Flinn and Jarman announce book on 150 years of trading cards

Alladan Flinn and Nick Jarman have announced Cardboard Kings: The History of Trading Cards, a forthcoming cultural-history book set for the 2026 holiday season. The project aims to chart 150 years of trading-card innovation, collecting and hobby culture, with an early chapter preview now available online.

Why it matters: - Cardboard Kings aims to give collectors and industry readers a single-volume history of trading cards. - The book traces how trading cards evolved from early trade cards and printing innovation into sports cards, trading card games, pop culture collectibles, grading and the modern collector economy. - The project frames trading cards as a lasting cultural format tied to memory, community and commerce.

What happened: - Alladan Flinn, founder of Based Trading Cards, and Nick Jarman, founder and CEO of the Certified Trading Card Association, announced Cardboard Kings: The History of Trading Cards. - The book is scheduled for release during the 2026 holiday season. - The announcement says the book covers more than 150 years of trading-card history. - An early preview chapter, “A World Few People Ever Saw,” is available on the Based Trading Cards website. - Early access for updates, announcements and release information is available at historyoftradingcards.com. - The first chapter can also be previewed on the companies’ sites.

The details: - Cardboard Kings is described as a cultural-history book for collectors, industry professionals and readers interested in the hobby’s development. - The book focuses on the people, companies, trends, printing advancements and collector movements that shaped the trading-card world across generations. - The preview chapter covers the origin of the trading-card space, including the monochromatic 19th century, the imagination gap and the psychological roots of scrapbooking. - Flinn said trading cards are more than products and called them pieces of culture, memory, art, tradition and community. - Jarman said the book is intended to show how the hobby evolved and why it continues to matter.

Between the lines: - The announcement positions trading cards as both a collectibles market and a cultural archive. - A book like Cardboard Kings could appeal beyond hobbyists by connecting the category’s history to broader shifts in advertising, entertainment and consumer culture. - The inclusion of grading and the collector economy signals that the modern business side of the hobby is part of the story, not an afterthought.

What's next: - More updates and release details are expected through the book’s early-access signup page. - The 2026 holiday-season release will determine whether Cardboard Kings becomes a reference title for the trading-card hobby. - The authors are likely to continue promoting preview content ahead of publication.

The bottom line: - Cardboard Kings is being pitched as a definitive history of trading cards for a hobby that now spans nostalgia, investment, gaming and pop culture.