Tips on profiting?

[30ranfordfan]

This doesn't mean much, you have to expand on your answer



All this is not worth it because of all of the time it takes: searching, finding, calculating if it's a good deal or not, looking at ebay sold listings to see how much they sell for, negotiating, going through the cards and sorting them, putting up sales, dealing with people back and forth, preparing the tons of envelop, going to the postal office... Hourly wise you don't make any money, you just wasted time all along.

Making money in hockey cards is through investments, buy rookie cards, set them aside and do nothing, you just wait until the prices go up, you have to look it at same way as stocks or investments.

I would suggest the bulk buying is a pretty good way to do it.

Let's say I've got 50 cards that I would price at $100 BIN/BO. Most would go quickly at $70, but $100 you need patience. Now I'm really motivated to sell quickly.

I don't want to do 50 deals at $70-a-pop, so I do 1 deal for all 50 cards, and take $2500 for the lot. There's an easy $1k to be made there for the buyer, if they relist and have a little bit of patience.

[jackpot]

I would suggest the bulk buying is a pretty good way to do it.

Let's say I've got 50 cards that I would price at $100 BIN/BO. Most would go quickly at $70, but $100 you need patience. Now I'm really motivated to sell quickly.

I don't want to do 50 deals at $70-a-pop, so I do 1 deal for all 50 cards, and take $2500 for the lot. There's an easy $1k to be made there for the buyer, if they relist and have a little bit of patience.

.

The scenario that you presented is the absolute best case scenario where the seller is willing to let go his cards for cheap and the buyer sells 100% of the cards. This best case scenario doesn't come up often, it does happen but when it happens you also have to be lucky to be the first one to jump in before someone else jump in.

Most frequent and realistic scenario of a bulk purchase is someone selling his collection at a reasonable price and then you take the time and have the patience to flip the cards.

And how many hours will it requires to make some profit? It depends on the lot purchased of course, most of them though will require a lot of hours flipping the cards which in the end is not worth it, it's like less than McDonald's wage

[cjb]

when i say bulk i'm usually talking about the YG that you can buy on ebay for under 3 bucks each (not including shipping) .

Of course you have to do your homework too and try to figure out who the undervalued players on the market. That would require you to have some real hockey knowledge. If you find someone you like, buy up as many as you can and cross your fingers.

I know it's not hockey but IMO Shohei Ohtani of the Angels is probably the most under valued card in the market now. (i know, you can't buy one for under 3)

Back in the old days I bought up so many Bruce Hoffort OPC premier rookie cards because Brain Burke kept coming on the radio telling everybody how great he was.........turns out he wasnt.

[mooneyes]

Time travel machine. Go to the future and take notes. If say Ovy passes Gretzky than go back to 2005 and try to buy, trade, and barter for all 10,000 or so Ovy YG's! Once you have all of them make a video of you burning all of them except 2. Tell everyone you only saved 1 and put it up for auction the day he breaks Gretzky's record. It will sell for around 8 billion. If you end up needing more funds in the future, wait until he is elected into the HOF, pull out the 2nd one and auction that one too. Just tell everyone you found it in a random pile of other cards.

Any other questions?

[canucksfan007]

This doesn't mean much, you have to expand on your answer



All this is not worth it because of all of the time it takes: searching, finding, calculating if it's a good deal or not, looking at ebay sold listings to see how much they sell for, negotiating, going through the cards and sorting them, putting up sales, dealing with people back and forth, preparing the tons of envelop, going to the postal office... Hourly wise you don't make any money, you just wasted time all along.

Making money in hockey cards is through investments, buy rookie cards, set them aside and do nothing, you just wait until the prices go up, you have to look it at same way as stocks or investments.

Every avenue is needed to make money in this hobby

[canucksfan007]

.

The scenario that you presented is the absolute best case scenario where the seller is willing to let go his cards for cheap and the buyer sells 100% of the cards. This best case scenario doesn't come up often, it does happen but when it happens you also have to be lucky to be the first one to jump in before someone else jump in.

Most frequent and realistic scenario of a bulk purchase is someone selling his collection at a reasonable price and then you take the time and have the patience to flip the cards.

And how many hours will it requires to make some profit? It depends on the lot purchased of course, most of them though will require a lot of hours flipping the cards which in the end is not worth it, it's like less than McDonald's wage

You seem to take time too much into consideration. I dont think anyone would recommend flipping cards as a profession. But the OP wants to do this as a hobby, something they like to do in their free time. Something many of us like to do in our free time. I enjoy the entire process, buying cards .... wheeling and dealing to make profit ..... keeping the ones I like or spending my profits back into cards ..... growing the PC.

None of us are worried that we only make "x" an hour. We have jobs, but if you can make money doing your hobby, thats a nice bonus

[Maggot]

If you have to ask, don't bother trying.

Tough reality, but that is my advice to ANYONE that asks how to make money in any hobby, not just this one. If you haven't already found your niche, haven't taken the time to learn all the ins and outs of the hobby, and haven't taken some risk to try on your own... you're not cut out for it.

[piper1]

As Maggot just said, if you are looking for something that is profitable there are far better choices than the hockey card hobby. Just read some of the archived sob stories from some of the sellers who belong to this site to get a general idea.

[smalltimer]

good read!

[jackpot]

You seem to take time too much into consideration. I dont think anyone would recommend flipping cards as a profession. But the OP wants to do this as a hobby, something they like to do in their free time. Something many of us like to do in our free time. I enjoy the entire process, buying cards .... wheeling and dealing to make profit ..... keeping the ones I like or spending my profits back into cards ..... growing the PC.

None of us are worried that we only make "x" an hour. We have jobs, but if you can make money doing your hobby, thats a nice bonus

That's a very very dishonest answer, people that are thinking of making money off hockey cards are first thinking to make a lot of money, like everyone, not just in hockey cards but in society in general, people wants to make money.

Time is the single most important aspect to make money, if you ignore the time aspect, you'll never make real money, you'll keep flipping $1 to $10 cards wasting time.