Sports Card Investing Tips To Get You Started
What is a fantasy sports player to do when there are no sports?
If only there was another activity that was sports related and allowed people to make money by identifying unrecognized trends and underpriced potential.
Good news fellow DFS grinders, there is!
Let me introduce (or maybe reintroduce) you to the world of sports cards.
After reaching its height of popularity, and what amounted to overproduction in the late 80s and early 90s, the trading card market contracted. The value of many of those childhood collections dropped drastically, and most people wrote off sports cards as worthless. Well, much has changed since many of us collected cards as kids, and over last several years, the card market has come roaring back. You can check out the latest trends in sports card sales using the Market Movers tool over SportsCardInvestor.com, where you can use the promo code GRINDERS to get 20% off your first month subscription. Check out some of these eBay prices your favorite players’ cards are currently selling for:
Giannis Antetokounmpo eBay Prices*
More are more people are coming back to collecting cards as both a hobby and a way to make some extra money.
Just as in the DFS world, this game can be played at a wide range of price levels. But if done right, money can be made from buying and selling cards from .01 a piece up to hundreds or thousands of dollars if your bankroll allows it.
I started with about $100 when I bought my first collection to flip in early 2016. Since then I’ve flipped my way into an inventory of over 150K cards which has been all paid for with profits.
Here are some tips to consider as you get started in buying and selling sports cards.
1) Get Educated
Please, please, please don’t blindly start buying cards. As with many investments, the easy money is made at the buy. “Buying right” can give you a built in safety net. Do some research on the cards and sets you are interested in. Sites like SportsCardInvestor.com, my blog WaxPackHero.com, the Blowout Cards forums, and Beckett.com, can be great resources for you to learn the basics about cards from the sports you are interested in collecting or flipping. Numerous other sports card podcasts are out there which also focus on both collecting and making money on cards. All this written and audio content can walk you through the basics of buying and selling both online and in-person.
One of the reasons you are part of this community is because you quickly learned that your chances of succeeding in DFS are exponentially increased if you are educated in the process of selecting your lineups. The same idea applies to sports cards.
2) Get Plugged Into A Community
Whether it is in the forum here on RotoGrinders, or elsewhere, I suggest connecting with other people who are collecting. Online forums, Discord chats, and Facebook communities are full of people who love to talk cards. While not as numerous as they once were, many communities still have local hobby shops where like minded collectors discuss buying and selling cards. Many collectors, (myself included) are happy to talk cards and share what has worked for us. Not only does a community make buying and selling cards more fun, but it also significantly contributes to the education component I mentioned earlier.
3) Narrow Your Focus and Start Slow
I can’t stress this enough. As you get started, the number of product brands and nuances can be a bit overwhelming. Money can be made from cards that range from over 100 years old to the brand new releases. All sports are represented. Some cards have autographs and pieces of bats and jerseys embedded in them, and some are serial numbered to show their scarcity. As you get started, it is important to narrow your focus as you learn the ins and outs.
Some people focus on the high dollar, high risk, high reward type cards. Some focus on a particular sport or player. Personally, my success has come from just buying basic cards and turning pennies into quarters and dollars. When you do that thousands of times a month it starts to add up! My approach has a very low downside risk, but allows for consistent profit if you are willing to put in a little work. As a DFS grinder, work is something I’m confident you are up for!
Ebay sold listings are a great place to start your research, but the Market Movers tool on SportsCardInvestor.com lets you slice and dice the data quickly to see what player, sport, and individual card sales trends have been doing. They use the same eBay data, but do all the scrubbing for you and make it more usable! The best part is, SportsCardInvestor is offering a special 20% discount off the first month your subscription for RotoGrinders readers simply by using the promo code: GRINDERS.
Over the next several weeks you will be seeing more and more sports card related content here on RotoGrinders. It will cover several different angles and perspectives with the intent to help educate you on the wide range of possibilities that exist when it comes to profiting from buying and selling cards. Some of the content will focus on low dollars strategies, and some will dive into the more expensive market. Identifying both arbitrage opportunities and cards ripe for price appreciation will likely be covered.
I’d like to invite you to check out my blog at WaxPackHero.com, follow me on Twitter @themikesommer and also check out my podcast, the WaxPackHero Sports Card Minute. I discuss both the hobby and business sides of collecting. In the podcast I share the strategies I use to profitably buy and sell cards and ultimately create a collection I love!