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Last Updated On: December 3rd, 2024
Imagine a world where your knowledge of sports could make you money over and over again. Not because you got lucky gambling – but because you figured out how to make consistent money buying and selling sports cards. In this post, we’ll go through seven actionable tips to help you do exactly that!
Table of Contents
Introduction
If you like sports, money, and business, I can’t imagine a better market in which to participate. And while seemingly everyone wants to make money flipping sports cards, few are actually good at it, and fewer yet are willing to share their experience to help the new guy get on their feet.
That’s where I come in.
I’m Ryan – father, husband, former small-time college athlete, card dork. I’ve actively invested in sports cards for the past 17 years both as a side hustle and as my full-time income.
I’ve used profits from cards to fund family vacations, a car, and even my wife’s engagement ring years ago. My first profit on a single card was for $8.91, and my largest was for just under $10,000. I’ve written an Amazon Best-Selling book about sports card investing, I’ve shared hundreds of card strategies, stories, and tips on Instagram (@cardboardprofit), and I run a paid membership community where I coach ambitious sports fans who are serious about building an income buying and selling sports cards.
My mission is to shorten the learning curve in the sports card market, and today I’m here to try to do that for you.
I certainly don’t know everything, but cards have been a giant part of my life; and I’ve had a ton of success in this market. I’d like to share seven of my most important learnings from almost two decades as an active card investor so you can skip some of the mistakes I made and fast-track your success.
7 Tips to Making Money with Sports Cards
Before we dive in, please know there are ways to succeed with both short and long-term card investing. While I do some long-term investing, my primary focus is keeping inventory moving. Instead of swinging for the fences, I aim for consistent singles and doubles throughout the year. The following tips are more geared toward short-term strategies, which I define as holding cards for 18 months or less.
Stop Opening Packs
If you want to know the best way to lose money in the card market, look no further. It’s opening packs.
This is often the entry point for new collectors and investors, which makes sense since the natural answer to the question of “where do you get cards” is “from packs, of course!” But in reality, it’s an expensive trap.
Opening packs was my entry point into the card world too. As a kid, I spent every penny of my chore money each week on packs from my local card shop, sleeving the cards I pulled of my favorite players and looking up their values in the latest edition of Beckett Magazine.
As I started getting online and seeing the real value of my childhood collection, I realized very few of my cards held much value at all. It was disappointing to say the least, because I always thought my card collection would make me rich someday. In this moment, I realized if I was ever going to make money with cards, I couldn’t leave my inventory up to chance anymore. I needed to control which cards entered my inventory, because that meant it was up to me whether I’d win or lose.
And guess what – I live by this mindset today. I want to control as many of the inputs as possible because making money with cards isn’t done by getting lucky. It’s done by understanding the market and the strategies that let us make our own luck.
And yet, so much emphasis is put on breaks (another term that refers to opening packs) these days. Why is this? Because there’s money behind trying to get YOU to gamble on packs – and lots of it. You’re going to see the highlight reels of hits on social media from Fanatics, from Topps, from Panini, from all the group breakers, and from other services who make money when you spend money on boxes or box breaks.
Don’t fall for it.
You’ll see all the big hits that come from packs, but you won’t see the countless packs that yield little to no value in between those monster hits. The deck is stacked heavily against anyone who wants to spend money on breaks, so if your goal is to be profitable in this space, I strongly encourage you to skip the packs and control what you buy and sell by focusing on buying singles.
Use Data
The market is huge, so trying to learn all of it doesn’t make sense. It certainly helps to get your bearings, especially in the specific markets you intend to be active in, but it’s virtually impossible to be an expert at everything. The good news is there’s so much great data readily available that we don’t actually need to be experts as long as we understand how to use the data that’s available.
Data can be used to our advantage to make more-informed decisions. To use it is to give yourself an advantage. To ignore it is to put yourself at an immediate disadvantage. It’s that simple.
There are plenty of good data tools on the market, and any of them can work. I personally like Card Ladder.
Card Ladder gives us market data, but more importantly, recent sale (comp) data. If I’m buying a card, I want to know what it’s sold for lately. If I’m selling a card, I want to know what it’s sold for lately. Either way, Card Ladder shows us years of sales data and goes beyond what we can get from eBay directly.
To put it differently: Don’t you want to have the same information other card investors have access to?
Me too. That’s why I use Card Ladder to check recent sales when buying and selling. I feel like I’m flying blind without it.
Remember that comps aren’t the law – they’re a data point. Past sales don’t necessarily have anything to do with current or future values, but they can often help us estimate a value.
