point where I had SO many extra toploaders from buying photocards that I had to give them away in bulk.

BUYING PHOTOCARDS

If you want to start out buying photocards, there are many ways to go about it. There's bigger platforms, like Mercari, Depop, Ebay, Etsy apparently, sites like that! Just buy/bid as you normally would, pay, and get the photocard. These platforms tend to be more expensive, but to many people safer, so they don’t mind paying the premium for security.

For some Japanese album/event cards (or just generally in-demand cards), you can use a proxy service like Buyee to purchase cards off of Japanese sites. The photocard culture there is slightly different, so I think some of the in-demand cards over here can be easier to buy? Also, it can just be easier to buy Japanese album cards or Japan-exclusive cards on a site meant to be used in Japan. Some people also use these proxy services to buy storage materials, such as specific card sleeves, or whole albums. But, if you can’t read/write in Japanese, you’ll need to look up a separate tutorial on how to navigate the site, and the final shipping cost can be really high.

Instagram and Twitter are the cheapest way to buy photocards, but there's a risk of being scammed. Make sure to check for red flags from a seller before sending them anything, the biggest being that they have little to no proofs, and/or refuse to send reliable evidence that they have the pc they are selling.

A “proof” is a photo of the photocard after the seller has shipped it out, and it was delivered to the buyer. These prove that the seller is reliable, they package and ship their photocards correctly so that they don’t get damaged easily, and they aren't scamming. Story proofs, a.k.a proofs that the buyer posts on their instagram story, are considered to be the most reliable, so try to purchase mostly from people who have these story proofs.
Side note: check to see if the story proofs clearly show the username of the seller, and that everything seems to generally match. Some scammers will literally screenshot proofs from other accounts and claim them as their own, but this is easy to spot. If the packaging changes a lot from proof-to-proof, or the proofs seem weirdly cropped + low resolution, I wouldn't trust it.

Additionally, the seller should be sending you a video of the card to show you its condition, with their username physically written out on a piece of paper. If it's not a video, they usually send at least a picture of the card with their username. If they don't have many reliable proofs and refuse to send you a video/picture, do not purchase the card.

Some sellers simply don't send videos or pictures, but they will 1.) usually have upwards of 500+ reliable proofs 2.) be bulk selling cards and 3.) clearly state that they don't send additional proofs. In this case, this is not a red flag.

Finally, I recommend making a separate Instagram account for buying/trading, especially if you wouldn't be comfortable posting story proofs on your personal account.

TRADING PHOTOCARDS

While we’re talking about Instagram, we should talk about how to trade. Instagram is the only platform I have used to trade cards on, so some details may change depending on the platform you’re on. But, when I first got into trading, I found this social part to be the most difficult, so I’ll explain step-by-step what a typical pc trade looks like on instagram, using a past trade of mine.

1. Check the WTT hashtag

This is how you’ll find the cards that are currently being traded (WTT = Willing To Trade), you might have to scroll for a bit before finding something you want/can trade for.
Here’s the post I’m using as an example, where I had posted a bunch of TWICE pc’s for trade:

From top to bottom, explaining the post:

WTT = Willing To Trade
Info in HL = Information in Instagram Highlight, contains important shipping and trading information. not reading it would result in me not trading, as there is an emoji code at the end
Era equivalents = Cards that are from the same "era" (album) in my wl's
Exact equivalents= The same exact card from the same set in a different member.
Availability Chart= Reflects the post itself with a key at the bottom, so viewers can tell what is still uft (Up For Trade) and what has been traded off
Prios = Priority cards, which have been marked in the wl

If you are making a post of cards to trade or sell, make sure to include your username physically written out in the picture, so people know that its your photo + it prevents others from stealing your picture and using it to scam.

I'm not sure how to clearly explain whats in my info, here's the screenshot of my trading-specific information. I dont think any of my info is particularly different to normal, so its a good idea about what information is generally included:

"@ on the envelope" = some people will write the persons username on the outside corner of the envelope as a way to quickly send out many shipping proofs at once, without leaking addresses. However, some people are uncomfortable with their username written on the outside of the envelope, so its become standard to ask before putting the @ on.
UFT = Up For Trade

2. Contact the person

Once you've checked that you have a card they want, and have read their info, you can contact them! Actually, in this example, This person was offering something slightly different than what I asked for, but this is totally fine as I wasn't picky with this card. If the caption does not specify that they are looking for one thing ONLY, it's ok to politely offer a different card if it's on their wl!

They also sent a picture of the card they were offering, but you can also send the name of the card if you know it! At this point, you don't need to send proof that you have the card necessarily, just propose the trade. They then sent a pic of the card they wanted from me, clearly marked. Also do this lol, or again just name the card. You would be surprised how many people just vaguely say "I want one of your cards"

Then we exchanged videos of the cards, with our usernames written out in the back, to show the condition/prove we actually have the cards. You can use a phone flashlight or a lamp, just some source of light that will show scratches. The person I was trading with called out the damage they saw clearly, please do this if you notice any damages while recording! I wasn't able to get my video from this trade, but I have the video of a different card I took around this time. Here is a sc from the video, shine the light around the whole card to show any damage, and remember to flip the card around to the back as well.

Then we exchange “info” (same term, different thing) which is just our full addresses, lol. People usually refer to it as info, which I was confused by at first. Make sure to format your address correctly to prevent confusion! As in, use spaces and hit enter to get everything on separate lines. Some people even use little graphics like this, which is fine, just remember to keep it legible:

Then, you send packaging/address proof. Make sure to show the card fully packed, and their whole address as you had written it. This is to make sure that you have their correct address, that they are ok with the way you’ve packaged their photocard since some people can be particular about it (but that should have been stated in their info), and further proof that you are in fact going to send their item to them. Some people also send these as two different images, which is fine.

Next you coordinate a shipping day, if you don't have a window specified anywhere. If you just started trading, it is expected that you send first, even in the initial dm. For this reason I recommend you start out trading with bigger accounts, since you can be more certain that they are legit. Either way, you can usually let them know when you will be shipping it out, and then send a video of you dropping it off, with the entire letter + stamp in view. I cant attach a video of this lol, but it's self explanatory. If you can't film inside of your local post office, let them know. Depending on how your local post office works, you may be able to send them a picture of a receipt once you've payed for shipping, which may be enough.Then they’ll either send a video of them shipping out your letter, or will tell you when to expect them shipping your half out!

When you receive the letter, post the story proof/privately dm them a picture of the card, and you’re done! You’ve completed your first trade + maintained good etiquette ;)

I wanted to talk about group orders, but I feel like this post is already too long and detailed…also, as a beginner anyway I would not recommend joining a GO (or hosting one oh my god don't do that) until you’ve been in the community a bit, as they can be an investment sometimes. But, joining GO’s can be the easiest way to get all kinds of merch and supplies, if you have a good GOM (Group Order Manager).

Either way, I hope this helps anyone interested in getting into photocard trading/is interested in it!

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