I started this channel for 2 reasons: 1. To document my journey of running a sports card business. Follow along for all the successes and failures! 2. To showcase www.synergycards.app, a site I made to track my sports card profits and you can use it too!
I started raw/grade/flip this summer. I’m learning this lesson the way currently. Tried taking advantage of July PSA NFL special, bought as much of the “hot rookies” as I could. 20 cards graded, 60% gem rate. Didn’t get the cards back fast enough to sell into preseason hype… now I’m struggling to break even on some of the Tens, loosing money on the 9’s and raw grading rejects
Thanks for posting these. I was wondering how you handle selling multiple copies of the same card. I remember a few weeks back you were going over an order with about 15 of those Select Wembanyama blue base cards. If you get back 10-15 of the same card from PSA how do you sell? Auction or Buy it Now? Do you list them all at once, or just a few and then add more as they sell?
Great question. I’ve had 40 of that card come back now. Usually I don’t have more than 15 of one card, so this is an anomaly. In this case, I aggressively sold them on Facebook. I ended up selling 20 in a bulk deal to one person, and I think 5 more in other deals. I auctioned the other 15 off on my personal eBay. 7 day auctions ending in the evening every 2 days.
Sales averaged about $35 each, and I paid $4-$5 each and $15.99 grading each. And I moved them relatively quickly. So not crazy profit per card but I’m overall happy with it
Nice video! The trouble i am running into it is the cost of shipping to psa and back from psa is making the smaller submissions harder to profit off of. It feels like grading cheap cards, you should be sending in upwards of 50 to 100 cards to make the grading shipping costs lower. Idk, but I'd kill for that roi!
That’s a really good point. I try to keep my submissions to 50+ cards unless it’s higher end stuff. I used to do 20+ but I agree with you, shipping costs add up and it’s nice to allocate that cost across as many cards as possible
Also, having cards take over 70 days to return from psa is killing me. My nfl submission still hasn't come back, and it's been 65 days since they received and processed them. Really hurt since I was expecting about 50 day turnaround and have a bunch of Bryce Young rc that even if they 10, will probably barely break even.
Solid breakdown. I think this is a good entry point for someone with limited capital. Rinse, repeat, then take the profit to invest in higher end cards that take half the time/work. Have you considered selling at a show? Potential to move most of the inventory much faster than ebay.
Yes, I absolutely agree. Best to start small with lower risk cards and not put everything into a few expensive cards. I don’t have a whole lot of shows in my area. I’ve considered it, but I don’t think I really have the right inventory to sell at the big shows, and the local shows are very hit or miss.
Awesome how you put the cost of goods and net profit. Really shows the transparency of the what a person must be willing to “lose” in order to rain. As the saying goes, scared money don’t make no money! Also, great how you showed the transparency with buying in bulk and what you can grade. I bought a 62 card lot of young guns (hockey rookie cards), of the 62, I deemed 12 to be worth of sending to PSA, but I did buy the 62 card lot for $85. So just need 3 to gem to get my money back. Keep of the great work!
I've started looking at more low end stuff based on your videos, but my hit rate for PSA10's isn't great. Any tips on assessing ultra-modern cards when looking for PSA10's?
Great question. The biggest thing for me is focusing mainly on cards with light borders on the front and back. Naturally those will grade higher. Also if the card has been out long enough you can look at the pop report and see the gem rates which can help you know generally how good quality control and gradability of certain cards are
Great insights! I had no idea about the resellers license. I just applied to one for my state, hope I did it correctly, but I will find out soon. Just got my first grades back from PSA 63% gem rate, not ideal but luckily the "bigger" cards gemmed. Will be roughly 300-400 profit. Got another round that is currently in grading stage.
Tip 1: For ESE, it’s actually cheaper and faster to bulk print the labels directly on to a #10 envelope. For peeling and sticking, a thermal label is the way to go (like a Rollo printer). I made a video on this if anyone is curious. Great tips overall. I’m a new sub so looking forward to checking out more of your videos.
Bulk printing directly on to envelopes was definitely a game changer for me. For printing to a 10 envelope, remember to make sure you switch the print setting to 4x6 instead of 8x11, or to single instead of double label.
Do you get a reduced seller fee from eBay since you have a store? It looks like the eBay fee percentage is 12.35% while consigners charge around 15%. I guess I am trying to decide if it is worth selling on my own through eBay vs just letting a consignor sell for a small fee difference. Any advice?
the real cost saver between an eBay store vs regular account is the listing fee after reaching 250 listings a month. Unless you're selling/listing hundreds of items a month, a store isn't worth the monthly fee IMO.
