Everything you need to know about sports cards investing

The market for sports cards is currently crazy hot. Doubled and tripled prices within months are the new normal. Before you start, it is essential to understand the basics.

Please find below an overview of topics that are relevant, if you plan dive deeply into the hobby of sports cards.

RESEARCH
Before you even start to buy your first card, it is essential to spend at least 24 hours on doing your research - not only in sports cards, but also in sports generally.

Blowout Forum
Strolling through the amazing community of the Blowout Forum and trying to understand every aspect of the market, can be a lot of fun. Try also to give and become a part of the community.

ESPN
Digging through the ESPN news and setup notifications, so you stay informed on what´s happening in the sports world.

YouTube & Facebook
See which players and cards are trending and read through the comments.

Of course, all forums and comments should be taken with a grain of salt, but it gives you a pretty good feeling for players and situations, since culture is also a very important aspect in sports cards investing.

STRATEGY
There are multiple routes for you to go, if you decide to take action in the sports cards market.

Investing
If you want to be on the safer side, you should only invest in established Players like e.g. Michael Jordan, Mike Trout, Tom Brady or Christiano Ronaldo. Or even better, if you want to invest in Vintage: e.g. Wilt Chamberlain, Mickey Mantle, Joe Montana or Pele.

Gambling
You can also buy promising Prospects and Rookies, but remember. This is a very risky game, since they mostly haven’t really achieved anything, and the probability of them getting hurt is really present. Therefore you really need to have a good knowledge of the market, culture and player stats, otherwise you can get burned easily and use your 500 Greg Oden Rookie Cards for other activities.

Flipping
Flipping means short term buying and selling. This can be done e.g. by discovering a secret source where they sell cheap, like foreign platforms or garage sales. Most of the times due to the short term between buying and selling, the margins are thinner, therefore it is essential to operate on scale.

Collecting
If you just like specific teams or players, and you are not in for the thrill, then probably collecting is the way to go for you.

CARD PRICES
If you decided to buy or sell a card, it is essential to understand the value of the card you are holding or wanting.

Ebay
The easiest way to understand the current value of your sports cards is to go to ebay.com; type in card year, card brand, card number and player name, and select “Sold Items” in the left menu and “Auctions” and “Ended recently” in the upper menu. There you can see for how much your card was recently sold on eBay.

Market Movers
Another source is e.g. the “Market Movers”-Tool from Sports Card Investor; it costs about 50 bucks a month, but it surely saves you time. They are constantly updating their card inventory.

RAW VS. GRADED
You can buy cards either raw, which means that there is no judgement of the condition yet, so you need to rely on good photos; or you can buy graded cards, which means that established grading companies already defined the grade of the cards quality.

Grading companies
There are three main grading companies: Professional Sports Authenticators (PSA), Beckett Grading Services (BGS) and Sportscard Guaranty (SGC). Their deal is simple: You send them your cards, and they grade them on a scale from 1 (poor condition) to 10 (perfect condition) by looking at centering, corners, edges and surface. Buying a card raw to send it to one of the grading companies, can give you a massive upside. While PSA is the most popular grading service, they only offer full grades, while for example BGS offers sub-grades for each topic (centering, edges, corners and surface). After the grading process, the cards will be sent back to you in a plastic case and a grading description.

WHERE TO BUY & SELL

Ebay:
Probably the biggest and most liquid platform to buy and sell your cards is good old ebay.com. But don’t forget that eBay takes 10% selling fee!

StockX:
StockX is an alternative way to buy and sell your sports card. If you are selling, you can do this immediately by accepting their offered price or you can set your own price, and wait till a buyer takes it. If you are buying, you can set a price for a specific card, and wait till a seller accepts. Before anyone receives cards or money, they will be sent to StockX for authentication.

Comc:
Comc is a website similar to eBay, but dedicated only to sports cards. Plus, they are taking less fees than eBay. Also they can keep your cards in a warehouse for you, if you dont want them in your home. This can also safe you shipping fees.

Blowout Cards
Of course you can also buy boxes and cases from stores like Blowout.

But never forget: Opening hobby boxes is never a good investment strategy.