ACEO (art cards, editions and originals) movement

A set of nine ATC's (Artist trading cards)

      ACEOs are valued in much the same way as artist prints. However there are a few differences particular to this type of collectable. I have included here a listing of those attributes collectors keep in mind when selecting cards for their own collections. Not all of these attributes may be relevant to every collector. Some people collect ACEOs and ACTs primarily for sentimental reasons and are completely uninterested in the monetary "value" given to cards within their possession. 

• Appropriate information about the artist located on the back of the card. What is most usually listed? A full signature, copyright symbol and date, printed name of that same artist, title of art or set, theme, eBay ID, website, email, city where the artist lives, medium, trademark, etc... Remember that not all artists bother with this detailed information and copyrights are automatic for artworks unless your artwork primarily includes the collage of copyrighted or public domain images. 
• A collaged image should never be misrepresented by the individual using it for his or her own creation. If this imagery is cut from printed product and that product is currently copyrighted it may be collaged into a unique work but not copyrighted. The image should never be photo-copied and then pasted within the collage. Only the actual product may be collaged in order for the production of the ACT or ACEO to be legitimately crafted without legal ramifications. For instance, you may cut apart an original comic book to collage onto collectible card, but you should never duplicate copyrighted comic by either means of a photocopier or by hand and then paste this material on your own creation; this conduct is considered illegal.
• If your collaged elements are from the public domain and you have printed and pasted these into a crafted ACT or ACEO, you may do so without fear of breaking the law. That being said, however, it is unethical to misrepresent these as your own artwork. Collaged public domain imagery is considered acceptable but not something you may copyright unless you have altered it quite significantly. Copyright law will not defend those copyrights that have entered the public domain, hence, the term "public domain." This means the public is free to use the copy freely.
• Copyright is automatic in the United States for original artworks. Artists do not need to copyright their drawings or paintings in order to successfully file lawsuits against someone who infringes upon their work. However the burden of proof falls upon the artist. Artwork that is published, exhibited and publicly attributed to a living artist should never be copied or photographed and included in an ACT or ACEO without prior consent of that artist and this prior consent must be obvious and legally binding. 
• Print editions on ACEOs should be attributed on the backside of the card in the depiction of a fraction. The top number shown is the specific number applied to that unique card, the bottom number shown is the number of prints made for that artist's particular limited edition printing. So if the edition mark looks something like this 3/300, it means that this is the third card printed out of three hundred cards that will be printed and sold of that particular image. The lower the number printed in the entire addition, the more valuable the print. If your edition is 35 compared to 305, the edition is more collectible. Artist additions for prints traditionally number below 50.
• Authentic papers and period correct imagery are important to sophisticated collectors. Many collectors are very discerning when it comes to graphics and ephemera included in a collaged or hand-sewn ACEO.  They will look for those trading cards that include both patterns and graphics originating from the same time period. In other words, if an artist collages a 20s flapper girl, the collector will also look to see if the background graphics originate from the 1920s. 
• ACEOs including valuable embellishments such as original antique photographs, fragments of actual maps, old textiles, bobbin lace, needle point, collectible buttons and stamps are considered more desirable.
• Original artwork is more collectible than prints made from photographed artworks. Expect these art cards to be priced differently.
• If a printed ACEO is embellished with hand-coloring, it's value is greater than a "untouched print." 
• Savvy collectors also look for authentic signatures belonging to artists not printed signatures. However, these signatures need not include the artists full name if that particular artist does not typically sign their larger works in such a manner.
• The topic or themes illustrated in art cards also will affect the collectability of a card and/or set of cards. Both popularity and rarity are important. Topics that are in demand are frequently produced by artists and collectors have a tendency to assume that this means that popular topics are more important. That being said, rarity of a particular subject also will influence a sophisticated collector, although these cards may be initially more difficult to sell.
• Card condition is one aspect of trading cards that determine the value of a card. There are four areas of interest in determining a cards condition. Centering, corners, edges and surface are taken into consideration, for imperfections, such as color spots and blurred images, and wear, such as creases, scratches and tears, when determining a trading cards value. Cards are considered poor to pristine based on their condition, or in some cases rated 1 through 10. A card in pristine condition, for example, will generally be valued higher than a card in poor condition.

Condition	Description
Pristine	Perfect card. No imperfections or damage to the naked eye and upon close inspection.Shiny
Mint condition	No printing imperfections or damage to the naked eye. Very minor printing imperfections or damage upon close inspection. Clean gloss with one or two scratches.
Near Mint/Mint	No printing imperfections or damage to the naked eye, but slight printing imperfections or damage upon close inspection. Solid gloss with very minor scratches.
Near Mint	Noticeable, but minor, imperfections or wear on the card. Solid gloss with very minor scratches.
Excellent Mint	Noticeable, but minor, imperfections or wear on the card. Mostly solid gloss with minor scratches.
Excellent	Noticeable imperfections or moderate wear on the card. Some gloss lost with minor scratches.
Very Good/Excellent	Noticeable imperfections or moderate wear on the card. Heavy gloss lost with very minor scuffing, and an extremely subtle tear.
Very Good	Heavy imperfections or heavy wear on the card. Almost no gloss. Minor scuffing or very minor tear.
Good	Severe imperfections or wear on the card. No gloss. Noticeable scuffing or tear.
Poor	Destructive imperfections or wear on the card. No gloss. Heavy scuffing, severe tear or heavy creases.

artist trading cards or ATCs

Sample of Michael Leavitt's Art Cards

      Artist trading cards (or ATCs) are miniature works of art about the same size as modern trading cards baseball cards, or 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches(64 mm × 89 mm), small enough to fit inside standard card-collector pockets, sleeves or sheets. The ATC movement developed out of the mail art movement and has its origins in Switzerland. Cards are produced in various media, including dry media (pencils, pens, markers, etc.), wet media (watercolor, acrylic paints, etc.), paper media (in the form of collage, papercuts, found objects, etc.) or even metals or fiber. The cards are usually traded or exchanged. When sold, they are usually referred to as art card editions and originals (ACEOs).

