I am not an accountant, but I am a recovering tax attorney (with an LLM in tax law and 7 years of practice), so I am unable to give you the technical answer, but can advise on the theoretical answer. Hope this helps.
Assuming they were not gifts, your cards have a cost basis. The Tax Code/Regs understand this and would not be written so that you get a zero basis if you can’t prove the actual basis. So your basis is not zero. So how do you determine basis? I imagine you do the best you can, in good faith. First, try hard to determine what you paid. Look for old records, call/email people you bought from, etc. and try to produce third party documentation of purchase price. Third party documentation, including an email, is strong evidence/support. Second, if you simply can not determine what you paid, then try to make a reasonable valuation of the card as of the time you bought the card, document your methodology, and go with that. If you can’t do that, well, then do your best and be reasonable (certainly don’t be a pig).
In the rare event you get audited, the burden will be on you to prove basis. If you have a well thought out methodology and third party documentation to support your position, the more likely it will be accepted. If the IRS disagrees, they will do the same gymnastics to determine what they think the basis is; and of course you can challenge that. They will not say you have no basis.
One thing to consider is that by changing from a collector to a dealer, you are likely changing the nature of your gain/loss. In other words, I think collectibles are a special asset class that has its own unique tax rate; otherwise, they are capital assets, subject to long/short term gain/loss. Once you become a “dealer”, your cards become inventory, which is a different asset, and the cards will no longer be collectibles or capital assets, and your gain/loss will be taxed differently. I don’t know if that ends up being a good or bad thing for you — an accountant can help you with that - but you will definitely be changing the nature of the asset and thus the nature of the gain/loss.
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