Questions? Answers.

Almost every single card and small order ships by eBay Standard Envelope. It's a service eBay built for cards worth $20 or less: the card goes through the mail as a letter, not a package. That's what makes a $2 card possible to ship for about a dollar. The trade-off is that it travels at letter speed, with no guaranteed delivery date.

What to expect: most envelopes arrive 3 to 7 mailing days after they ship. Around holidays, or when the mail is simply busy, two weeks is not unusual, and the envelope is still moving even when the tracking isn't. Everything ships from Northern Colorado, so the West gets it quickest and the East Coast takes a few days longer.

It does have tracking, but it's letter tracking, which works differently from package tracking. Nobody scans a barcode when the envelope is picked up or when it reaches your door. Instead, automated sorting machines read it as it passes through USPS processing centers. So the normal pattern is: one scan when it leaves our area, then nothing for several days, then a scan near you.

Three things that trip people up:

• “No updates for days” is normal. Letter mail isn't scanned at every stop. A quiet stretch doesn't mean anything is wrong.
• The number only works on eBay. Check it from your Purchases page on eBay. The USPS website doesn't recognize these numbers, so it may show nothing or just “label created”.
• “Delivered” can show up early. That scan usually happens at the sorting facility near you, often a day or two before the envelope is actually in your mailbox. Sometimes an envelope arrives without ever showing “Delivered” at all.

If you want full package tracking, see the question below about faster shipping.

With eBay Standard Envelope, “Delivered” often means the envelope reached your local sorting facility, not your mailbox. Give it two more mail days. Check with anyone else who collects your mail, and keep an eye out for a plain envelope rather than a package; it's easy to miss in a stack of letters.

Still nothing after that? Message us through eBay with your order number and we'll sort it out.

Yes. Cards priced over $20 don't qualify for Standard Envelope, so they ship as a tracked package automatically. For cheaper cards, message us before you pay and we can switch your order to tracked package shipping for the difference in postage. Ordering several cards at once? Put them all in your cart and check out once so they ship together.

Every card is inspected and sleeved before it goes out. Standard Envelope orders go into a flexible mailer that protects the card while still passing through the letter-sorting machines; stiff packaging gets rejected by those machines, which is why we don't use a hard case in envelopes. Package orders are sleeved and put in a rigid holder inside a bubble mailer or box.

Variant 616 is online only. We're based in Northern Colorado and every order ships through eBay, Mana Pool (Magic) or Misprint (Pokémon). The one exception is selling to us: if you have a collection in Northern Colorado, we can come pick it up.

Yes, for new customers: the code WELCOME616 takes 5% off your first order in our eBay store, up to $100 off, one per buyer. Enter it in the coupon box at eBay checkout, not in the search bar. It works on anything in the store, and it's an eBay-only code, so it doesn't apply on Mana Pool or Misprint. eBay's coupon terms apply.

Yes, Magic and Pokémon singles, whole collections, graded cards, sealed product and bulk, by mail or by pickup in Northern Colorado. Our rates and how it works are on the buylist page. Send photos to buymycards@variant616.com for a free estimate.

The shop stays the same; the shopkeeper doesn't. Order around Halloween and a darker Variant packs your cards. Come Christmas, a much jollier one takes the shift. Whoever is on duty, every card is inspected, sleeved and packed with care.

For an order, message us through eBay, Mana Pool or Misprint so your order number comes with it. For anything else, email support@variant616.com.