I use both avenues quite a bit. I have a store and I’m a top rated seller but the eBay fee is still around 13.5% for me. The reason why I have my own store is so that I can do fixed price listings and control the prices of my cards. With consignment it’s usually just auctions, which I use for duplicates and dead inventory.
@@synergycardsthanks! That is what I figured. It would be interesting to hear some data on a future video regarding percentage declines in selling price using consignment auctions vs what you had the card listed as buy it now on your store.
If you’re a Top Rated seller you get a small percent discount on the seller fee. Once you get to about 200 items sold in a month, the fee discount covers the monthly store fee.
RC speculation has always been a hit or miss. Maybe you hold them a year and see what happens which could be worse or sell now for a smaller loss. When I started back with collecting, stopped around 2000 and restarted just before pandemic, looking through what I had and it was funny seeing all the bigger RCs from the mid/late 90s that are now basic commons now.
Yeah things change really quickly in this hobby for sure. All things considered I’m glad I got out of these when I did because it at least gave me cash I could reinvest
You have to buy a card, wait for the player to become elite, THEN grade it. You decided to enter into a speculative market and then are shocked when it doesn't go your way. You may have lost $10 on the Mathurin card, but I feel that $10 is all it is worth.
In my opinion, my issue here was that I graded the cards too late. Every card/player mentioned in the video had earlier psa 10 sales that were profitable. To me, it doesn’t make sense in this day and age to buy a raw card of a new rookie/prospect and wait to grade it. Too many people are buying into prospects early which drives their prices way up in the beginning. If the player doesn’t pan out (which happens most of the time) you’re gonna lose money on the raw card and potentially lots of time too. I just personally don’t like holding on to raw or graded cards for very long (case in point from this video).
That’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. There are lots of ways to enjoy this hobby and everyone has the choice whether they stay or leave. I made this video (and all my videos) to showcase what I’m learning about profiting in the hobby in hopes that the people who are interested can learn with me. If it’s not for you, that’s totally fine.
I see ur buying expensive cards and player productions are not working out. I think Wemby is a hold. I would say stop trusting the .99 cent bidding process, you get screwed everytime. Set ur price and let the card seat, you will get it sold.
I actually didn’t auction any of these cards, they were all fixed price listings. If I were to hold a player, it would be Wemby. I just want to avoid the risk and grade lots more of his stuff next year again if it makes sense
@@synergycards we all take big losses in this hobby. Personally, I prefer selling a graded card with safe profit margins. Also, I only grade cards I pull and have trust issues buying raw cards off eBay. Keep the faith
For me personally, I’d rather just avoid the risk/speculation of holding players into the season. Some people do it successfully, but I’d just rather sell them off and move on to the next thing
Thanks for watching! Around 80% of the cards I buy online are gradeable. I did a video showing my guide to buying clean raw cards on eBay where I share my exact numbers.
Definitely. His values very well may go up this year. But even if that happens, I’d rather be able to take the cash now and move on to the next thing and then grade a bunch more fresh Wemby’s after the season if it makes sense. Just my personal strategy, there’s lots of viable options with Wemby. Thanks for watching!
A couple issues I see here: 1. The basketball card market is full of the sneaker/flipper types. Not a lot of younger collectors. 2. The players you choose by and large are not very good, I see this same thing happen with the prospecting in baseball. Most people can’t figure out the two or three guys who are the best players. Not having the right players is the kiss of death at the end of the day. I do wish you the best of luck.
Yeah those are both good points. Point #2 is really the whole idea behind not holding new players into the season. Only a couple actually play well enough to justify their prices. All the cards/players I mentioned in the video had margins before the season started. The cards of theirs that I sold earlier were profitable. The biggest issue for me was the timing, and I made that worse on myself by holding out even longer on certain cards
@@synergycards yes, for sure. It’s a tough game, but it’s easier if those players were the top players, their prices wouldn’t fall so fast. And it’s tough because a lot of ppl are trying to do what you’re trying to do
Agreed. Paolo and Chet cards did fine for me into the season while the others plummeted. Tough game for sure. There’s lots of ways to lose money and much fewer ways to turn a profit. But it’s fun and it is a skill that can be refined and learned as time goes on.
This is another awesome video, and I love the perspective of the Curry and LeBron cards. I just sold a 23 select gwp Premier curry for $36. Ten to twelve bucks in profit isn't bad when you add them all up.
Great question. I built a website to track my card finances. It’s available to the public now and I’m currently working on some new features to improve it. I’ll be doing videos on that fairly soon
Well done! I was wondering though, so when you have multiples like the base Wemby, you list them one at a time every two days? And is that buy it now or auction?
