Early AccessBuy. Sell. Trade.
Protected. Low Fees. Online.
📦 FREE insured postage on every trade, and every protected sale
The only UK marketplace built around trading Pokémon, One Piece, Lorcana & more safely online — where the fee falls as your cards get dearer, instead of a shop taking a fixed 20–30% however big the card is.
The bit nobody else offers
Trade cards safely online
Trading in a store or at a show means giving up ~20% of your cards' value — that's just the trade-in margin. Trading with a stranger online means risking your cards entirely. TCG Hamster fixes both: trade at full market value, with protection built in. Pick the level that fits the deal:
On a £1,000 trade at a show you'd lose ~£200.00 in trade-in margin. Here, full protection through a verified intermediary — tracked, insured postage included — costs £80.00 a side.
And our fee falls as the card gets dearer — 8% a side at £1,000, 4% at £5,000 — where a shop's cut is the same percentage however big the card is.
Direct swap
You ship straight to each other, with tracked insured postage included in your 10% fee (minimum £4.00a side). But nothing is checked and no money is held: if the other side doesn't send, or the cards aren't as described, we can't step in. You're trusting a stranger with your cards.
Only sensible with collectors you already know and trust.
Escrow deposits
Before anything ships, both sides lodge a deposit equal to the full value of the trade — on a £1,000 trade, £1,000 each, held safely by us. If the other person doesn't deliver, you get your money back. Deposits are returned in full once both sides confirm their cards arrived.
Your only cost is the handling fee, built from what escrow actually costs rather than a slice of your cards — £37.00 on a £1,000 trade, vs ~£200.00 lost at a shop. Insured postage? Free, on us.
Verified intermediary
Both sides ship to our trusted partner, who checks every card is genuine and as described before forwarding them on. Fakes and misgraded cards get caught before they ever reach you. Required on deals over £250.00.
A £1,000-a-side trade, fully verified, costs £80.00 a side — priced on the four insured parcels it takes, not a slice of your cards. Insured postage included.
Keep more of what your cards are worth
Walk into a store or card show and you'll be offered 70% in cash, 80% in trade, or nearer 60% for raw vintage. On TCG Hamster you deal at real market value and keep 90% when you sell — and on a trade our fee falls as the cards get dearer, so you keep 92% of a £1,000 side and 96% of a £5,000 one.
Store or card show
£1,000 card
market value
You lose £200–£300 to the trade-in margin — gone forever.
Ask for cash instead and it's worse: around 70% of market, and nearer 60% on raw vintage.
With us
£1,000 card
same card, full market value
Up to £200 more in your pocket on a single card — fully protected, with tracked, insured postage included.
Built by a Dad, for kids (and big kids!) who love collecting
TCG Hamster started at a kitchen table. A Dad, tired of watching scalpers and giant marketplaces cash in on his 7-year-old daughter's Pokémon obsession (Snom, mostly), decided collecting should be easier and fairer — for his kid, and every collector young or old building a collection.
The goal is simple: keep more money in collectors' pockets, and out of the hands of scalpers and faceless marketplace fees. Fair prices set by real market data, cards you can trust, and costs kept deliberately low — because the value should stay with the people who love the hobby.
And it's not just individuals. The hobby is full of honest independent card shopsbeing squeezed from both sides — scalpers inflating prices, giant platforms taking ever-bigger cuts. We partner with the good ones: real shops that price fairly, check what they sell, and look after collectors. They get a storefront here on fair terms; you get somewhere to buy, sell, and trade where nobody's being gouged. Run a shop? Partner with us →
Where your 10% actually goes
We'd rather show you exactly where every penny goes than pretend we have no costs. Our fee covers the real, reasonable costs of running a safe marketplace — including fair wages for people who love this hobby and work to keep your trades safe.
Payment & money handling
~3% to our payment processor on every transaction — unavoidable, and charged to us, not hidden from you.
Insured postage included
Tracked, fully insured postage on every protected sale and trade — the fee is built from it, so it is never added on top.
Sellers' postage labels
On direct sales, the flat delivery fee buys the seller's tracked label — passed through at close to cost, so sellers post for free.
People who love this hobby
Fair wages for the collectors who verify cards, run deals end to end, handle support, and keep the community safe.
Hosting & infrastructure
Servers, database, storage and card-data feeds. Today it's hundreds a month; as we grow it'll run into the thousands.
Dispute handling & buyer protection
Real people resolving problem deals, and cover when something goes wrong so you're never left out of pocket.
Logistics
Shipping, tracking and secure handling for intermediary and high-value deals.
Building & maintaining the site
Ongoing development, new features, and keeping everything fast and secure.
Tax
And like any UK business, corporation tax comes out of whatever profit is left at the end.
