Sports Card Basics
A growing list to help provide foundational knowledge and resources. Great place to start for beginners who need fundamental tips for how to get started, or anyone looking for a refresher on sports card basics.
For a list of recommended card related products & services that support the principles below, see the Resources page.
Disclosure: We value transparency and figure you do too, so please note that some of the links on this page are affiliate links. This means at no additional charge to you, Cardboard Profit may earn a small commission if you click through a link and make a purchase. Your support is appreciated, as this helps make the content of Cardboard Profit free of charge to you.
Goal
To make money. Just a reminder 🙂
Beyond the obvious statement above, be thinking about what you want your card venture to become. Actively buying and selling on a daily basis to make as much money as possible requires a different strategy than buying something to put away for multiple years as an investment piece.
We detail some of the common strategies for making money with cards in the appropriately titled How to Make Money with Sports Cards.
Basic Setup
It’s simple to get started in the card market! You only need internet access, a bank account, and a mailing address. It helps to have additional supplies like a printer, a scanner, shipping supplies, etc., but most of that can be purchased as needed, and isn’t necessary right away.
We’ll assume you have internet access. We’ll also assume you have a mailing address. If not, or if your mailing address isn’t secure, a PO Box is a good cost-effective option.
To get started, we recommend opening three accounts: a bank account, an eBay account, and a PayPal account.
Bank Account
Let’s start with setting up a separate bank account for your card venture. You can use your primary bank if absolutely necessary, but it’s easier to track and stay disciplined if you open a separate account for cards. Said differently: We don’t want you accidentally overextending yourself and spending your rent money on a card.
eBay Account
eBay is the easiest place to buy cards. The selection is enormous and they offer strong buyer protection. Go to eBay.com and follow the prompts to get your account setup. You’ll need to input your personal info, mailing address, tax information, and decide your eBay username.
When picking your username, we recommend something simple, easy to read, and limit the numbers to 4 or less. Your username can become your brand if you want, so simple and clean is usually best. You may also want to use the same name on other platforms so people can find you on Instagram or any message boards you join. And while using a crazy name like CardSlanginBeastBoiii7781720 certainly would let everyone know how cool you are, it’s going to be annoying for you to have to type and impossible for anyone to remember how to spell (despite its obvious appeal).
Once you’re set up and verified, you can start searching for cards! Use the “watch” button to add any listing to your watch list and when you’re ready to buy something, go for it. We’ll get into what to look for further down the page and in Cardboard Philosophy.
PayPal Account
Paypal is one of the most widely accepted payment processors on the internet. It acts as a wallet, allowing you to store debit/credit card numbers and carry a cash balance. You can use this to buy on eBay, but more importantly, you can use it on virtually all other card buy/sell sites to help facilitate any sales or purchases you make. They offer protection against fraud for both buyers and sellers, and you can print shipping labels directly through PayPal transactions (really convenient). Get an account setup so you have a way to deal!
Set a Budget
Take a look at your financial situation and decide how much you want to dedicate toward spending/investing in cards. It’s easy to get carried away spending money if you don’t set any limits.
Remember, as with any investment, it’s always possible that you can lose all of it. We highly recommend limiting your budget to what you’d be comfortable losing if things don’t go your way.
For some it may be $50 per month, for others it may be $5000 per month.
Some may want to fund their card venture once instead of giving themselves a monthly allowance. That’s ok too. That’s what we did to turn an initial budget of less than $1000 into six figures over the years.
Decide what makes sense for you, set a budget, and stick to it.
Where to Buy & Sell Cards
To have the best chance to consistently make money with sports cards, we want to maintain control over our inventory as much as possible. That typically means buying singles (individual cards instead of unopened packs) so we control which player and card we’re buying.
The internet is usually the easiest place to find exactly what you’re looking for. As mentioned above, ebay is a great place to start, as it’s by far the biggest marketplace to buy inventory or find a buyer. Other sites may have lower fees and better service, but it’s hard to go wrong with eBay if you’re looking for the largest volume and selection.