A couple years ago, I bought a Yordan Alvarez Topps Chrome Gold Refractor Autograph Rookie Card. I hadn’t bought one of these before, but I had been buying some of his lower end Topps Chrome Autos, so I felt like I had a good handle on his Topps Chrome market. When I saw the eBay listing, I estimated the value and put in an offer.
To my surprise, the seller accepted my offer without countering. I went to check recent comps and I realized why – I had offered $200 more than recent sales. What a careless mistake! I ended up doing ok on the card, but would have made way more money on it had I not been lazy and skipped the step of checking recent sales to help inform my purchase.
Another data source I like to use regularly is the pop report.
The pop report is publicly available census data from grading companies. It shows us how many of each card have received each grade from a particular grading company. For example, in PSA’s pop report, I can see how many Victor Wembanyama Prizm RCs have been graded in total, as well as how many 10s there are, how many 9s, 8s, etc. This informs me about the rarity of a particular grade. It also clues me in to how hard or easy a particular set might be to grade.
One way I like to use this data is to consider a card’s gem rate. Gem rate refers to the number of gem mint grades (like a PSA 10) the card has received, divided by the total number of that card graded. For example, if there are three gem mint grades out of five total cards graded, the gem rate is ⅗ or 60%.
I like to look for high gem rates to help me identify grading opportunities. If a card has a 70%+ gem rate, that’s an unusually high gem rate that suggests to me the card might be cleanly manufactured. That often means it’ll be easier to find ungraded copies in clean enough condition to have a strong chance at gem mint grades. On the contrary, it may be more difficult to find clean ungraded copies of a card with a 20% gem rate.
Data is your friend. Ignore it and lose. Use it and win. You decide.
Learn the Grading Process
Once you learn what kinds of cards to submit, there isn’t a more consistent way to add value to your cards than grading. It’s a proactive action we can take to add value to our inventory on a relatively predictable schedule. What’s cool is grading is a skill, and skills can be learned and honed. Once you learn it, it’s yours to keep forever!
To get a sports card graded is to submit it to a professional grading company who will – in exchange for a small fee – evaluate the card’s condition and assign it a numerical grade, usually on a 1-10 scale. The four categories the grading company evaluates are the card’s centering, corners, edges, and surface. A high grade can boost a card’s value significantly. The meaning of “high grade” differs for cards from different eras, but for modern cards, typically we’re looking for a gem mint grade, like a PSA 10.
There are many players in the grading game, but only a few of them actually matter. PSA is the king of this game right now, and it’s not close. Coming in a distant 2nd & 3rd are BGS and SGC. You’ll see people making arguments for other grading companies from time to time, but I can tell you as a card investor, I’m not paying a premium for these grades at all.
If I’m grading cards myself, I’m usually submitting them to PSA. Their gem mint PSA 10 grade tends to add the most value compared to other companies’ respective gem mint grades. I don’t have any tie to PSA, I just like money. Years ago, BGS used to be the top option and I submitted all my cards there instead; but over the years, PSA has pulled away from all other grading companies as far as how much value their high grades tend to add to cards. That’s why it generally makes the most sense to submit to PSA if the goal is to maximize value.
Consider this: For most modern cards that get PSA 10 grades, going from ungraded to a PSA 10 is the biggest value increase the card will ever see.
This is why I like to get cards graded myself whenever possible rather than buying them already graded.
There’s almost never a time where I’ll buy a graded base card because I’d rather find an ungraded copy to submit for grading myself instead of paying the premium for one that’s already graded. For rarer cards, I will target graded copies sometimes since they’re harder to find. But in general, if grading is the biggest value increase a card will ever see, I want to be the one profiting on that premium rather than being the one to pay for that premium.
How I Determine What to Grade (2 Steps)
If you’re not sure where to start, here’s a really simple 2-step process to decide whether or not a card should be submitted for grading:
Step 1:
Check the value of PSA 10s to make sure a 10 is worth enough to create a big profit margin (you’ll need a data tool like Card Ladder or you can use a free site like 130point.com/cards).
I like to target cards where the value of a PSA 10 is worth at least 2x the price of the ungraded card plus the grading fee. I call this the “2x Rule” (appropriate, don’t you think?). The 2x Rule ensures there’s enough money left over after all fees to pocket a notable profit.
This is especially important when considering lower end cards for grading so we don’t end up in a situation where we’re upside-down and get a 10 but still lose money after fees. If the best case scenario doesn’t create a meaningful profit margin, why would we send the card? Save yourself the grading fee and move onto the next card.
Step 2:
Check the card’s condition to make sure it actually has a chance at a PSA 10. Look at the centering, corners, edges, and surface for flaws, damage, imperfections, etc. You can use a microfiber cloth to gently wipe away fingerprints or debris.
