How to Make Money with Sports Cards

Let’s get straight to the point. How can you make money with sports cards?

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The below graph shows the PWCC 500 Index vs the S&P 500. In short, the value appreciation of sports cards has consistently outpaced the growth of the stock market.

It’s important to understand this isn’t an exact science, but there are lots of ways to make money in this market. Depending on your interests, strengths, and budget, some may appeal to you more than others. It’s also important to recognize all come with risk in one form or another. This page outlines some of the different strategies and business models to profit on sports cards.

We’ll categorize each technique by effort level to help set proper expectations for how much involvement each requires. Keep in mind this is a list of the basic concepts. We go far deeper into strategy and approach on other pages of this site.

High Effort Strategies

Explanation

High Effort Strategies require you to pay attention. For these types of plays, we’re leveraging the swings in the market. The market sometimes changes quickly, which means we need to actively track players and values to make sure we know when we have an opportunity to sell for a profit.

We also want to pay attention to any buzz about your player in the media or in card communities to understand how other people are viewing your player.

Does this mean you have to quit your full time job? Absolutely not! Quite the opposite, in fact. It only takes a few minutes to see what has been listed, check any new sales for your player, and check a box score. The more you put in, the more you’ll get out, but it doesn’t take much time unless you want it to.

High Effort Strategy #1: Prospecting

Prospecting is one of the most common ways to profit on sports cards. The concept is to identify young, often lesser-known players (especially Minor League/G League prospects) you believe have high potential, but whose cards are still relatively inexpensive compared to where they could be in the future. Once identified, the idea is to stock up on their key cards in anticipation of values rising as the player develops and performs at higher and higher levels.

Prospecting in action

Imagine having a pile of key cards that you picked up for next to nothing on eBay over the past 2 months while a baseball player worked his way through the Minor Leagues, completely out of the public spotlight (other than us hardcores, who actually follows Minor League Baseball!?). The player finally gets the call and makes his Major League debut.

He steps up to the plate in his first at bat, and CRACK – a loud homerun goes sailing over the fence! The crowd goes nuts. When he gets back to the dugout, he gets the silent treatment from his teammates for a few seconds before they swarm him to celebrate.

eBay Frenzy!

Suddenly, a flood of fans and collectors race to eBay to take a look at what cards are available of this new rookie phenom. Conveniently, you have 10 of that player’s best cards! Suddenly, the demand for this player’s cards is much larger than when you were buying him now that he’s in the public spotlight, so you list one for 4x what you paid.

*Cha-ching*

Within minutes of listing the card, you hear the cash register sound from your pocket. It’s the eBay app’s way of telling you your item has been sold. Awesome! Back to the computer to try another, but a little higher this time. Let’s test the market.

*Cha-ching*

Again! Money in the bank. Let’s keep going and try another…

*Cha-ching*

Again and again you list, and again and again your cards sell. It’s a good day! You’ve sold eight of your ten cards for roughly 550% of what you paid. Since you’re already in the black on your investment (i.e., profitable), you decide to hold onto the last two in case the player has another big game tomorrow and prices rise even further. He could also go 0/4 with 4 strikeouts, so it’s a risk, but let’s take a shot. Time to ship some cards, make sure we have another listed, and we can enjoy our profits.

Is it always this easy?

No, it isn’t. The above is one of the dream scenarios of prospecting. And while a first at bat homer in a Major League debut certainly makes things easy, there’s good news. You don’t need a homerun in their first game, and even more frequently you don’t even need to hold the cards all the way to the player’s debut in order to turn a profit.

Believe it or not, you also don’t even need the player to end up being good. People buy things because of emotion. When they feel the excitement and hype of an up and coming prospect or a new rookie phenom, that’s when people open up their wallet. We only need enough performance to generate some excitement, whether before or after a player’s pro debut.

People are taking a chance on the player’s potential. Sometimes they’ll be right, the player will turn into a star, and you will miss out on even larger future profits. Sometimes they’ll be wrong and the player will be out of the league in a year, and you’ll wonder how you made so much on their cards.

