United States Congress Trading Cards move fast after arrival

It started as a hobby and it became a near-instant sell-out.

It's the 2020 United States Congress Trading Cards set and it's what you would expect by that name -- cards for 100 U.S. Senators and 435 members of the House of Representatives. It's a recent release from Fascinating Cards, a company created by 43-year-old collector Eric Paulson in the last year.

"I've been a card collector since I was a child and have thousands of baseball and football cards. I'm also kind of a nerd, so I've always been interested in non-sports cards like Star Wars and TV shows," Paulson said. "About 10 years ago, I came up with the idea to produce my own set of cards featuring the United States Congress, since I'm interested in politics and thought it was a neat idea for a trading card. I got as far as designing a card in Photoshop and having some proofs made, but as a father of three toddlers, the costs and time needs were too great, so I put it on the back-burner. Now that my kids are grown and I run a successful web-development business, I was finally able to follow through on my passion project."

He did all the work himself -- more on that shortly -- and it turned out to have plenty of interest.

"Within two weeks I sold out nearly my entire stock," he said. "I've had journalists contact me to do interviews and requests for individual cards for Senators to pose with. And best of all, I've had high school social studies teachers ask if they can use the cards as a teaching aid. How cool is that?"

The print run is simple -- 100 copies of each card made -- with that put into 5,350 packs. That's 10 cards per pack and there are 24 packs per box. The only chase here is a single serial-numbered 1/1 copy of each card and those are found at least one time per box.

It was a project that Paulson did himself. Each card's back includes contact and bio info as well as other facts depending on whether they show Representatives or Senators.

"Starting in January 2020, I learned Adobe InDesign and designed the cards, and began to write biographies for all 535 members of Congress and gather public data that I thought would be interesting to have on the cards," he said. "I picked a business name, filed the paperwork to become an LLC, set up my website, ran some ads, and waited to see what would happen. I figured the market was too niche to drum up much interest, but even if I didn't sell any, I was proud of the final product and was  happy that I followed through on my dream. I wasn't ready for what happened next."

Cases are now sold out -- but you can find boxes right here -- and he's already got plans for next year once November's action comes and goes.

"I plan on producing a set of cards featuring the new 117th Congress that goes into session next year. All new members who are elected in November will have Rookie Cards, and I am sending out autograph requests to as many Senators and Representatives as I can," Paulson said. "There will also hopefully be some cool parallels and Relic cards. I will begin fundraising for this set soon, maybe via Kickstarter or through pre-orders. I'm still new to the industry, so I have a lot to learn, but I'm all in now and am excited about the future."

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2020 United States Congress Trading Cards Checklist