Other sites we recommend include Facebook groups and message boards like Blowoutcards Forums, where you’ll deal directly with others. If you’re looking to deal in lower end cards, we like COMC. For high end, you can try an auction house like Goldin. Other sites we recommend that provide a good mix of everything are MySlabs and PWCC.
Don’t forget to check your local community – there’s nothing quite like the fun of taking a trip to your local card shop. You might be able to find a monthly card show in your area. You can find unopened packs/boxes at most big retail stores around the country.
Community
There are lots of great sports card communities out there and I highly recommend finding like-minded people to help expand your knowledge and share in the fun of your card ventures.
As a starting point, I’d like to personally invite you to like the Cardboard Profit Facebook page if you’re looking for places to stay up to date on new content, and also have a place to connect with other card enthusiasts, ask questions, etc.
You’ll find other communities of card folks on Facebook, message boards, other card websites, and some good people to follow on sites like Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, etc.
Record Keeping
We highly recommend keeping simple records of your purchases. This way, you don’t have to search through email receipts or leave it to memory if you ever need to quickly reference how much you paid for a card.
In excel/google sheets or whatever system works for you, we’d recommend keeping columns for the basics: Player, Card, Grade (if graded), Price Paid (including sales tax), Price Sold, Fees, Shipping Costs, Net.
We also recommend an extra column for Estimated Value. In this column, you can input your best guess of what you’d be able to sell the card for right now. This will change over time as values shift, so it’ll require an occasional update.
The Estimated Value column will allow you to quickly visualize which cards are up and down at any given time. Staying updated on the value of our inventory can help us make better decisions about whether to buy/sell/hold.
What to Buy
This is where it gets fun – deciding who and what inventory to pursue. There are cards of thousands of professional athletes. For each sport, there are dozens of different card products and brands produced each year. What do we buy? There are two key factors to consider:
Player Selection
The simplest rule of thumb is to always start with the player. Keep in mind the proverb, “a rising tide lifts all boats.” When a player begins to rise in value, generally all their cards rise. That means usually you’ll be in good shape no matter which of their cards you acquire. Dozens of factors play into how to pick a good player, and we dive into what to consider in Cardboard Philosophy.
A rising tide lifts all boats.
Proverb
Card Type
While picking the right player is most important, some card products and brands are better than others. Some have bigger or smaller upside than others, some rise faster or slower than others. Some are in such low demand that they’re difficult to sell even when a player is on fire. This is not an exact science, although we can at least provide some basic guidelines.
Rookie Cards
The easiest guideline is one that his withstood the test of time: Rookie Cards. Rookie Cards (RC) are cards from a player’s rookie season. They can be easily identified by the card manufacturer’s “RC Logo.”
Rookie cards are popular because the rookie season is widely viewed as the player’s best year of cards. It’s unique because it’s first. Why would you prioritize a player’s 4th year card over a 5th year card? How do you pick between a 7th year card or a 3rd? There aren’t distinguishing characteristics for these years like there is for rookie cards – rookies came first.
You can profit on cards from all years, but rookies are generally the ones people look to buy first.
Rookie cards also present great opportunities to speculate, since players often haven’t reached their full potential when they’re rookies. Sometimes this means rookies can be cheaper than they’ll be in the future if the player develops into a star.
Licensed Cards
Another simple rule of thumb is to stick with licensed pro logo cards instead of unlicensed or college. Licensed cards have the professional team logo on the card. Unlicensed have no logos on the jerseys. The same goes for college cards – people want the pro logo. Unlicensed and college cards are often less expensive, and there’s a reason for that. Most people view them at as a lesser type of card, which means the market for them is smaller. Stick with licensed cards with pro team logos.
Graded Cards
You can find a more extensive explanation of graded cards on this page. It also needs to be mentioned in this section. Considering whether to deal in graded cards or raw is another important factor to consider when buying a card.
Graded cards (aka “slabs”) lock in the card’s condition with a sealed protective case and a 1-10 scale rating. Experienced card dealers would probably tell you they’d like to deal exclusively in high-grade slabs. But that would neglect the sizable opportunity to flip raw (ungraded) cards, which could be right for you.
