How hard is a Pilot Trading Card to get?

Why it's so hard to tell

With sports cards, you can look up how many were printed and how many are still around in good shape. Pilot Trading Cards don't come with any of that. Airlines don't say how many they print, and nobody keeps count of what's still out there.

Older doesn't always mean harder. Delta's oldest card and its newest sit in the same binder. One is being handed out on a jet bridge this week; the other stopped being printed before some of today's collectors were born.

It really comes down to the card itself. Even inside one collection the answer can change: the Airports binder's Alaska cards were printed years apart, and they're not equally easy to find.

The people who really know are the collectors who went out and got one. So we asked them.

Rated by collectors

In PTC Binder, collectors say how hard a card was to get when they find one.

So the rating tells you what it takes to find a card today, not what it took years ago, and not one person's guess.

Four levels, in plain words

These are the same words and squares you'll see in the app.

What makes a card hard to find

Age plays a part, but these are what really make the difference.

• The program ended. Northwest, America West, Ted and Maxjet aren't printing anything anymore, so what's out there is all there will ever be.
• The plane retired. When an aircraft type stops flying, its card usually stops showing up too, because the crews who handed it out have moved on.
• It was a one-time card. Retirement and anniversary cards are printed once, for one moment, and that's it.
• It never got around much. Career fair and event cards are the classic example, which is why the top level says you more or less had to be there.
• It's far from home. Some cards are easy to get where that airline flies and almost impossible a few time zones away. Where you live matters.

Why it helps when you trade

A good trade needs both people to agree on what they're swapping. Condition tells you what shape a card is in. Difficulty tells you what it took to get.

With both, "two of these for one of those" becomes an easy conversation instead of a haggle, and nobody comes out behind just because they're new to the hobby.

Add your vote

The more collectors rate their cards, the better the ratings get for everyone.

So when you add a card, take two seconds to rate it. It's one quick question about something you just did, and it helps the next collector who's hunting for that card.