In this case with the 30 blue selects, I started by listing 10 of them at auction, staggered every 2 days. I was able to sell the other 20 to a bulk buyer for about 80% of comps. So not crazy profit but still profit on every card. It’s not often the case that I have THAT many duplicates of one card. So I usually try to sell them all fixed price first before auctioning some off at a time.
@synergycards awesome, thank you for the response. I just did 3 in my last order and auctioned them all at once. Didn't do too well on them. I have another order with the basketball special this month with 10, so I'm trying to figure out the best way not to sell significantly lower than average price. I did get a great deal on them for $5 a card.
@synergycards Wow, okay, I hadn't thought about that. Thank you! My wife also recommended trying to have the auctions end near the 1st and the 15th around pay days for most folks, and I thought that was revelation!
Do you have any plans to buy and grade the Prizm Draft for football for this year’s rookie class i.e. Caleb Williams & Jayden Daniels? I’ve been doing really well with Prizm and Select basketball but I don’t want to hold 2nd year players into the season, so I’m done after August same as you. But Prizm Draft loses its value really fast so I’m hesitant. Curious of your opinion since you’ve been doing this longer than me. Thanks!
Good question. I’m still trying to decide how I want to approach this new football rookie class. I’ve never done Prizm draft football before, but I think I’ll try to buy at least a few of the nicer parallels and grade them.
I’m new to your channel and enjoying moving through your older videos. Thank you for all the good advice. I have to say, though, your gem rate is hard to believe. I’d appreciate if you would shut up the skeptic in me by actually opening the packages from PSA on camera. Thanks again for the great videos.
The only reason I hesitate to do that is because it takes awhile to open them which might drive viewers away. I’ve seen comments on other creators’ PSA reveals complaining about how long it take to open the boxes. I could probably speed up the video while I’m opening the boxes though. I’ll think of some ideas for handling this. Thanks for watching!
Most collectors can’t afford to spend $100’s let alone $1000’s on the cards they want. The majority of the $50 PSA 10 Wemby’s I’ve sold are to people in TX, so I can assume they’re spurs fans who want to collect Wemby. And as far as the Mahomes stuff, I think it’s similar. Collectors want to make progress on PSA set registry stuff so they’ll buy non-rookie color PSA slabs at good margins for me. Thanks for watching!
This is an exceptional video, the problem is, most people are going to not take heed to your advice, because today, people are impatient and want everything in life "microwaved" for them. Most are going to do a quick glance at the card, check the price, make a bid, win the bid, get the card graded and wonder why they are getting mostly PSA 8's or 9's or SGC 8's or 9's, instead of PSA/SGC 10's. The problem I had with eBay was being too excited and rush, because not only was I interested in the card I was currently inspecting, but in the back of my mind I was wanting to rush, because I felt as if i was missing out on other hits and deals. I grew out of that with age. I guess the gist of my post is: To be successful in this hobby, especially trying to find gems for your personal collection, you must be thorough, precise, analytical and patient. Outstanding video, brother.
Great comment. I always tell people that it’s better to take plenty of time in the beginning to learn the skills. Way better to start small with a few cards and learn that way instead of rushing into it with huge amounts of money.
I prefer fixed price listings. I do auction cards and send cards to Probstein if I have a bunch of duplicates or stuff that isn’t moving very well. In those cases I start them at $0.99 and run them for 7 days.
I love when guys like in this video talk about price of cards. It ain’t worth shit until you’ve sold out. Until then, you’re out the money and have cardboard.
@@synergycardsAny recommendations for getting rid of the smaller base wemby slabs? I graded a ton of the smaller base wembys but can’t get rid of them. I use eBay with a fairly big eBay store. Maybe I’ll just have to understand it takes time for stuff to move
I’ve been auctioning a lot of my duplicates, which has been hit or miss. I’ve had a lot end for ~10%-20% lower than recent comps, and a few end higher. But it does keep things moving.
I love the video. Would be awesome to see how you navigate pricing, sending offers, basically all things actually selling the cards. I feel I price competitively, but stuff tends to sit.
Yeah that’s a good point. Stuff that’s higher pop is definitely harder to move, and especially using eBay fixed price listings. I use multiple avenues to sell which I have mentioned in videos but just briefly. I’ll try to put a video out about my selling process.
I’ve used Probstein auctions for quite awhile now, and I’d say overall I’m happy with the results considering I’ve mostly sent duplicates and dead inventory to them. I’m just starting to auction some duplicates on my personal eBay, so we’ll see how those turn out
