CardRelay began with a familiar scene at a large card show: a collector three hours in, still walking aisles, asking the same question at every table. Somewhere in that same hall, a vendor had the exact card in a box — and neither of them would ever know.
Collectors often don't know who has what. Vendors can't speak to everyone who walks past. Great cards — and the relationships that come with finding them — get missed, over and over, in rooms full of people who love the same thing.
CardRelay exists to bridge that gap. Not to digitize the hobby, and not to move it online — the goal is to make the in-person experience work the way everyone already wishes it did.
"Card shows are about people first, cards second. The cards bring us together, but the conversations, friendships and shared excitement are what make the hobby worth coming back to."
Every decision starts with what makes the show better for the people in the room — not what maximizes engagement.
No dark patterns, no fake urgency, no selling data. We say what the product does and doesn’t do, plainly.
Success is a collector spending less time searching and more time in the parts of the show they love.
The find is the moment — the vendor who had it deserves the handshake, and we celebrate both sides of it.
Shaped table-side with collectors, vendors and organizers — in collector language, not marketplace language.
A nickname, a relay, a response, a table number. Anything that complicates that loop doesn’t ship.
Help collectors spend less time searching and more time enjoying the hobby by creating meaningful connections between collectors and vendors at live card shows.
Become the trusted connection layer for card shows — making every event easier to navigate, more rewarding to attend, and stronger for the collecting community.
We're working with early shows, vendors and collectors to shape CardRelay. If that could be you, say hello.
Get in Touch