Celebrate this 4th of July with the Tale of Your Best Sportscard Sale Ever!
PSARich
Posts: 534 ✭✭✭
Oh, the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave! I am so blessed to have lived my life in the USA. Beyond our freedoms that we enjoy, our capitalistic system of economy allows selling and buying based on market health, condition, rarity, need, want, etc., etc. and when it comes to sportscards, where else can you find a collectibles market for our cardboard gold that promotes the use of discretionary money at the level we have here in America? So to celebrate the 4th....here is my story of the best sale I ever had on eBay based on percent of final sale vs. investment.
My finest sportscard sale (in terms of % profit) came about a 10-12 years ago. I was just starting to have cards graded and selling them on eBay to raise funds for the universities that were welcoming my kids to campus each year. Three kids going to college at one time can put a crunch on your budget. Well, I was about a thousand dollars short of the next round of tuition payments when I got a shipment back from PSA. In it were two 1974 Topps Traded (Baseball) Checklists that I had bought at a recent show for fifty cents each and thought I would have them graded. They both received 9's so I thought I would keep one and put the other on eBay. (As it turned out, they were the first two 9's ever graded by PSA) We are now in the last 30 minutes of the auction and the card is up to about $20 so I am quit pleased at my profit. At this time in eBay history "snipping" was prevelent, normally done by hand by the individual buyer. All of a suddeen a bidding war breaks out for this 1974 PSA 9 Topps Traded Checklist. $100....$200....$300... By the time the auction is down to the last minute we are closing in on $600. Two bidders want this card bad and the gavel falls at just over $700. I am stunned and that last twenty minutes were some of the most entertaining I'd had in a long time.
So my investment of 50 cents plus grading fees netted me a super big profit margin. Unfortunately, I kept the other checklist and still have it to remind myself that supply and demand drives the collectibles market and when a card is hot and overvalued...sell it. When it comes to graded cards, quite often there may be only one of a grade, but sooner or later more of that card are graded and the population increases which normally lowers the value. (There are exceptions of course such as the PSA 8 Honus Wagner and will there ever be more that three PSA 10 1952 Topps Mantles?) As it turns out there are still only about 10 PSA 9's of the 1974 Topps Traded Checklist so it is still relatively scarce.
Well, that's my story of my best profit margin on an eBay sale. I would share the times that I have been burned and there are a few, fortunately not involving a lot of money. Happy 4th of July to all and may the freedom to enjoy our great hobby be a blessing to each of you.
P.S. My father was a proud veteran of WWII who use to remind me often that the freedoms we enjoy are the result of great sacrafices made by many Americans. In fact once he told me, where else could you collect your baseball cards and relive your childhood sports memories but here in America. Of course he would tell me that about anything I did. Fact is, he was right. I told him about this 1974 Topps Baseball Checklist PSA 9 sale once. He only shook his head and said "Only in America, Land of Opportunity".
My finest sportscard sale (in terms of % profit) came about a 10-12 years ago. I was just starting to have cards graded and selling them on eBay to raise funds for the universities that were welcoming my kids to campus each year. Three kids going to college at one time can put a crunch on your budget. Well, I was about a thousand dollars short of the next round of tuition payments when I got a shipment back from PSA. In it were two 1974 Topps Traded (Baseball) Checklists that I had bought at a recent show for fifty cents each and thought I would have them graded. They both received 9's so I thought I would keep one and put the other on eBay. (As it turned out, they were the first two 9's ever graded by PSA) We are now in the last 30 minutes of the auction and the card is up to about $20 so I am quit pleased at my profit. At this time in eBay history "snipping" was prevelent, normally done by hand by the individual buyer. All of a suddeen a bidding war breaks out for this 1974 PSA 9 Topps Traded Checklist. $100....$200....$300... By the time the auction is down to the last minute we are closing in on $600. Two bidders want this card bad and the gavel falls at just over $700. I am stunned and that last twenty minutes were some of the most entertaining I'd had in a long time.
So my investment of 50 cents plus grading fees netted me a super big profit margin. Unfortunately, I kept the other checklist and still have it to remind myself that supply and demand drives the collectibles market and when a card is hot and overvalued...sell it. When it comes to graded cards, quite often there may be only one of a grade, but sooner or later more of that card are graded and the population increases which normally lowers the value. (There are exceptions of course such as the PSA 8 Honus Wagner and will there ever be more that three PSA 10 1952 Topps Mantles?) As it turns out there are still only about 10 PSA 9's of the 1974 Topps Traded Checklist so it is still relatively scarce.
Well, that's my story of my best profit margin on an eBay sale. I would share the times that I have been burned and there are a few, fortunately not involving a lot of money. Happy 4th of July to all and may the freedom to enjoy our great hobby be a blessing to each of you.
P.S. My father was a proud veteran of WWII who use to remind me often that the freedoms we enjoy are the result of great sacrafices made by many Americans. In fact once he told me, where else could you collect your baseball cards and relive your childhood sports memories but here in America. Of course he would tell me that about anything I did. Fact is, he was right. I told him about this 1974 Topps Baseball Checklist PSA 9 sale once. He only shook his head and said "Only in America, Land of Opportunity".
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Comments
late 2004, i casually made a purchase of a couple cards via eBay, including a '62 Topps Drysdale All-Star in nice shape for 10 bucks & s/h.
it was the first time i'd ever bought a baseball card on eBay, because at the time, i didn't really need to buy anything. i was about to be buried under a new consignment which kept me busy for the better part of three full years. you may recall buying a few PSA graded cards from me.
so, i decided to send in this nice Drysdale for grading along with a bunch of others and wound up netting a tidy little profit of 20 bucks after reselling the card. TRIPLED UP!
the experience gave me a world of confidence in buying cards on eBay, though. i would consider this invaluable and it has paid off handsomely.
had i started out with a negative buying experience, as so many stories here have been told, it may have turned out differently.
your mention of the bid wars in the final moments reminded me also of the astonishment i shared with my wife as we watched some of our earliest auctions close with prices going out of sight.
those were the days, eh?
Always buying Bobby Cox inserts. PM me.
from an auction house I won a lot with a 68' Bazooka Mantle PSA 8 and a Mantle Post Canadian PSA card - maybe a 5MK or something. won the lot for about $1200. lot arrived Friday afternoon, had the 2 cards on ebay on Saturday morning. By close of the weekend both had sold both for approx $2600 between the two.
won an exhibit set last year. the Mantle portrait graded an 8 and Richardson a 9. those 2 cards alone just about paid for the set. have not kept tracked specifically of profits from that set but easily tripled the investment.
~WalterSobchak
Since then I've made more on cards, but on pure ROI I don't think that I can match that.
It shows up in just a top loader inside a bubble mailer and has actually fallen half way out of the top loader.
Amazingly it was fine and appeared to be quite nice.
PSA graded it a NM 7 and I later sold it for $6,800!
The seller was also auctioning a '48 Leaf Sid Luckman RC but it went over my bid. Always wondered what that card would have graded.
Jason
1992 Collectors Edge Football case?