In this section

ADDING YOUR CARDS

Three ways to get the cards you own into slab — and which one to reach for first.

Once slab collector current prints your collector (the First Run guide), the CLI is wired and you're ready to build your collection. This is the fast path from a stack of cards on your desk to a valued, searchable collection.

There are three ways in. They all end at the same place — a copyin your collection, each carrying what it cost you and what it's worth — but they differ in how much you type. The rule of thumb: don't add cards one at a time if they came in together. If you opened a box, use break fill. If you bought a bundle, use lot fill. Both add many cards with almost no typing and split the cost across them for you. Save the single-card flow for genuine one-offs.

pick your path

How did these cards come to you?

  Opened a sealed box / case   →   slab break fill   ◀ preferred: walk the checklist
  Bought a bundle (one price)  →   slab lot fill     ◀ preferred: cost splits for you
  A single card, on its own    →   slab collection add

💡"Splits the cost for you" is the whole point of breaks and lots. You paid one price for many cards; slab divides it across them, so every card carries its real acquisition cost — which is what makes your profit/loss numbers later actually true.

1. A SINGLE CARD — SLAB COLLECTION ADD

The one-at-a-time flow. Reach for it when a card arrived on its own — a single eBay win, a card someone handed you, a gap you filled — and there's no box or bundle to tie it to.

slab collection add

It walks you through one card, then offers to add another:

How you got it — purchase, pack pull, trade, gift.
Which card — search by player, then narrow to the set and the exact printing. You never type the card number blind; you pick it from the catalog.
What it cost — the price you paid for this one card.
Condition— your own 1–10 self-grade, and/or a professional grade (PSA/BGS/SGC/CGC + cert number) if it's slabbed.
Serial— the individual number on a numbered card (the "54" of a /100).

Review, confirm, and it's in — the CLI immediately echoes back its cost basis and current market value. Then it asks "Add another card?" so a short stack is still quick. But for a whole box or a big bundle, the next two flows are far faster.

2. A BREAK — SLAB BREAK FILL

A break is a sealed product you opened — a hobby box, a case. You paid one price for the whole thing; every card you pull is a pack pull whose cost is that box price divided across your pulls. This is the preferred way to log everything that came out of a rip.

First, record the break

Tell slab what you opened and what it cost — once, up front:

slab break new

Find the product by name (real words, e.g. Platinum or O-Pee-Chee, not abbreviations like OPC), pick the break type (box/case), the date, the total you paid, and where from. That total is what gets split across your pulls.

Then walk the checklist

slab break fill

Pick the break you just recorded and slab walks you down that set's checklist one slot at a time, in serial-number order — base cards first (1, 2, 3 …), then the inserts alphabetically by their code. At each slot it shows the player and card so you never type a name. You just answer:

the checklist walk

  12/697  #12  Connor McDavid · Base
  ↳  Enter = skip      (you didn't pull it)
     y     = add       (you did — then pick the printing, grade, serial)
     87    = jump      (skip ahead to card #87)
     q     = finish

When you add one, you pick the exact printing (base by default, or a parallel like a Rainbow or an auto), give it a grade and serial if you like — and that's it. No price to type: it comes from the box-cost split automatically.

💡Sort your cards in serial-number order before you start. Because break fill walks the checklist in that exact order, a physically sorted stack means you just flip through it alongside the walk — the next card in your hand is almost always the next slot on screen. Enter, Enter, y, Enter… down the whole box. Sorting first is the single biggest thing that makes this flow fast.

3. A LOT — SLAB LOT FILL

A lot is one purchase of several cards for a single price — an eBay bundle, a table pickup at a show. Like a break, its cost splits across the cards in it, so each carries what it actually cost you. This is the preferred way to log a multi-card buy.

First, record the purchase

slab lot new

Enter the total you paid, the date, and the source. That total is what gets split.

Then add its cards back-to-back

slab lot fill

Pick the purchase once, then add each card in it one after another. Unlike a break, a purchase isn't tied to a single set — a bundle can be anything — so there's no checklist to walk. Instead you search each card by player (player → set → card), the same as the single-card flow, but with the repetitive parts removed: you never re-pick the purchase and you never type a price — the cost comes from the split. Just find the card, set the grade/serial, and move to the next.

📋Think of lot fill as collection addpre-scoped to one purchase: the two things you'd otherwise repeat for every card — choosing the lot and entering a price — are handled once, so a ten-card bundle is ten quick searches, not ten full forms.

WHICH ONE, AGAIN?

at a glance

                 came from        you type per card        cost per card
  break fill      one sealed box   grade + serial            box price ÷ pulls (auto)
  lot fill        one purchase     card search + grade        lot price ÷ cards (auto)
  collection add  anything         everything                you enter it

Whenever cards arrived together — a box, a bundle — reach for break fill or lot fillfirst. They're faster to type and, more importantly, they get your cost basis right for free, which is what every profit, ROI, and portfolio number downstream depends on. Once your cards are in, see Collection and Financials for what slab does with them.