Selling pre-debut

The easiest way to consistently profit on prospects is to sell to other prospectors while the player is still in the Minors. Values are driven by hype, potential, and performance. Pre-debut, hype and potential are the biggest influencers on values. When a player makes their MLB/NBA/NFL debut, that shifts. Values are no longer driven by hype and the player has to produce for values to hold or rise.

We also have to understand we aren’t always going to be selling at absolute peak. It’s virtually impossible to time, so we don’t recommend trying.

How do values rise in the Minors? Whether accurate or not, many share the belief that Minor League values can always rise higher. This means there are often multiple sell windows for prospects as they get closer to the Majors. Usually we only need a hot streak in the Minors for values to rise, especially for the better known prospects. Some guys will end up in the media for various reasons. Some will end up on your dynasty league fantasy sports guide as young players to draft. All of this can help values.

The Mountain

Think of a player’s card values as a mountain. They start low at the bottom of the mountain, and rise higher and higher until they eventually peak. Once they peak, some plateau and hold, while others fall back down the other side of the mountain. The closer we get to peak, the riskier it gets to buy or hold the card. The tough part is we don’t know where the peak is, we’re only making an educated guess about where values will go in the future.

Some mountains are so big we may never see the other side – values keep climbing steadily forever (e.g., inner circle HOFers like Mantle, Ruth, Jordan, Brady, and even potentially a guy like Mike Trout who is on his way to joining that crowd in history). That doesn’t mean those guys’ cards only ever go up. In the short term, anything can happen. In the long term, usually their values will rise higher.

When we prospect, we ideally want to buy as close to the bottom of the mountain as possible. Once we make it a third or halfway up the mountain, we can continue holding or cash out to another prospector who will assume the risk of holding the card while the values (hopefully) climb the next part of the mountain. It’s also absolutely ok to be the person buying into a player higher up the mountain. There are plenty of entry points that can be highly profitable even if you don’t buy at the bottom.

Mountain Scenario

The great thing about cards is multiple people can make money on the same card. Consider this scenario:
– I might be happy buying something for $10 and selling for $20.
– The person who buys for $20 holds until they’re able to sell for $50.
– $50 buyer sells at $100.
– $100 buyer is happy to move on when it gets to $130.
– $130 buyer then holds and sells for $350 after the player catches fire for a few weeks and wins Minor League Player of the Month.
– $350 buyer actually could have sold for $450, but got greedy hoping for more. The player cools off and this person ends up cashing out at $250.
– $250 buyer sells for $1000 after the player bats .400 his first week in the Majors.
– $1000 puts the card into their collection and doesn’t sell.

In this scenario, six different people profit on the same card, one loses, and one adds a permanent piece to their collection. Sometimes we let our egos tell us we should be the winner who gets to make the most money. At the end of the day, I want the next person to make money too. It helps keep them around when they also get to win, and having more people in the market helps drive long term sustainability of this industry. Be ok with making a profit and letting the next person make one too.

Risk

While prospecting can be lucrative, it’s important to address some of the risks:

– Volatility is extremely high. Things can change quickly, which means even if there is a sell window, it could be very short. If you have a large “stash” of a certain player’s cards, it could be difficult to move it all.

– Prospects are unproven. Even top prospects can fail completely, dragging card values down with their poor performance.

– Hype dissipates after debut. The importance of hype cannot be overstated. Hype can drive values in the Minor Leagues. If the collective feeling about a player is that he’ll be a star, the excitement can make values rise even if the player isn’t performing. But once a player makes their Major League debut, a transition happens: values are based on performance, not hype. Often times, top prospects’ card values have massive performance built into them. This means the player has to perform at a high level and quickly once they debut. Otherwise people start to think the player doesn’t have it, and card values can plummet. Remember, purchases are driven by emotion more than anything, and poor performance is a good way to reduce excitement and quickly bore buyers.

How to make $1,000,000 prospecting

No way, right? Oh, there’s a way.

