I'm getting ready to make a database of my baseball cards and wanted to know how would I go about making a searchable database of my cards?

Well, firstly, what do you have?
Not the cards.... the database!

I'm assuming you have mysql, due to the forum.....
So, are you going to make it text based, typing everything... or going to get a program to make the process a little easier, something like navcator that, (works like MS Access!)?

As for the DB itself, I assume you know what details you wish to enter...name, number, description, details etc....unique id.....then all you do is make things indexed....particularly the unique id, name and number.

Does that make any sense?

Searchable database eh? Well, first off you need to make the layout for your table.

Make a table, something like 'cards' and then you need to figure out which columns you'll need (you can add and remove them later.)

For instance, columns could be something like:

id (this is essential - and should be incrementing for each card, so that your program can easily find a card using their ID)
name (card name)
(other columns that are suitable)

Then later on, you can make a PHP program that searches for different values in different columns, and you can even run wildcard searches (like *est* would find test, testing, etc.)