Introduction To Sports Card Investing
If you’ve come across this article, your first reaction may be to laugh at the idea of a sports card renaissance. That too was my first reaction when I heard that sports card investing was making a comeback. I was one of the kids in the late 80s/early 90s dumping every penny I had into sports cards believing that I was being entrepreneurial and making a sound investment. We all had a rude awakening when we found out that due to mass over-printing our cards were all worthless. I myself had an entire closet full of cards that weren’t worth the cardboard they were printed on. It was a bitter pill to swallow and turned off a whole generation of card collectors.
I tried to get back into sports cards again when I owned an affiliate sales company with collecting legend Don West back in 2009, but it never really took off and the market still hadn’t recovered from the earlier taint. So when RotoGrinders co-founder Cameron MacMillan mentioned that we were considering entering into sports card investing content space, I was surprised to say the least. But then he showed me some of the prices modern cards were selling for:
Giannis Antetokounmpo eBay Prices
Needless to say seeing a Mike Trout rookie selling for 6 figures was shocking and I had to dig in more to modern day sports card investing!
THE CURRENT STATE OF THE MARKET
Cam introduced several of us to videos produced by his mentor and tech company entrepreneur, Geoff Wilson, who has been investing heavily in sports cards over the past few years. In fact Geoff was so high on the investability of the current state of sports cards that he created a website SportsCardInvestor.com dedicated to helping aspiring investors navigate the new market and determine the value of the cards they are considering purchasing. Back in the day when I was originally buying cards, you could determine their value easily by looking them up in Beckett price guides. But now we’re in a whole new world where card value is determined largely by eBay sales where prices can be all over the place. Geoff created a Market Movers tool to aggregate the recent sale prices of individual sports cards to help guide us to fair market target prices so we don’t over-pay. It is exactly the tool we need to project value and we will be referencing Market Movers frequently in our content and recommend signing up for a membership there to stay on top of the latest trends. You can currently subscribe through this link and using the promo code GRINDERS for 20% off your first month.
But before you use the Market Movers tool you should know a few things about the current sports card landscape. Firstly, there has been a ton of consolidation over the past 20 years. Panini has emerged as the dominant brand in the market after taking over Donruss which owned Score and Leaf. Panini currently has exclusive rights to NFL and NBA. Topps, Bowman and Panini all produce MLB cards, while Upper Deck (which took over the Fleer brand in 2005) only produces NHL cards.
CREATING VALUE
The remaining brands have done a good job of creating value for their cards by reducing the quantity being produced while increasing the quality and variations. Panini, for example, prints several variations of some cards with each variation having a different level of scarcity. For example the big card coming from the 2019 Panini Prizm series is Zion Williamson’s rookie card who’s Silver variation is currently selling for close to $3,000 and the even-more scarce Purple Pulsar card goes for around $9,000 for a Gem Mint card. In addition, there are much fewer cards in a pack these days and much fewer packs in a box. Each box contains a certain amount of variations and inserts including autographed cards. To further increase the value of the rarer cards, collectors can send in their cards to get graded. This is when a card is sent to a grading company like PSA or Beckett (BGS) and they evaluate the condition of your card. Cards that are graded a 10 are visually flawless in regards to centering, surface and perfect corners and edges. Graded cards are much more valuable than cards which have not been graded. A 2018 Panini Contenders Lamar Jackson Autographed Rookie Card with a PSA 10 grade was recently selling for around $4,000.
WHAT TO INVEST IN
So now that you have an idea of what the market looks like right now you’re probably wondering what to invest in. One of the best investment strategies is to target individual rookie cards with PSA 10 grades. The demand for a player’s non-rookie cards usually drops off a cliff. Ideally you are using the Market Movers tool to determine the price trends of cards you are targeting. If you see a card available on eBay that is priced fair market or lower than what you’ve researched, then it might be a good idea to buy. Just like with the stock market, there are times when everyone else is selling and driving prices down. Those are the best times to keep a cool head and invest in cards on your watch list which have come down in price.
Hobby boxes and unopened packs are fun to buy and open, but ultimately if you use this method to chase cards you will lose money in the long run. Even if you do land the card you were looking for there is no guarantee that it will be in the perfect condition needed for a 10 Grade.
Finally, we at RotoGrinders will be putting out a bunch of content including articles and videos to help you navigate the market. We will be providing you with links to players we’re targeting based on trends detected by SportsCardInvestor’s Market Movers tool to make your searches easier. And don’t forget to subscribe now to SportsCardInvestor.com and use the promo code GRINDERS today to get 20% off your first month. Collecting Sports Cards is a fun hobby and now, thanks to the changes in the industry, can also be a lucrative one!