Turning the hobby into a part time job.

[Leon]

You can definitely do it. Your money will be made on the buys more than the sells. If you buy right then you will be successful. Do a lot of homework, make calculated risks, and hope for some luck. That about should do it. And all of that being said, it's not easy.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Leon

You can definitely do it. Your money will be made on the buys more than the sells. If you buy right then you will be successful. Do a lot of homework, make calculated risks, and hope for some luck. That about should do it. And all of that being said, it's not easy.

What Leon said is among the most important things. You can make money on anything if you can buy it cheaply enough.

The stamp guy I learned from told me that as almost the first thing.

The rest he told me?

You don't have a shop to sell. You have a shop to buy.

Become a good guesser. If you take a couple hours to figure out a collection is worth very little you've already lost money. (Most small stamp collections are worth around $20-30 retail) The same sort of thing goes for cards. Can you look at a 5000 count box and tell right away if they're 1991 or earlier? And roughly what condition they're in? And maybe with a bit of breathing room in the box more closely what years they are? That's the bulk of what you'll see, and recent stuff really needs to be bought in bulk and very cheaply. At say $5 for a 3200 or 500 count box you don't even have to check for stars.
Or---Is that item "junk" or something valuable? I've done pretty well with stuff I bought that just seemed to be too cheap.

Don't get married to your mistakes. You'll have that stuff that just won't work for you. Offload it for whatever seems ok to minimize the loss and as long as you've learned from it you'll be fine in the long run. I bought a big box of junk football from him. He had it marked originally at $250, then 200 then 150 then 135. When I told him my offer wouldn't be close he said don't be shy, I know I paid too much and just want them gone. $50, done deal I figured I'd overpaid but still needed a few for those sets. AT the time I could get decent money for random batches of cards on Ebay, $5 for 400, 3 for 100. That sort of thing. It took more work than I'd have liked, but I got around 150 profit by the time I put the last couple hundred with some other stuff.
That lot worked for me, but didn't for him. Different approach different result.

Some of the more complicated stuff involves inventory and what you keep and what gets turned as quickly as possible. I've seen him flip stuff before he got it back to the shop. (Or before he got it back to the table at a show) But I also bought a stamp a couple years ago that I'd priced in maybe 1985

Most of it depends on you. I don't do as well as I should because I'm too slow on the selling end. And often I'm too cheap to buy the sort of stuff that would move quicker. Don't do that

Steve B

[swarmee]

You don't have to pound the pavement if you don't want to; it's very time consuming to drive around looking for vintage sportscards if you live in a sparsely populated area like me. Let eBay become your yard sale.

When I'm searching for cards on eBay, I think to myself "Self, if I didn't know what I had, how would I list them?" So I would start looking for "baseball card lot" and then browse the thousands of listings that come up. Then tweak as necessary to better find the types of cards I'm looking for. Know what's hot currently (like 1914 Cracker Jacks and T206 John Titus cards ;-) ) and how to spot real cards from fakes.

I bought one of the Fro-Joy baseball uncut sheets with the intent of testing it for age (blacklight test and printing test using loupe) and then if it's from the 1970s reprints rather than the original, I'll send it back to the original seller and get my money back. Take a couple of risks, but not with your money. ;-)

[mintacular]

I think it's become harder and harder to make $ on cards due to the increasing fees on eBay/paypal + shipping....You automatically are hit with 15%+ when needing to flip via eBay so picking up a nice $100 card for $85 means you're only breaking even when resellling on eBay...Also, selling dollar cards on eBay which was once a possibility even harder due to fee structure change....I think really the only way to do it is having a large chunk of investment $ and buying very large collections, and then being extremely patient to get a good price on your cards....

[savedfrommyspokes]

Over the past 15 years I have built my collection, at little to no cost, by buying vintage lots/sets/accumulations on ebay, pulling out the cards I wanted for my collection, and reselling the remaining cards in order to cover my costs. Leon's advice was spot on, any profit is made on the purchasing end of things....it boils down to buying smart which for me includes understanding both what I am buying and what it is worth.

Reselling the cards as singles on ebay at fixed prices has been my most effective mode of selling. For this year, I am on pace to sell about 2.5 times my typical inventory level. The quicker I can rotate my inventory, the lower my pct of ebay/pp fees to sales will be. This year (with a little help from free listings), my total ebay and PP expenses combined are less than 20% of my sales. Two years ago, I had a higher inventory level and my rate of sale was less as I only turned my inventory about 1.5 times that year. My ebay/pp expense % of sales was closer to 25% that year.

Developing an effective system/process for listing cards, storing cards, and shipping them will allow you to do more with less time. Most sellers have their own systems in place based on what works best for them.

If you do not want to waste your time with such a venture, ensure you buy smart, research your sell price to ensure both liquidity and profit, work efficiently, and, most importantly, treat the people who buy from you right.

[campyfan39]

I am finishing up a book about collecting with my late father. I interviewed dozens of successful dealers during the research and to a man they told me they don't collect anymore. It was just too hard to be a seller and a collector.
The temptation to keep stuff or upgrade was too high. I know it would be for me as well.

[Footballdude]

Originally Posted by campyfan39

I am finishing up a book about collecting with my late father. I interviewed dozens of successful dealers during the research and to a man they told me they don't collect anymore. It was just too hard to be a seller and a collector.
The temptation to keep stuff or upgrade was too high. I know it would be for me as well.

I think the general rule is "Don't fall in love with your merchandise".