Select Cards AFL Explained for New Footy Collectors

Select cards AFL are the officially licensed footy cards made by Select, the Australian company behind much of the local AFL card hobby. If you collect AFL cards in this country, you are almost certainly going to end up holding a Select card. This guide covers what they are, how the sets are layered, what is worth chasing and what is just cardboard.

What Select actually makes

Select makes AFL cards the way you would expect a footy card maker to. There are base sets with every club's players, then a ladder of more expensive products above them. The higher up you go, the fewer cards you get per pack and the more of those cards are something other than a plain player photo.

The NRL side of the hobby works similarly, with TLA as the main maker. If you are coming across from league, our Select cards NRL guide covers the same ground for that code.

The layers inside a set

Almost every Select product is built from the same few layers. Learn these and you can read any checklist.

• Base cards. The main set. One card per player, plenty of copies, little value on their own unless the player is a star or a very early rookie.
• Parallels. The same card with a different colour, foil or finish. Some are numbered, which means the maker prints only a set quantity and stamps each card with its own number.
• Inserts. Separate sub-sets with their own design, built around a theme such as milestones or club legends.
• Signed cards. The player has signed the card or a sticker on it. Check whether it is a direct signature or a sticker, because collectors care.
• Memorabilia cards. A small piece of a jumper or similar embedded in the card.

Most of the money in the hobby is in the last four, not the first.

Which Select cards AFL collectors actually chase

Not every card is equal, and the ones that matter are fairly predictable. Roughly in order of how hard the market leans on them:

1. Rookies. A player's first licensed card in a main set. Draft-year cards of players who turn into genuine stars are the long game of footy collecting.
2. Low-numbered parallels. The lower the print run, the tighter the supply. A card numbered to a handful of copies is a different animal to a parallel with a few hundred.
3. Signed cards of stars and rising names.
4. Club-loyal favourites. Not the biggest names in the competition, but the ones whose supporters will pay for them. Never underestimate a one-club legend.
5. Old cards in good shape. Age alone is not enough. Condition is the whole story with older cards.

I will be blunt about something that annoys me. Beginners often chase shiny over scarce. A bright parallel with a big print run can look great and still be easy to find. Check how many exist before you get excited.

How to sort what you've got

When you sit down with a shoebox, a table beats guessing. This is how I triage.

Card type	What to check first	Likely next step
Base card, common player	Corners, surface	Sleeve it and file it in a box
Base card, star or rookie	Centring, corners, edges	Top loader, consider grading
Numbered parallel	Serial number, condition	Top loader, check recent sales
Signed card	Signature clean, not faded	Top loader or one-touch, keep out of light
Memorabilia card	Window intact, no cracking	Sleeve and top loader
Damaged card	Creases, soft corners, surface scratches	Keep as a binder filler, do not grade

The checking is not complicated, but you have to do it. Most disappointments in this hobby come from skipping the check.

Condition: the bit that decides the price

Two copies of the same card can sit at wildly different prices because of condition. Look at four things: corners, edges, surface and centring.

Centring is how evenly the image sits within the borders. A 55/45 split is quite good, 60/40 is where graders start to get picky, and anything worse tends to hurt the grade. If you want to check a card properly, use our card centring calculator rather than squinting at it.

Hold a card at an angle under a lamp to see surface scratches and print lines. Foil parallels are the worst for hiding flaws until the light hits them.

AFL Select footy cards and grading

Grading means sending a card to a company that checks it, scores it and seals it in a hard plastic case, known as a slab. For footy cards in Australia, you choose between posting overseas or using a local submission service. Postage cost and turnaround are real factors here, and they change, so check the current terms with whoever you use.

Our guide to card grading in Australia covers how the process works for local collectors. A few rules from my own experience:

• Grade cards where a high score changes the value. Rookies, scarce parallels and signed stars.
• Do not grade a card you have not looked at closely. I once sent in a stack without checking centring and got back a lesson I would rather not have paid for.
• Sleeve and top-load before posting. Protect the card on the way to getting protected.

AFL footy cards 2026: what to check before you buy

New releases are fun, but treat them with a bit of suspicion. Before opening wax or buying singles from a current-year set, do a few things.

First, find the checklist for the set. It tells you what parallels, inserts and signed cards exist. Second, look at how the market is treating the rookies. Early hype fades fast, and a rookie card is only worth what buyers will pay once the excitement settles. Third, work out whether you want the player or the card. If it is the player, a cheap base card is often enough.

If you want to browse what is available, the catalogue is a good place to start comparing sets side by side.

For older and rarer material, read rarest AFL cards before you go hunting. It will save you from a few expensive guesses.

Where to buy

Hobby shops, card fairs and online marketplaces each have a role.

• Hobby shops. Good for packs and boxes, and for advice from people who handle cards all day.
• Card fairs. The best place to look at a card in hand. You can ask to see corners, flip it over and talk price face to face.
• Online. The widest range, with the usual risk. Ask for clear photos of front and back, and be careful with listings that crop the edges.

I have bought plenty online, and the cards I regret all had the same thing in common: photos that hid something.

The NBA side project

Lots of footy collectors keep a basketball box on the side, and it makes sense. Topps NBA cards and Panini basketball cards turn up at the same fairs and shops as footy cards. If you are curious about trading NBA cards, the logic is the same: rookies, parallels, signatures, condition.

What changes is the scale. NBA basketball trading cards are a global market, so prices for the top names move with international buyers, not just local ones. A footy card lives in a smaller pond. That can mean fewer buyers when you sell, but it also means local knowledge counts for more.

I would not start with basketball if footy is what you love. Pick the thing you will happily talk about at a card fair for an hour.

Starting out without wasting money

If I were starting again, I would do this.

1. Pick one club or one player to collect. A focus stops you buying random cards.
2. Buy a few singles instead of boxes while you learn the layers above.
3. Sleeve everything the day you get it.
4. Learn to check centring and corners before you spend real money on a card.
5. Only grade cards that earn it.

That is the whole game. The rest is patience, and a bit of luck when a pack surprises you.