Best way to make money

[hustledouble]

Hey everybody.

Just aiming for some advice here. I am curious what the best way to make money is in the card game. I'm not talking hundreds or thousands of dollars of profit, but wondering what the best way is to turn a $10 or $20 profit every now and then.

I used to collect cards as a kid -- had thousands -- and sold mostly through garage sales and trades. But I never really got into particular sports or products, I mostly bought what was cheap or got what my dad brought home to me.

I'd like to get back involved, but want to make it more of an investment as opposed to a large hobbyists collection. I'll still keep some cards, but would like to be able to put some stuff on eBay or something now and then as well.

Money isn't a huge object. I'm willing to pay $400 or $500 on a lot if I have a *reasonable* chance of making at least most of that back with the right work and homework. Are Hobby boxes the way to go? Live Breaking? Retail and chase?

The sport doesn't particularly matter, though I think baseball and football would be my areas of focus.

Any advice appreciated.

[pwaldo]

If you can buy the right prospects in the minor leagues you can make a ton selling at the right time when they get call up to the big leagues. I'm talking about baseball. If you do some research into good minor league players and find cheap cards that people will want (ie autographed rookies) then you should make money almost every time. But the only catch is that you might have to sit on the cards for awhile to make a profit.

[Truerarities]

Sports card collecting is for fun, not profit. It's really really really hard to make money in this "game".

[chakhae1]

If you can buy the right prospects in the minor leagues you can make a ton selling at the right time when they get call up to the big leagues. I'm talking about baseball. If you do some research into good minor league players and find cheap cards that people will want (ie autographed rookies) then you should make money almost every time. But the only catch is that you might have to sit on the cards for awhile to make a profit.

That does not work. In order to make money with anything and make it successful you need to have a constant cash flow going and picking up cards and waiting around a couple of years if not longer to see if a prospect will be a good investment just doesn't make sense. Plus there is no guaranteed way to ensure that a prospect will do really well in the majors either no matter how much research you do. Prospecting also holds true for any sport or anything in life so not sure why you limited that to baseball.

[chakhae1]

Sports card collecting is for fun, not profit. It's really really really hard to make money in this "game".

A lot of collectors think making money is fun, for better or for worse.

[hustledouble]

Sports card collecting is for fun, not profit. It's really really really hard to make money in this "game".

While I knew this would come up, and I understand the sentiment, the overwhelming majority of conversation about anything to do with collecting has to do with obtaining value. I'm not looking to purchase a house from sports cards, I'm just looking for advice on finding the best value. Thanks.

[yazfan71]

If there was a sure fire way to make money consistently on sports cards most everyone would probably be doing it. Breaking boxes would definitely not be the way to go since it is a gamble on whether or not you'll get a "hit" to even recover the cost of the box. A few decades ago I thought it would be a dream job to own my own shop, but was told by several owners that the key to making a success out of a shop is not to be a collector. If the "hits" are going to be the cards you want to keep for your collection, you're not going to make money. Needless to say, I'll never be a shop owner!

[Joncamburn]

There are always big lots floating around to buy for several hundred dollars that you can make money on. You just have to be pickey and know what you are getting and watch out for some of the FIRE SALE and QUICK SALE threads that have their stuff priced way above ebay, and the people think that because it says they want to sell it quick means people won't check their prices.

[jrlebert]

I would tend to agree w/Yaz about busting wax NOT being the way to go. I think you are actually pretty close to spot on when you throw around the idea of buying lots to resell.

You never know who hits it big, or relatively big. I bought a basketball lot of about 150 cards a year or so ago. Pieced it out, little by little, and then, all of a sudden, Earl Clark became "somebody", not a mega-star, but his autos went from, say $2-5 to $5-20 for some of them. I cashed out, paid for the lot with one or two nice sales, and the rest was gravy.

I say go with your idea of a lot, have some fun flipping it and working the lot to see what you can get, and go from there! In fact, you can even start by looking through my bucket and buying a bunch of stuff!

[pwaldo]

That does not work. In order to make money with anything and make it successful you need to have a constant cash flow going and picking up cards and waiting around a couple of years if not longer to see if a prospect will be a good investment just doesn't make sense. Plus there is no guaranteed way to ensure that a prospect will do really well in the majors either no matter how much research you do. Prospecting also holds true for any sport or anything in life so not sure why you limited that to baseball.

No it does work and some people are very successful at it. If you could have bought $500 of a player in 2010 and now be able to sell his cards for $2500 you wouldn't want that? And yes there is no guarantee but if you are good the losses are offset by the winners. There's a reason prospects are so popular in baseball and everyone wants them. I don't do it but it painfully obvious to see who does and why there is always a run on unknown minor league players in the buying/selling/trading section all the time. Nobody was suddenly collecting Javier Baez, Oscar Taveras, and Jose Fernandez for the fun of it.