If you’re buying graded cards, PSA and BGS are the recommended slabs. SGC is another acceptable grading company.
There are countless knock-off grading companies out there, and most are worth completely ignoring. You can still buy them, but the premiums on grades from these companies are nowhere close to the premiums from established grading companies. There’s little to no premium for a 10 grade from one of these companies. There’s usually a huge premium for a PSA 10, by contrast.
When you’re getting started, it’s best to keep an open mind to both graded and raw cards. You’ll have opportunities to profit on both, and with time you can decide which you prefer.
Card Product
This is another inexact science, but we’ll call out some of the prominent brands and sets in this section. Remember, these are simply some of the popular sets. They’re not the only ones you can profit on, and may not even offer the highest ROI. These cards typically will be toward the higher end of the market.
Baseball
Topps has had an exclusive license to make baseball cards with professional team logos for years. This means Topps is the primary manufacturer in the baseball world.
Strong baseball products/sets: Bowman Chrome 1st Year Autographs, Topps Chrome RC Autographs, Topps Chrome RC, Topps Series 1, 2, or Update.
Each year there are three releases of Topps’s flagship offering they’ve been producing for decades, which are called Series 1, 2, and Update. For each of these cards, look for the true Rookie Card, not the “Rookie Debut” version, which is viewed as a lesser alternative.
Basketball
Like Topps with baseball, Panini has owned the exclusive license for basketball team logos for years.
Strong basketball products/sets: Panini Prizm, Panini National Treasures Rookie Patch Autographs, Panini Select
Football
Football is another category where Panini owns an exclusive license, so you’ll see some repeats here.
Strong football products/sets: Panini Prizm, Panini National Treasures Rookie Patch Autographs, Panini Contenders Autographs, Panini Select
For each sport, please know these are not the only products you should consider. There are other quality products too, and if you pick the right player, you can profit on almost anything. These lists are a starting point to show some of the most in-demand card sets available. If I’m interested in a new player I’ve never bought before, these are the brands I’m looking at first.
Within most of these products and sets, you’ll find countless parallels, SPs (short prints), etc. There isn’t necessarily a wrong answer, although we prefer to pursue rare or numbered cards when possible. Base cards are often inexpensive, but they’re also the easiest to find. This can make them a little more difficult to profit on, given the economic laws of supply and demand. To help with this, we have a guide on what makes sports card values rise and fall.
***Important Reminder***
Remember, you are solely responsible for your financial decisions, so only you can decide what’s right for you. We strongly recommend ignoring a card or player listed anywhere on this website if it exceeds your budget. We strongly recommend ignoring a card or player listed anywhere on this website if you don’t agree with the reasons we call them out as a potential “buy candidate.” Only you can decide what is right for you. If you invest, please do so responsibly.
Opening Packs
Opening packs/boxes/cases (often referred to as “wax”) is fun! It’s a big part of the card culture, but it’s worth noting this is a gamble and not a sound investment strategy. You may get lucky from time to time and pull a big card, but the odds are stacked against you. You’re destined to lose more often than not. Buying singles (individual cards) on the secondary market gives you full control over which cards and players you end up with.
We enjoy opening packs as much as anyone, but we view it as an ‘entertainment’ cost, similar to paying for admission tickets when you go to the movies. It’s best to set conservative expectations and assume we’ll get a near-zero return most of the time when we open packs. If we get something good, great! It’s a bonus. To consistently make money over time, we want as much control over our inventory as possible, so stick to buying singles.
Condition
Condition matters.
For the history of sports cards, condition has been one of the most important factors for determining value. The better condition, the more valuable the card.
Why? Because people like nice things – don’t you? The instinct for most people is to gravitate toward the best condition they can find.
It’s kind of like when you were in 2nd grade and your teacher handed out text books – it was a good feeling if you ever got the new crisp edition instead of the old tattered one with the broken binding. The same concept applies to cards. This is why high grade cards sell for significantly more than lower grade or raw (ungraded) cards.
