Charmed Trading Cards Guide

If you've ever wanted to get into Charmed trading cards but were unsure of where to start, this guide is for you.

Charmed trading cards belong to the non-sports category and they were manufactured by the now defunct company Inkworks. Six sets were released in total: Season 1 (2000), The Power Of Three (2003), Connections (2004), Conversations (2005), Destiny (2006) and Charmed Forever (2007). Each set has a theme and the base cards cover a variety of things such as episodes, relationships, character profiles and spells. If you aren't already familiar with trading card terminology, I recommend reading this helpful glossary.

The easiest way to start off your trading card collection is by purchasing base sets. These are the most common, core cards that will make up the bulk of your collection and you can find complete base sets inexpensively. Once you have them, start putting the cards into pages and then into ring binders. I personally use the 9-Pocket Ultra Pro Silver Series Pages. Official Inkworks binders exist for all of the Charmed sets but can be difficult to find, Season 1 being the rarest. You can use a good quality ring binder as a substitute. Gently slide each card into the pockets and you'll be good to go!

After you have the base sets, you can start thinking about adding promotional cards, Pieceworks (costume cards), autograph and chase cards to your collection. Promotional cards were used to promote upcoming sets and some were exclusive to certain retailers and magazines; some are rarer than other so the prices vary. You can occasionally find the complete run for a particular set which can sometimes work out cheaper than buying them individually. Chase cards often form a complete picture and some even fold out like mini book of shadows pages. Generally, you can find complete chase card sets quite easily and if you shop around, it's not too hard to get a good deal. Pieceworks cards contain a small swatch of a screen-worn costume and they are available in every set but Season 1. Autograph cards are hand-signed by cast members and are available in every set but Charmed Forever and Connections (these sets have more Pieceworks cards as a compromise). Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano and Rose McGowan all contributed autographs and you can expect to pay substantial prices for key actors.

Extra things that you can add to your trading card collection include: sell sheets, uncut chase sheets and printing plates. Sell sheets are promotional flyers that were sent to dealers and they are easy to find and something nice to put at the front of your binder. Printing plates are a unique item since only one of each colour (black, cyan, magenta, yellow) exists for each card. Black provides the most amount of detail and the printing plates are generally displayed in an Inkworks frame.

Among the Charmed trading cards sets, Connections is the only one that has a parallel set. They are even shinier, silver versions of the base cards and are more valuable than the regular base set.

If you get really lucky, you might come across sealed hobby boxes and display boxes. Hobby boxes contain several individual packs of cards and may have chase, autograph and/or Pieceworks cards included (the exact odds are stated on the back of the box) in addition to a full base set. Look for the Inkworks logo printed on the cellophane wrapper on the hobby boxes to be certain that it's legitimate. Display boxes were used in shops to house individual packets of cards. Both are rare, with Season 1 being arguably the rarest hobby box.

Hopefully after reading this, you'll now have a bit more of an idea on where to begin. Tradercracks has articles on all of the Charmed sets along with the odds for chase cards if you would like further detail. Most importantly: have fun with what will surely be your new obsession!