Don’t forget to check the back – it matters, too. You will need to take the card out of its case and sleeve to review it effectively. If you’re not sure about centering, you can look online for PSA 10 copies of cards from the same set to compare, and use a centering tool to be precise.
If the card isn’t clean enough to have a realistic chance at a PSA 10, don’t send it! Again, save yourself the grading fee and move onto the next card. Grading can be an incredible way to add value to cards, but remember that not all cards need to be graded.
The key is to find cards that offer a big profit margin if we get the grade we need AND must also be clean enough to have a realistic chance at that grade. If the card does not pass either of the two steps, then it’s likely not worth submitting. If it passes both steps, then you may have yourself a winner!
Lastly, I want to encourage you not to be afraid of making that first submission. I’ll take you back to my early days of sports card investing when I was first considering grading. I had five cards ready to submit, but I was nervous because I had never graded anything before and didn’t want to be wrong. What if I paid the grading fees but didn’t get any gem mint grades and lost money?
Well, I finally mustered up the courage and made my first submission. A few weeks later, I got the grades: four gem mint and one mint (four for five, an 80% gem rate)!
Over the years I’ve submitted thousands of cards for grading, and my all time gem rate is a little over 70%. This means about seven out of every 10 cards I submit get gem mint grades. As long as I’m submitting the right types of cards, this means most submissions are profitable, and some are highly profitable. It’s important to note that not all cards will be gem mint, so the better you can develop your eye for grading, the better your cards will do.
Grading has added more value to my inventory over the years than any other strategy. If you want to make money with cards, there are certainly other ways; but it’s hard to make an argument against grading if your goal is to maximize profits.
Always Have a Plan
One of the biggest mistakes I see newer card investors making is to buy cards without having a plan. Part of the problem is often that they don’t understand how the market works, so they don’t actually know what would make a card’s value rise. This is a strategy I like to call “hoping to get lucky,” and that’s a really lousy strategy.
So what’s the alternative then? To have a plan, of course!
I hold myself to a simple rule when I make any card investment. I have to be able to explain a logical and realistic reason for both why and when I think a card’s value will rise.
If I can’t explain why, I don’t buy it.
If I can’t explain when, I don’t buy it.
I’ve found this to be a great mental exercise to go through whenever I feel drawn to invest in a card. It helps me stay grounded. It helps me remove my emotions (more on this below). And it keeps me on track so I’m not floundering without a plan.
For example, I bought a Jackson Chourio Bowman Chrome Auto PSA 10 the other day. I think it’s going to rise in value in the early spring because baseball card values have a long history of dipping at the end of the year and picking back up as excitement for the new season builds. I also expect there to be some excitement around Chourio after his strong rookie season.
One more example with a plan: I bought a Patrick Mahomes Optic RC PSA 9 because I found one for $75 below the going rate and think I’ll be able to flip it as soon as I receive it to lock in a profit.
In each example, there’s a clear reason why I think I’ll be able to turn a profit and a clear timeline for when I think it’ll happen. It doesn’t mean things will always go the way I plan, but at least I’m starting with a clear path to victory if things work out the way I’m expecting.
I’ll ask you the same thing I ask myself: If you can’t answer why and when you think the card will rise in value, then why are you buying the card?
Remove Emotion
Can you think of a time when you were upset and in the heat of the moment you did something you later regretted? Yep, me too.
The same can happen in the card market when we let our emotions get the best of us.
Removing emotion takes discipline, but making emotionally-charged decisions will cost you money. Emotions cloud our judgment and drive us to do things we often otherwise wouldn’t do.
The tricky part is emotions impact us both when we buy and when we sell.
When it comes to buying, I’ve found that removing emotion is mostly about understanding the big picture. Our natural reaction is usually to want to buy the players in front of us in the moment. If Paolo Banchero goes for 50 points in a game, we want his cards. If Patrick Mahomes throws for five touchdowns in a game, we want his cards. If Shohei Ohtani hits two 450 foot homers in a game, we want his cards.
The problem is, so does everyone else.
If we can zoom out, we realize these big games or even multi-game hot streaks often cause short term rises in value, and buying right after the player does something amazing on the field is often a good way to pay inflated prices. And sure, the cards could go even higher, but I’m usually interested in finding better value than that.
I’ve found that an easy way to gut-check myself to make sure I’m not making an emotion-driven decision is to sleep on it before making an impulse purchase.
When it comes to selling, I believe removing emotion is one of the most critical parts to winning with cards.
So many people are so concerned with what they paid for a card, and they’re terrified to take a loss when a card’s value dips below what they paid. I’ve found that sometimes the right move is to take a loss and free up the money so I can go use it to buy the next win. It’s hard to do – I hate taking losses just like anyone. But sometimes it’s not about what we like or don’t like, it’s about doing what gives us the best chance to win.
