Investing in Baseball Cards as a Business



Posted: Friday, April 11, 2008

by
GMA Grading

Baseball Cards or Sports Card collecting can be an asset and something you can leave to your heirs one day. Over the years baseball cards have withstood recessions and boom markets and have prevailed to be solid investments. You have to know what you are doing and not get caught up in hype but the results can be pretty spectacular. With this being the case the internet has provided different avenues for collectors to make this a part time or in some cases a full time business. With the ebay boom part time collectors have turned the baseball card business in to a full fledged career. Grading and sports card authentication have also helped in this process of liquidity. Now people can sell their cards one at a time on ebay and do not have to sell their whole collection as they once had to do. The Sports card Grading gives the individual a baseline of what cards are worth based on their condition and makes selling the cards much easier because the customer purchasing the card immediately know what they are getting based on the grade. If you have been collecting for awhile or you happened to stumble on grandpas old baseball cards, grading can help you protect your investments.

If you are looking too find out what your baseball cards are worth their are a few ways to do so. First their are publications such as the Beckett magazine or Tuff Stuff Magazine. These magazines can be great guides in finding out what your Baseball cards, Football cards, Basketball cards or even Hockey cards are worth. These publications have people in the market place that report back to them what certain cards are going for and what is hot or not. They also do product research on ebay and see what current auctions are ending for. You can save yourself the $5.99 a month and go to ebay yourself and do your own product research. All you have to do is have an ebay account. You can go to ebay and type in the card you are interesting in finding the value of and than click on the link on the left side bar that says completed auctions. This is valuable information for anybody in the industry for a few reason. First the information is fresh and you can go back up too 30 days The Beckett and the Tuff Stuff magazines are updated every month and they pull the same information that you can from ebay.com . You can also see how many bids a certain cards have and how many have sold to give you a good gauge of how Hot or how col a card is at a current time. AT GMA Grading we have a part of our site dedicated too the most popular Rookie card searches. this guide we display for free to our customers and can be very helpful for brainstorming and research. You can click on the link and see the page. Once you have done your research you might want too come up with a budget and give it a try.

Buying Baseball Cards on a Budget Whether you buy baseball cards for fun or to make money you will have to establish a budget. Baseball cards can get pretty addictive and I have seen one marriage on the brink of divorce do to a man’s pack ripping addiction.

You can blow thousands of dollars a month by ripping packs of cards. I would tell you that you are better off buying a case of cards than buying packs of cards. When buying a case you know how much you are investing and how much you need to return. Your odds are better when averaged out over the case.

Most people I know just buy the cards they want and take the gambling out of the equation. Even though pack ripping is fun, so is casino gambling, and we all know Las Vegas has beautiful Hotels because of this. If you can control your spending and purchase items at affordable prices you will be able to keep track of what you are buying and selling a lot easier. This will keep your profits solid and make it less of a guessing game.

Buying Sports cards on Ebay When buying cards on ebay.com make sure you are buying cards from people with good feedback. If the seller has strong feedback 300 or more rating in my opinion it will help you sleep a little easier. Try to diversify the cards that you are purchasing for resale. The larger array of players and cards that you buy the more of a market you can hit. This will keep your money turnaround at a more frequent rate which will keep profits up. Their will be instances when you will be purchasing a card and by the time you receive the card the player might be headed for the disabled list or has been traded to another team. Be Patient ! If the player was good before he got hurt he will be just as good when he returns from the DL. Another bit of advise is buy what you know. If you are a Football fanatic and have stats spewing out of your mouth when you are hanging out with your buddies stick to the football cards. You can always dabble in other things but sticking to what you know will keep the odds in you favor. Once you have built up a nice inventory Let the Selling Begin! Just remember if you stick too quality players your investments are pretty safe.

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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by james
 1 year 305 days ago.
Great article about grading! The sports card industry has many card graders, and GMA is definitely one of the best. Their turnaround time and superior quality cases make GMA tough to beat. If you shop online sports card auction sites like sportZoid or ebay, make sure you buy from reputable grading companies like GMA, PSA or BGS.
» left by Darlene Marzec from California 1 year 130 days ago.
Yea Right! GMA authenticates Phony autographs all the time, I have seen many issues with their grading service, giving every card a 10 doesn't qualify them for one of the best! This article seems like a SELF PROMOTION to me! The comment is suspect too! GMA is ran by Alan who wrote the article, & how many readers beleive a customer would write something as scripted as the comment above! Thats what I thought, they wouldn't!!!
» left by Anonymous 240 days 12 hours ago.
GMA doesnt sell cards or have other "interests" like the others do. They off a good service at a far price. Which is why many who pay what others charge dont like them

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