Condition & Rarity
Rarity is another factor. Some cards are extremely hard to find in good condition. Consider a card serial numbered to 100 (this means 100 copies exist), but only five of them are in Gem Mint condition. Those five are going to be the copies people want more than the other 95. There are only five of them though, and the high demand and limited supply is what pushes values higher.
There are always exceptions, but as a rule of thumb, assume most serious collectors involved in modern cards prefer to deal in Gem Mint or better grades (Gem Mint PSA 10, Gem Mint BGS 9.5, Pristine BGS 10) from the top grading companies due to their high liquidity (how easy it is to sell). Mint grades (Mint PSA 9, Mint BGS 9) are typically viewed as an acceptable alternative, but are usually worth a lot less.
High end cards in low grades can still be worthwhile if the card itself is rare enough that you can find a buyer. Lower end cards in lower grades (below Mint 9) typically are going to be more difficult to move, so I don’t recommend dealing in these cards unless there’s a good reason.
There are two grading companies we recommend when looking at graded cards to buy: PSA and BGS. SGC is a distant third, but is acceptable if necessary.
There is one grading company we recommend sending cards to for grading: PSA.
BGS and PSA used to be much closer competitors, but over the past few years, PSA has pulled away. The premium a PSA 10 adds to a card is usually at least often double or more than the premium a BGS 9.5 adds to the card.
Grading
Grading is a major part of the sports card market. The idea is simple: when you have a raw (ungraded) card that looks to be in mint condition, you can send it to a professional grading company, who will authenticate the card and judge it based on the physical condition of centering, corners, edges, surface, and autograph (if applicable), and permanently slab it inside a case with the grade displayed at the top.
High grades make the value of the card immediately rise. The graded case provides protection and condition certainty. Take a look at the full guide:
Comps
Rarely do you need to blindly guess what something is worth. You can look up comps (sold listings) on sites like eBay Research (formerly Terapeak), 130point and MySlabs Sold Archive.
Our personal favorite service is Card Ladder because it pulls years of sales data from eBay, MySlabs, and various auction houses, while also offering other features like offering a real time value estimate of your inventory. Note that the full capabilities of Card Ladder require a subscription.
Information is out there if you know where to look! Know that comps are not law, they’re a guide to give you an idea of what others have paid in the past. Values change, so comps are only one piece of information to be considered when buying or selling. Most people in this space will point to comps if they’re serious about making a deal.
When to Sell
Especially for newer folks, one of the hardest parts of this market can be deciding when to sell. When you have the opportunity to profit on a card, should you take the money and be happy with a profit? Or hold out for possibly an even bigger pay day if the card continues to rise in value? This is not an exact science, but here is some food for thought:
Timing the peak of any market is virtually impossible to get right consistently. With experience, you’ll get better at deciding when to sell to maximize profits and minimize risk. The goal is to win more than we lose, so how do we do that?
A bird in hand is worth two in the bush.
Proverb
The chance to sell for a profit today is worth more than the possibility of a bigger profit in the future that may or may not ever happen. You always make money when you decide to sell for a profit.
Inversely, if you hold out for bigger gains, the window could close and you run the risk of smaller profit or even losing on the card. This is a market where it’s easy for our emotions to override our logic if we’re not careful, so sometimes keeping it simple and taking the sure thing is the best way forward.
ROI Goals
Closely related to “when to sell” is the concept of ROI (return on investment as a percentage) and using it to help guide your decisions. You can set goals and have target sell points (predetermined goals for where to sell) when you buy a card.
For example, if my target ROI is 120% (this would be a 20% profit) and I spend $100 on a card, I need to sell the card for a little over $120 so that after any fees and shipping costs, I walk away with $120 in my account. In this example you may be targeting $125-135 depending on the fees for the platform you’re using to sell. Once the card gets to that value, you don’t have to think about it, you can just sell and move onto the next one. It removes the emotion and subjectivity to make it easier to determine when to sell.
Nominal Dollars
While ROI targets can be helpful, it’s also worth considering the actual amount of money you’re investing or would be selling for.
On smaller investments, you may want to consider raising your ROI target. If you buy a card for $1, the same 20% profit we targeted above would only be 20 cents. It may be more worth your time (and more exciting) to push for $1.50, $2, or even $5 on a lower end card.
