I'm Sebastian. I built CardGauge because the hobby I grew up in didn't exist anymore — and nobody else was going to bring it back.
I've been collecting cards for forty years. I used to own a card shop. I've watched this hobby change three or four times over.
And somewhere along the way, something I loved about it just disappeared.
Look at the hobby today — it's all buying and selling. Stock-market language, market caps, "asset class." Wall Street brought their vocabulary to the card show and never gave it back. There's no community in it anymore. No place for a new collector to come in, hang out, learn the ropes, and find out what a card is actually worth without paying $30 a month for the privilege.
"When was the last time someone put a binder together, traded cards with a friend, or built a set just to share what they made?"
That's what's missing. Not better price charts. Not another AI valuation tool. Not another "card investing" podcast. The actual hobby.
The binder on the lunch table. The kid biking to the card shop on a Saturday. The set you spent six months chasing because your friend was chasing the same one. The Beckett magazine arrows that could move the entire show floor. The community.
So I built CardGauge — the version I wanted to exist.
§ What CardGauge Is
Real sold prices, free to try. Your first three scans don't even need an account.
Scan any card and see what it actually sold for — real completed transactions, including accepted best offers. Not asking prices. Not an algorithm's guess. What buyers really paid.
Trying it costs nothing. No card — after three scans, a free account gives you 10 more a month, with an email code and no password. Same for the grade-or-sell math, the Hot/Cold tracker, the Dollar Bin, and the Pokemon Zone.
Make a free account and you also get a binder — your first 25 cards, no charge — so a new collector can actually start building something without reaching for a credit card.
If you're a new collector, this is a place to learn. If you've been at it as long as I have, this is a place to bring the hobby back to what it was.
§ The Promises
Here's what CardGauge will never do.
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Never paywall a price. Scanning a card and seeing what it sold for is free, forever. That's the whole reason this exists.
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No marketplace, no commission. I don't take a cut of your sale — so I have no reason to tell you a card is worth more than it is.
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No data resold. Your binder belongs to you. I'm not selling collector data to brokers, breakers, or anyone else.
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No fake AI valuations. Every number comes from real transactions and real listings — and I show you the exact search behind it so you can check my work.
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No banner ad spam. I tried Google AdSense for a week. It paid pennies and made the site feel cheap. I pulled them all down.
◆ One thing that changed — and I'd rather say it myself
This page used to say "no subscription, not now, not ever." I meant it when I wrote it, and I want to be straight about what's different now instead of quietly editing it out.
Sold-price data isn't free for me to get. Neither is re-pricing thousands of saved cards every night. So there's now CardGauge Pro — $7.99 a month. It covers the Profit Tracker, an unlimited binder, and the share link and QR code for handing your binder to someone at a show.
The binder itself isn't locked. Your first 25 cards are free — enough to actually use the thing and decide whether it's worth paying for. If you outgrow it, that's when Pro makes sense. If you never do, you never pay me anything.
What stays free: trying it. Three scans with no account, then ten every month with a free account — enough to check the cards in front of you. If you're scanning more than that, Pro is what keeps the lights on.
Charge for managing a collection. Never for knowing a price. That's the line.
§ How CardGauge Stays Online
Honest answer: three small things.
CardGauge has an Advertise page where real card businesses — breakers, shops, supply companies, grading services — can buy spots. That's part of what pays the hosting bills.
When you scan a card and click through to an eBay listing or shop on Fanatics, those clicks pay tiny affiliate commissions. I don't make a dime unless YOU find a card you want. That's the model I trust.
And now Pro, at $7.99 a month, from the handful of people who use the binder and tracker heavily enough that it costs me real money to run them. That's it. No investors, no data brokers, no $30 tiers.
§ Yes, I Sell Cards Too
I'm a real collector with a real eBay store.
I should be upfront about this: I have over 50 cards listed on eBay right now. I've been buying and selling cards my whole adult life. That's how I know the prices on CardGauge have to be right — when they're wrong, I lose money too.
I'd rather you browse my listings than pay me anything at all.
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My eBay Store · Sebastian
Some of these are for sale.
Forty years in the hobby. Real listings, fair prices, checked against the same CardGauge tools you use.
No support tickets, no chatbots, no automated replies. If you have a question, an idea, a card you can't find pricing for, or you think I got the Pro thing wrong — write me. I'd genuinely rather hear it.
That's the whole pitch. If CardGauge brings even a little of the old hobby back for you — texting your friend a binder URL, chasing a set together, arguing about whether to grade something — then it's doing its job.