Here’s a real life example: Mike Trout’s 2009 Bowman Chrome Autograph (see on eBay: Mike Trout 2009 Bowman Chrome Autograph) is one of the most coveted cards of the 21st century. Even the base version is a $7,000-10,000+ card these days (see recent Trout sales on eBay: Trout 2009 Chrome Auto Sold Listings), but back in ’09 when this card was originally released, you could buy them for $15-20 apiece. Imagine stacking 100-150 of those back then, and holding them until now. You literally would have made over $1,000,000.

Almost seems too easy, right? That’s because now we know Trout is one of the best ever. Could we have predicted the future and known in advance he’d be one of the best players of all time and his cards would continue to set and reset the record for most expensive Bowman Chrome Auto ever? That’s the tricky part. Is it realistic to think we would have $20 into one of his Chrome Autos and choose NOT to take the profit when they got to $50, or $100, $500, $1000, $5000? That’s the other tricky part. But is it possible to turn $2,000 into $1,000,000 in cards? Yes, it is.

High Effort Strategy #2: Veteran Prospecting

Another way to make money with sports cards is to apply the same principles from prospecting to players who have been around longer. Prospecting in cards typically refers to buying players before they make it to MLB, NBA, NFL, etc. Veteran prospecting simply means we’re seeking players who are better or have more potential than their current card values suggest.

Have you ever said “this guy has to be the most underrated player in the league” while watching a game? Perfect! Go do some research on his cards – you might have already identified an investment opportunity without even realizing it.

Lots of guys fly under the radar for various reasons. Sometimes it’s a poor market and team that might have crummy leadership or simply doesn’t have a great following (looking at you, Sacramento Kings). It might be result of a crummy time zone where games are payed at inconvenient times for the majority of the country. For example, it’s estimated that less than 7% of the US population is on Mountain Time (hey there, Colorado Rockies).

Underachieving Prospects

Sometimes a player was heavily hyped coming into the league as a rookie, but underachieved and people moved on before the player started playing to his actual potential. Maybe a guy was not a big prospect and people simply haven’t caught on yet.

Whatever the reason, there are opportunities all over the place to find players who are underrated, under-appreciated, and most importantly, undervalued.

Applying the same technique as we did with prospecting, the concept is simple. We identify a player we believe is undervalued, buy their key cards, and let them continue to perform until people realize their true worth.

Sometimes this method takes a little longer than prospecting. This is because there may not be a catalyst event like a Major League debut to attract the card community’s attention. The value increase is driven by sustained performance over time. That means it’ll likely be a slower and more gradual rise as people slowly realize the player is legit. But the concept works. And it’s usually less risky than prospecting since the player is building his value with performance rather than hype.

Medium Effort Strategies

Explanation

Medium effort strategies still require effort, but the sell windows created with these strategies are longer. Compared to high effort models, we don’t have to spend as much time or pay as close attention. Effectively, we’re creating sizable profit potential, which gives us more time to decide when to sell.

Medium Effort Strategy #1: Grading

This is the single easiest way to make money in sports cards. We have the ability to send raw (ungraded) cards to professional graders and instantly increase their value.

Imagine buying a card for $50, sending it to PSA (ideally through a group submission), paying a $15-30 grading fee, getting a Gem Mint PSA 10 grade, and immediately being able to sell the card for $250. Then take your $250 minus fees and buy more cards to send for grading. Rinse and repeat. It’s not hard to see how quickly your inventory value can compound. This can be one of the fastest and most consistent ways to make money with sports cards.

To illustrate the value a high grade can add, let’s look at the above rookie card of Max Scherzer.
– Recent sales show a raw copy is worth $20-30 (See Raw Scherzer sold listings history on eBay).
– Recent sales show a PSA 10 copy is worth closer to $400 (See PSA 10 Scherzer sold listings history on eBay).

A 13-20x multiplier isn’t common, but here’s a real example! Usually it’s safe to expect a PSA 10 to be worth roughly 3-10x the value of the raw card. This depends greatly on the card, difficulty of grade, pop report, etc.

The only skill needed is to be able to look at a raw card’s condition and get good at estimating the most likely grade it’ll get. It may seem intimidating at first, but with practice, anyone can get good at predicting grades. Grading companies look at each card’s Centering, Corners, Edges, and Surface.