      M. Vänçi Stirnemann is credited in many circles with popularizing the modern artist trading card in 1996, holding trading sessions in Zurich, Switzerland. This resurgence of interest in the cards spawned the ACEO (Art Cards, Editions and Originals) movement.

      An offshoot of artist trading cards are Art Cards, Editions and Originals (ACEOs), which originated when some artists began to create cards to sell, in addition to trading among themselves. Many ACEOs are sold on internet auction sites, such as eBay. As the term suggests, ACEOs may be small original works of art, or editions of small prints.
      Michael Leavitt's Art Cards, hand-painted small portraits of artists, replicated traditional baseball trading cards in style and format. Subjects were drawn from various genres, and included Vincent van Gogh, Bob Ross, Frida Kahlo, Jackson Pollock, and Michael Jackson. The limited editions were hand-packed in wrappers with bubble gum. Leavitt said, "It's a way I created to compare people and what they do across all kinds of different areas."
      As for an earlier example, in 1991, Cleury Champion first sold his cards through the catalog of his avant-garde magazine eXpErImEnTaL (bAsEmEnT). Champion's most recognized cards were playing cards with experimental poems of John M. Bennett rubber stamped on the face.

• ATC Quarterly
• Trading Card Questions
• Read more about mass produced trading cards

      Below, Bob Rankin explains how to have fun with artist trading cards.

collectable cards or trading cards

      A trading card (or collectible card) is a small card, usually made out of paperboard or thick paper, which usually contains an image of a certain person, place or thing (fictional or real) and a short description of the picture, along with other text (attacks, statistics, or trivia). There is a wide variation of different types of cards. Modern cards even go as far as to include swatches of game worn memorabilia, autographs, and even DNA hair samples of their subjects.

Trade cards advertising the product
(not to be confused with trading cards).

      Trading cards are traditionally associated with sports; baseball cards are especially well-known. Cards dealing with other subjects are often considered a separate category from sports cards, known as non-sports trading cards. These often feature cartoons, comic book characters, television series and film stills. In the 1990s, cards designed specifically for playing games became popular enough to develop into a distinct category, collectible card games. These tend to use either fantasy subjects or sports as the basis for game play.

      Trade cards are the ancestors of trading cards. Some of the earliest prizes found in retail products were cigarette cards — trade cards advertising the product (not to be confused with trading cards) that were inserted into paper packs of cigarettes as stiffeners to protect the contents. Allen and Ginter in the U.S. in 1886, and British company W.D. & H.O. Wills in 1888, were the first tobacco companies to print advertisements. A couple years later, lithograph pictures on the cards with an encyclopedic variety of topics from nature to war to sports — subjects that appealed to men who smoked - began to surface as well. By 1900, there were thousands of tobacco card sets manufactured by 300 different companies. Children would stand outside of stores to ask customers who bought cigarettes for the promotional cards. Following the success of cigarette cards, trade cards were produced by manufacturers of other products and included in the product or handed to the customer by the store clerk at the time of purchase. World War II put an end to cigarette card production due to limited paper resources, and after the war cigarette cards never really made a comeback. After that collectors of prizes from retail products took to collecting tea cards in the UK and bubble gum cards in the US.

• Read more about artist trading cards or ATCs

Collecting cards with pictures of events in ballooning history from 1783 to 1883.

^{No. 1. Le Commandant Coutelle au siège de Mayence (1795)
No. 2. Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier
No. 3. Sébastien Lenormand fait la 1re expérience du parachute, Montpellier (1783)
No. 4. Descente de Jacques Garnerin en parachute (1797)
No. 5. Gay-Lussac et Biot a 4,000 mètres de Hauteur (1804)
No. 6. Le Ballon du couronnement de Napoléon
No. 7. Mort de Mme. Blanchard (1819)
No. 8. Zambeccari et ses deux compagnons dans L'Adriatique (1804)
No. 9. Mort de Harris (1824)
No. 10. Arban est recueilli par des pècheurs Italiens (1846).}

^{No. 1. Les frères Montgolfier ... (1883)
No. 2. 1re expérience aerostatique a Annonay (1783)
No. 3. Charles lance ... à Paris le premier aérostat (1783)
No. 4. Premier voyage aérien ... Pilâtre de Rozier et d'Arlandes (1783)
No. 5. Premier voyage aérien ... par Charles et Robert (1783)
No. 6. 1er essai de direction de ballons ...(1784 Guyton de Morveau)
No. 7. Traversée en balon du Pas-de-Calais par Blanchard et Jefferies (1785)
No. 8. Mort de Pilâtre de Rozier et de Romain (1785)
No. 9. Les Aérostiers de la première République
No. 10. L'Entreprenant, ballon monté par Coutelle ... bataille de Fleurus.}