Fun with 100 Minor League Sets

[Mike D.]

So, about a week ago, I was poking around eBay when a listing caught my eye:

"100 DIFF MINOR LEAGUE TEAM SETS 91-94 W/ STARS 3000+"

$34.95 plus $19.99 s/h. All-in cost was $58.74 or just under 59 cents per set.

At that price, I figured it was time to start a little project.

What am I going to do with 100 thirty year old minor league sets?

1. Go through them looking for grading candidates and open those sets.
2. Attempt to sell the other cards in the open sets as singles.
3. Attempt to re-sell the other sets at a profit.

Will I get a few grading candidates out of the lot...I hope so. Will I make a little profit selling off the sets and singles. Will the profit be worth the time I'll invest sorting, listing, opening, and subbing? Probably not...but hey, it's a hobby, and this should be fun.

If this kind of silliness is amusing to you, feel free to follow along. If not, hope you don't mind ignoring this thread where I post about the process.

The sets...a whole medium flat rate box of them:

[bnorth]

Sounds like a seriously fun project, I will be following along.

[hockeyhockey]

love those minor league cards. keep us posted.

[Mike D.]

The first set I came across with a grading candidate is the 1994 Albany-Colonie Yankees set, which features Andy Pettitte. The PSA pop for that card is 14, oddly enough all are 10's.

For any grading candidates, I won't sub anything until PSA returns to to some reasonable level of value submission (assuming that happens at some point).

The other 30 cards in the set will be scanned and listed on eBay...we'll see if anyone wants them!

[Mike D.]

Thanks guys...I hope you find this little project entertaining!

[hockeyhockey]

i just bought a box. sounded like a hell of a good time. thanks for the heads up. and keep posting about your experience, totally interesting.

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by hockeyhockey

i just bought a box. sounded like a hell of a good time. thanks for the heads up. and keep posting about your experience, totally interesting.

Oh fun! I hope you enjoy the cards - and feel free to share any experiences here!

[hockeyhockey]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

Oh fun! I hope you enjoy the cards - and feel free to share any experiences here!

will do. i'll probably wait until school starts so the house is quiet in the early mornings.

[Mike D.]

I've listed the first handful of sets, all from 1993, on eBay.

Starting them as auctions @ $3.99 plus $3.99 shipping.

Selling a set at this rate nets about a $2 profit. It won't take many sales at that rate to repay my initial investment.

Any sets that don't sell at this rate, we'll try again at a lower price...sets that don't sell at the lower price? I don't know yet. We'll see!

The first few sets:

1993 ProCards New Orleans Zephyrs
1993 ProCards Appleton Foxes
1993 ProCards Columbus Clippers
1993 ProCards Daytona Cubs
1993 ProCards Waterloo Diamonds

eBay Store Links sorted by 1993 Procards.

100 sets
1 opened / singles to be listed
5 complete sets listed on eBay
94 to be reviewed

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by Mike D.

The first set I came across with a grading candidate is the 1994 Albany-Colonie Yankees set, which features Andy Pettitte. The PSA pop for that card is 14, oddly enough all are 10's.

For any grading candidates, I won't sub anything until PSA returns to to some reasonable level of value submission (assuming that happens at some point).

The other 30 cards in the set will be scanned and listed on eBay...we'll see if anyone wants them!

I happened to have one of the Pettite already at PSA (arrived Feb 8th, "received" April 3, currently in "research and ID"), so this one will go into the backlog for a possible future sub.

Since I have TWO of this partial set, I listed on eBay as two card lots...we'll see if anyone is a fan of the other guys in this set!

https://www.ebay.com/str/mdprod?_bkw...Albany-Colonie

[swarmee]

I much prefer COMC because they do all the work, and you can buy and sell cards on site without taking delivery of them. I think they're much better for buyers than sportlots because their user interface is so much better, every submitted cards gets its own front and back scan (UD ePack cards could be stock photos however). Their cards are also mostly cross-posted to eBay so you get the advantage of eBay buyers without having to do any shipping.

