Methodology
This catalogue is useful in proportion to how honestly it was built. These are the rules it is built under.
Evidence or omission
Every enriched value — a print run, a distribution channel, a set size — carries a source URL and a verbatim quote supporting that specific claim, or it is not recorded. When research resolves 38 of 144 rows, the honest result is 38 resolved rows and 106 tracked open questions — not 144 guesses.
“Not documented” is an answer
When a value reads not documented, it means the question is open: no source we accept has settled it. That is different from the value not existing, and the catalogue never blurs the two. Each release page lists its open questions — currently 4,970 of them are tracked across the catalogue. Knowing what it doesn't know is this database's most tested property: on deliberately unanswerable questions, it abstains correctly where open-web research confidently guesses.
What “draft” means
Every record carries the line Draft — sourced but not independently verified. Sourced means the evidence rule above held. Verified means a second, independent method confirmed the value — a different source lineage, a physical checklist, a manufacturer document. Verification events are recorded per row, and the bar is deliberately conservative: most of the catalogue is honest, sourced draft.
What this data cannot do
It cannot identify a card from a photo. “Is this a Silver Prizm?” is the hobby's most-asked question, and no field in this catalogue can answer it — that takes the card in hand, its serial numbering, and often a side-by-side. What the catalogue can tell you is what exists: which parallels a release has, how each is numbered, and where each was sold — so that once you know what you are holding, you know exactly where it sits.
Corrections
People who notice errors are the most valuable users this catalogue has. No report is ever applied automatically — a claim becomes a correction only after a human confirms it against an independent source, and the reporter hears back when the fix ships. A correction form is coming; until then, every error report makes the catalogue measurably better.
Scope
Modern NBA releases, 2016-17 through 2025-26, from Panini and Topps. The catalogue also records what was never made — seasons verified not to exist, with the evidence for the non-release. No source publishes a non-release; this is knowledge the database creates rather than copies.