What about selling when the card’s value is up? Deciding how much profit is enough is a way more fun problem to have, but it can still be a tough call. Sell too soon and you could miss out on much bigger gains. Hold too long and you could miss the profit window entirely.
It’s difficult to time the absolute peak of the market, so I don’t try. Instead I’m looking to hit singles and doubles all year long by taking profits when they’re available rather than swinging for the fences and striking out a bunch along the way. I’ve found it way easier to build momentum this way and avoid the total buzzkill of a big loss.
For the record, I think overcoming emotions when selling is far, far more challenging than overcoming emotions when buying. Timing the sale is one of the hardest parts of this market, so if you’ve struggled with this, you’re not alone.
Seek Knowledge
Card strategy is always evolving as new players make their debuts and new products are released. But the core strategies haven’t changed for years. They’re skills, and once you learn them, they’re yours to keep.
Back when I was starting, there was no place to go to learn. Instagram didn’t exist, Facebook groups had not yet been introduced, and YouTube was more for entertainment videos like “Charlie Bit My Finger” than education. That meant the only way to learn how to invest in cards was through trial and error. But I was determined to figure it out.
After a few months of researching, making bad buys, improving my approach, and making better buys, I finally got my first win. It was a Jay Bruce card that I bought for $17 and flipped for $29.79 the day he made his MLB debut. The $8.91 of net profit wasn’t meaningful to me even as a broke college kid back then, but what it meant to me was everything. I knew if I could make $9 on a card sale, I could do the same to make $90, or $900, or $9,000 with consistent time and effort.
What I’ve realized over the years is that the cards themselves aren’t the asset. The skills and knowledge I’ve acquired are the asset. Players and cards will come and go, but to truly understand the market means I’ve always got a way to make money in my back pocket.
If you’re serious about learning sports card investing, I encourage you to prioritize learning. Again, you only have to learn the core skills and strategies once.
While I believe in the value of investing in learning, I also want to warn you that there are expensive programs out there that unfortunately fall way short on the value they deliver.
I’ve had people in my community tell me they learned more from my $25 book than from programs costing over $4,000. Luckily, there are reputable options available to help you fast-track your learning as well. Of course I believe my program is the best, but there are other quality options as well if you decide to go a different route. Just trust your instincts – if a program feels overpriced and you feel like you’re getting sold something by someone who doesn’t actually care about you, you probably are.
There are also plenty of free resources available too, like the articles here on Only Greats. And if you like card strategy, I regularly post tips and stories on Instagram, which of course is completely free.
Think Big
I’ll wrap up this list with a word about mindset. It’s easy to get flustered when things don’t go our way. There’s money on the line, after all.
When I started zooming out and looking at the big picture, it’s like my entire business was instantly unlocked. I realize now that it isn’t about winning on every card, every player, or every grading order. It’s about zooming out and looking at my entire card investing business and being able to say I won the year.
The mindset shift has given me permission to move on from mistakes and bad buys (even 17 years in, I still mess up sometimes) so I can free up the money and move onto the next card that will be profitable.
The card market is a marathon, not a sprint. If you want to make real money in this space, you have to think big and stay patient. You’re going to take some losses along the way, but don’t let them discourage you. It’s all part of the journey, and each mistake is a stepping stone toward success as long as you learn from the mistakes.
I also celebrate the wins no matter how big or small they might be. If you make money on a card, I encourage you to never put words like “just” or “only” in front of money, as in, “I made a profit but it was only $12.” No. You made $12 by having the guts to take a risk and by using your brain to win on a sports card flip. That’s worth being excited about! It proves (or re-proves) the concept. And every win can help your business compound over time as profits are reinvested.
When you start thinking long-term, you realize that each decision matters less in isolation. It’s the sum of your strategy, discipline, and willingness to learn that ultimately determines your success. So if you choose to embark on the journey to make money with cards, I encourage you to focus on building the knowledge and foundation that can deliver sustainable results for years to come.
Summary
I hope these tips bring you value and move you closer to your goals in the card market, whatever they may be. While the market can feel overwhelming at first, it’s absolutely worth figuring it out.
Stay focused, keep learning, and remember that the true winners are those who think big, stay consistent, and make smart moves over time. And when you’re ready to step up your game, I’ve got your back.
I run a free sports card community designed to help aspiring card investors get on their feet and learn the skills to build lasting success with cards. Inside, you’ll find courses, video strategy breakdowns, valuable resources, and a network of fellow card enthusiasts and investors eager to see you thrive. If you’re serious about leveling up, I’d like to extend an invitation for you to join us. After all, every big success starts with a bold step forward. And maybe, just maybe, this is your bold step. Will you take it?
To your success.