Every hobby

Base Card

Also written: Base · Base set

The standard, most common version of a card — the one every parallel in the set is a version of.

ConceptVocabulary rather than a finish

The base card is the plain version: the card as the set designer drew it, on ordinary stock, with no serial number and no special finish. It is the most common card in any product, and it is the reference point everything else is measured against.

Base cards are usually the cheapest cards in a set, which leads people to dismiss them. That is a mistake for two reasons. First, a base card of a subject with real demand can be worth more than a scarce parallel of a subject without any. Second, the base card is what tells you whether a card in your hand is a parallel at all — you cannot see that a border has changed colour without knowing what colour it started as.