This is how we will make some cash: Buying and selling sports cards
An opportunity to have fun, bond with my son and have us both learn the art of the hustle.
“Hey John, want to go play football in the leaf piles outside?”
“Hey John, want to play Kick the Can?”
“Hey John, want to go put pennies on the train tracks?”
That would be a big fat no, no and no my friends.
This series of questioning would play out over and over when I was a young lad back in the late 70’s and early 80’s in suburban New Jersey. It wasn’t so much that I was anti-social (maybe a wee bit) but that I had “work” to do.
Not chores, mind you, but work in terms of needing to organize all of my baseball cards by year or update my hand printed sheets of card values or scour all of my “common” cards for potential gems in the making. This all went down in the quiet and comfy confines of my sports themed bedroom.
All of that outside fun was child’s play, I was building my financial future. Mom and dad were so proud.
And then they weren’t.
Because it all fell to shit.
My Don Mattingly rookies were worth single digits.
My collection of Nolan Ryan Topps cards was worthless.
Even the prized Ken Griffey Jr. 1989 Upper Deck rookie card fell way short of its expected value. I sincerely thought it was going to crack the $1,000 barrier.
All of those years scouting every rookie MLB player now seemed worthless. Doing my best to keep my cards in pristine condition by storing them in plastic sheets in binders was an exercise in futility. Devouring the box scores in the Bergen Record to see if Wally Joyner was getting playing time ultimately meant nothing.
Turns out I didn’t understand the concept of over saturation. And did the hobby ever become over saturated with product. Too many cards meant too little demand which meant my dreams of funding my college education were shot.
Guess a job was in my future now.
Fast forward to Christmas of 2010.
My son is 8 years old and has asked Santa for baseball cards. As he opened a box of cards that Xmas morning, a massive wave of nostalgia washed over me and I was back opening cello packs in my bedroom hoping to get Frank Taveras so I could complete the New York Mets team set.
Back before the days of “rookie cards” and “investments”.
Collecting for the fun of it. I didn’t realize how much I had missed it. At the age of 38, I was ready to piece together a set of cards on my own.
As my son got older, so did his passion for collecting both baseball and football cards. But it wasn’t about completing sets or collecting his favorite player. He learned early on, the value of the “insert” card. Insert meaning a card that is not part of the standard set and is randomly inserted into card packs.
I had no idea this was the backbone of the hobby. An autographed card with only 10 ever made could be sitting there waiting for you and that card could fetch $250.00 on eBay.
Uh oh, color me interested.
You now can’t walk in my son’s room without stepping on a card that is covered in hard plastic. His love of cards has reached obsession level. He knows the 168th ranked prospect for the Minnesota Twins. He uses terms like “graded” and “on card autograph” and “TTM” and sounds really friggin smart.
He is in the early stages of selling and buying cards on eBay. I know that he knows what he is doing. I think he may even orchestrate trades through Instagram. As I started watching this unfold, I had an idea.
Now to put the plan in action.
I’ve been in a bit of a funk the past year or so in terms of work and job prospects. Like so many others, I’ve been consuming a lot of self-help content including books, blog posts, Instagram memes and my personal favorite, podcasts.
A few of my favorites are Tim Ferriss, James Altucher and Gary Vaynerchuk. Each brings a different style and communication method but I’ve found all to be an inspiration. Gary Vee gets me pumped up, Tim has tried it all and I trust his learnings and James is just so open and honest and real. They make the morning commute a pleasure and I’ve made sure to implement a lot of what they have suggested.
But one thing stands out. I’ve heard each of them say it more than once. It seems silly and almost childlike but it took until this week for me to truly comprehend it. Here it is (paraphrased):
What did you love to do more than anything else when you were 10 years old? Build a business around that.
I think you see where this is going.
- I got out all of my “valuable” cards I’ve had stored in my underwear drawer forever.
- I’ve identified those cards I wish to get “graded”. This means to send them out to one of the two to three companies that evaluate the condition of a card and assign it a numerical value. A “10” is perfect and worth a heck of a lot of money on the open market. It can cost up to $20 to get a card graded but if the card is valuable enough, it is worth it.
- I have spent countless hours reading up on the current state of the hobby from a business point of view. This is only the beginning.
- I made my son school me on the basics. Baseball is all about rookie chrome autographed cards. Football is not so specific but graded rookie cards are the best investment.
- I created a budget.
- I determined the focus is money for me and building a collection for him.
- We will be thinking long term and short term.
- As in life, the plan is to sell high and buy low.
- We both will know each and every prospect in both baseball and football. We will know who is overrated and who is underrated. We will meet weekly to discuss.
- I will attempt to identify future Hall of Fame players, get the best deal possible on their highly graded cards and then sell at the right time.
- I will blog about our adventures, successes and failures.
- We will have a lot of fun.
- We will hustle our collective asses off.
Game on.
Do I expect to make fat cash overnight? Hell no. But I do hope that lessons are learned and they can be applied to all of my son’s future endeavors. If we make some money along the way, all the sweeter it will be.