Challenges with Grading

– Finding raw cards that are in good enough condition to submit. Other people grade too, so if you’re buying raw cards on the secondary market, there’s a good chance they’ve already been considered for grading.

– Grading is subjective. Sometimes you can get a different grade on the same card depending on who grades it. Some cards may seem perfect and for whatever reason still come back as a 9 instead of a 10 grade. PSA 9s aren’t bad, but PSA 10s are the money makers on most modern cards.

– Ever since the boom of 2020, grading has become far more expensive and the turnaround times are a lot longer than they used to be. Grading companies are taking a bigger chunk of the potential profit, and collectors are waiting longer to get cards back. It’s still a viable strategy, but we must be selective about which cards we send.


See the full guide for a more comprehensive look at grading sports cards.

Medium Effort Strategy #2: Buying Value

Buying value is easy to grasp, and usually an excellent play for anyone (beginners included!) to make money with sports cards. The concept is to find opportunities to buy a card for lower than current market value. This immediately offers the opportunity to flip for a profit.

How do we buy value?

You’d be surprised how often you can find deals if you put a little effort toward finding them.

The most important step is to understand the market. To do this, we recommend using eBay Research (formerly Terapeak), CardLadder, or another site that shows sold listing data. This will let us get an idea of current market value based on recent comps.

Once we understand value, we can start searching for deals. Here are some ways to find deals:

eBay

Sometimes poor eBay auctions go lower than market. Bad timing, a poor title missing critical information, or low seller feedback can all contribute toward a low final auction price. Buy, put the card up for sale with a better listing, sell, repeat. By the way, sometimes normal listings go low for no particular reason at all. Once you know something’s value, follow listings and see if you can scoop something up for cheap!

Alternate Buy/Sell Sites

While eBay is the largest, there are plenty of buy/sell platforms beyond eBay. Many of them are exclusively for cards. Sometimes you can find deals on alternative sites. Some of our favorites are COMC, MySlabs, CardBarrel, and Sportlots. While all of these sites are highly reputable, none can compete with eBay’s traffic. That leads to occasional lower-than-market prices. The cards on these sites are almost exclusively ‘buy it now’ format, so no waiting for auctions to end. You can identify a value buy, and buy it right away.

Bulk or Lots

Sometimes we can get a better price per card if we buy multiple cards at once. Many sellers are more willing to offer a lower price if they can move more than one item at a time. Lots for sale at auction often sell for less than the sum of the individual cards included in the lot would sell on their own. This happens for many reasons. Some buyers don’t want or can’t afford the full lot, which decreases the pool of potential buyers. Other lots are poorly constructed or poorly listed by the seller.

All of this creates a potential opportunity to buy the lot and piece out the cards individually for much more than the price of the lot.

*Pro tip: If selling a group of cards as a lot, we recommend making sure the cards are either the same player or set to avoid a scenario where your listing sells lower than it should.

On eBay, we can target a search to only show “lots” (listings that include multiple cards). For example, this eBay search shows lots of PSA/BGS graded Chrome or Prizm RCs from the past 5 years.

Unless we are looking for specific players or sets, we recommend using a broad search like the one linked above to exclude the junk but to keep it open enough to include lots of options. We’re looking for listings that might go low to add to our watch list.

Negotiation

Let’s be clear: being a cheapskate isn’t a business model. But understanding how to negotiate effectively can help you get slightly better pricing. The impact of this can be significant when done effectively over time.

Here are three tips for more effective negotiating:

Know your target price, and give yourself some negotiating room.

We need to have a strategy going into a negotiation. Start by determining what you’d be happy to pay. When you make your first offer, start lower than your target price. Example: Let’s say an item listed at “$15 or best offer.” Your first offer should be less than $10. You might come in at $7.50, so when the seller counters $12.50, you can counter back at $10.

Include a message with your offer to show a willingness to work with the other party.