Similarly, you may feel more excited to take a lower ROI on a bigger investment. If you pay $10,000 for a card and can sell for 105% ROI (turn a 5% profit) after fees, you’d be putting a $500 profit into your pocket. It’s ultimately up to you to decide what the right numbers are based on your financial situation and risk tolerance.
Shipping
Among the most immediately applicable sports card basics is how to ship. Shipping is simple, but many still fail to take proper precautions, which can result in damaged cards and unhappy buyers. The recommended way to ship an individual card is to wrap the card with protective materials and then put it inside a bubble mailer.
Here’s a quick step-by-step for raw (ungraded) cards and for graded cards:
Raw Cards:
– Put the card in a penny sleeve and toploader if it’s not already.
– Put the toploader inside a team bag or graded card sleeve to keep the card from sliding out of the toploader during transit. If you don’t have team bags or graded card sleeves, get some, but a small piece of tape over the toploader will work.
– Sandwich the card between two firm materials, such as small pieces of cardboard slightly bigger than the size of the toploader. This will prevent the card from bending.
– Use a piece or two of scotch tape on each side to secure the pieces of cardboard.
– [Optional] Wrap the sandwiched card in a piece of bubble wrap. If you don’t have bubble wrap, you can skip this step, but it is highly recommended to get some (you can find some on eBay here). It’s inexpensive and will save you the headache of dealing with cards getting damaged in the mail.
– Put the protected card into a bubble mailer and seal shut with packaging tape.
– Print a label from an online shipping service like Pirate Ship or Paypal’s shipping partner Shipstation, and use packaging tape to adhere the label to the bubble mailer. 4 oz is more than enough for the weight if it’s a single card in a bubble mailer. You can use USPS First Class mail with the large envelope/package option, and enter the dimensions (standard size 0 bubble mailers packaged as described above are usually about 9x6x1).
– Take to the post office or drop into any USPS dropbox for pickup.
*IMPORTANT NOTE: Most USPS services will be cheaper if purchased online than at the actual post office. More importantly, buying shipping labels in advance will save you countless hours of your life since you can drop packages off without waiting in line at the post office.
Graded Cards:
– Put the card in a graded card sleeve. If you don’t have any, get some. They’re not expensive and they prevent the graded slab from being scratched.
– If you have a roll of bubble wrap, cut a 12″x12″ square of it in half, leaving you with two 6″x12″ pieces. Wrap the card in one piece of the bubble wrap, then wrap it again with the other. An alternative to bubble wrap is to put the card into a smaller size of bubble mailer than the size you’ll be shipping in.
If you don’t have bubble wrap, it is highly recommended to get some (you can find some on eBay here). It’s inexpensive and will save you the headache of dealing with slabs getting cracked, chipped, smashed, or otherwise damaged in the mail, which requires sending the card back to the grading company and paying a fee for it to be re-slabbed.
– Put the protected card into a bubble mailer and seal shut with packaging tape.
– Print a label from an online shipping service like Pirate Ship or Paypal’s shipping partner Shipstation. A single graded card in a bubble mailer weighs a little less than 4oz. Use packaging tape to adhere the label to the bubble mailer. You can use USPS First Class mail with the large envelope/package option, and enter the dimensions (standard size 0 bubble mailers packaged as described above are usually about 9x6x1).
– Take to the post office or drop into any USPS dropbox for pickup.
*IMPORTANT NOTE: Most USPS services will be cheaper if purchased online than at the actual post office. More importantly, buying shipping labels in advance will save you countless hours of your life since you can drop packages off without waiting in line at the post office.
Act like a Grown-up
When you’re dealing with money and things of value, it’s really important to be professional. Don’t waste other people’s time or your own. Respond to offers in a timely manner. Reply when people ask legitimate questions. If you ask a seller for a price, give them an answer, even if it’s “no thanks.” Don’t be an e-thug internet bully. Ship things you’ve sold quickly. Be honest. Most of all: Don’t be an asshole. Good words to live by even beyond the card world 🙂
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.