Human emotion and ego are part of most negotiations. If you can understand how to soften people, they’ll often give a little more than they otherwise would have. Include a message with your offer to remind the person they’re dealing with a human. Sign your first name at the end so they know they’re dealing with you and not with a lifeless robot. And most importantly, be human in your message! What kind of message would you respond favorably to if someone sent it to you? We like to thank the person for considering our offer and then push for a better price while still showing a willingness to work with them.

Example: “Hey thanks for the counter! Looks like we’re close on this. Could we meet in the middle? Thanks again for considering.”

Use oddly specific numbers.

It may seem silly, but it works. Using a very specific number (e.g., instead of offering $150, offer $144.71) can suggest to the other party that you’ve put a lot of thought into calculating that exact number, and that it may be the exact amount you believe the item to be worth. This is especially effective after sending multiple counters back and forth. Imagine a negotiation where you offer $40, they counter $60, you offer $45, they counter $55, then you offer $47.93. The seller may simply accept your $47.93 instead of pushing to “meet” at $50, out of fear of you walking away. The specificity of your offer implies that it may be your best and final offer.

Buying Value Summarized

Each of the above methods can help you find deals to immediately flip for a profit. It takes some effort to find the deals, but since you’re creating the opportunity to profit when you make the purchase, you don’t have to wait long to sell and get your money.

Low Effort

Explanation

High and medium effort strategies require consistent time and attention. With low effort, we’re talking about as little time commitment and effort as possible. Since we’re not actively pushing cards with these strategies, it can take longer to profit. But if saving yourself time is a priority, these are both ways to get involved without having to do much.

We’ll only highlight one avenue in this section. It offers a passive way to turn your money into more money.

Low Effort Strategy #1: Time Capsule

This strategy is simplest of all. Buy a card of a player who is already great, put it someplace safe, and forget about it for awhile. There is no card or player immune to the ups and downs of the market, but the blue chip cards of blue chip players almost always rise in value over the long term.

For this strategy look for the retired icons of the sport and the best and most exciting active players. Note that the active players – especially the younger ones – are always riskier. Injuries or poor play can negatively impact their values.

In baseball, think guys like Mantle, Aaron, Ruth, Trout, etc., or possibly even a guy like Julio Rodriguez after the massive rookie season he put together.

Basketball gives us an obvious play with Michael Jordan, then among active players it’s LeBron, Curry, Ja, etc.

Football is heavily skewed toward QBs, so you’re looking at players like Brady, Mahomes, Allen, etc.

Typically the more proven the player is, the less volatile and more safe they are as investments.

There’s also a long history of the next wave of active stars rising steadily, but not nearly with as fast of growth. When we say “next wave” we mean guys who may be household names and legit superstars, but may not be considered the absolute best in the game.

Caution

Not all cards rise over time. The majority probably won’t. If we want to make money with sports cards, how do we decide the good ones from the bad?

The simplest litmus test is to start by asking yourself.
– Would I want a card of this player now?
– If so, would I want this specific card?
– Would I want it more or less in 2, 5, or 10 years if he performs the same as he has up to this point?

If you run this exercise for the majority of players, you’ll likely find yourself gravitating toward the best of the best cards and players. Most people don’t want to spend all their money on cards of a career benchwarmer. Most people don’t even want to spend their money on an average everyday starter. It’s the stars who capture our attention and become our favorite players. Cards are no different.

Now what?

We’ve now outlined some of the most immediately actionable ways to make money on sports cards. Consider which of these methods (if any) make sense for you to pursue. Each can be a full time business if you put enough action toward it. If you’re new to this, we recommend starting small until you get the hang of it.

We’ll dive deeper into more advanced strategies to help you along the way.

Disclaimer

Cardboard Profit LLC operates this site and offers the content of this site for informational purposes only. The content of this website is not financial advice, investment advice, or any kind of advice. Cardboard Profit is in no way responsible for any kind of loss you may endure, financial or otherwise. Cardboard Profit has a strong track record of success, but past performance does not guarantee future results. The sports card market can be volatile, which means there is risk associated with buying cards. You are 100% responsible for your own finances, decisions, and actions. You are also fully responsible for any possible loss that results from your decisions or actions. Please act responsibly.