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by swarmee

I much prefer COMC because they do all the work, and you can buy and sell cards on site without taking delivery of them. I think they're much better for buyers than sportlots because their user interface is so much better, every submitted cards gets its own front and back scan (UD ePack cards could be stock photos however). Their cards are also mostly cross-posted to eBay so you get the advantage of eBay buyers without having to do any shipping.

Looking at their site, can you make any money selling with them?

If I'm understanding, you send the cards and they change you 50 cents each to scan and list them. Then they charge 5% of the sale price, plus 1 cent per card per month for storage. Then they charge more if you want to get proceeds from your sale (instead of spending on their site)?

So, if I list one 30 card minor league set, the cost is $15 to get started? How does the math work for low-priced cards?

[swarmee]

It's playing the long game and "set it and forget it"; there is definitely money to be made, especially if your card is the only one listed on site. I sell some cards for $5-10-25 each when you could buy the same complete set for $10. Since they're crossposted to eBay, people searching ebay for their uncle or grandpa who used to play minor league ball don't care if the card is priced at $4.

I have submitted 10,000 cards on site over the 7 years I've been back in the field. I also have some strategies for buying cards where I can make $50 profit on some, which then allows me to submit 100 cards with the profit. I just sent in 600 cards from the 2020 Congress set, and will list all of them for $2.50 a card.

If you're going to go this route, you don't send every card. You check and see which cards are already for sale on site, and then only send ones that you can profit from ($2 minimum or so). I would send semi-stars, fan favorites, and then ones of guys who were born in the USA. Not a whole lot of demand for random players from the DR or Venezuela, from what I've seen.

Didn't mean to derail your thread, though. Just figured it was an alternate way to turn a larger profit. If you search Primer on these boards, I made a post about how to buy/sell on COMC that is probably worth reading.

[Gorditadogg]

have enjoyed reading about your project. It's amazing how you're finding a market for these cards. And you are doing better than you think, because your accounting is flawed.

There are two ways to do the accounting. The first and easiest way is to take cash in less cash out. Your cash in so far is about $66. This is what you received from ebay. Your cash out is the $58.74 initial investment. So you are up $7 already.

The other way to do it is set by set. For the sets and lots you've sold, you have netted a $55.45 profit. Your 80 unsold sets cost you 59 cents each or about $48 so you have a loss on those so far. The net again is about $7.

So congratulations! You are already in the black on your project.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[Mike D.]

Originally Posted by Gorditadogg

have enjoyed reading about your project. It's amazing how you're finding a market for these cards. And you are doing better than you think, because your accounting is flawed.

There are two ways to do the accounting. The first and easiest way is to take cash in less cash out. Your cash in so far is about $66. This is what you received from ebay. Your cash out is the $58.74 initial investment. So you are up $7 already.

The other way to do it is set by set. For the sets and lots you've sold, you have netted a $55.45 profit. Your 80 unsold sets cost you 59 cents each or about $48 so you have a loss on those so far. The net again is about $7.

So congratulations! You are already in the black on your project.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

Thanks for reading...glad you're enjoying it, and you're right...I figured I'd make my money back...but didn't expect to do it selling less than 20% of the total.

And yeah, I think I was trying to be TOO conservative with my math and ended up kind of double-counting the expense.

It's crazy to think about how much this little lot will eventually pay back...even if i need to discount some of the sets and cards to get them gone.

Anyway, not getting rich on this, but it's been fun to show you can make your money back!

[Mike D.]

Sold:

1993 ProCards Bluefield Orioles

Threw an offer at a watcher for $2.99 plus shipping. Even with a $1 discount, I still see a $1.91 profit.


100 sets
3 opened / singles to be listed
94 complete sets listed on eBay
3 sets gifted to a friend
0 to be reviewed
17 sets sold
6 lots sold
$58.74 original purchase
$57.36 reclaimed

[Mike D.]

Some recent sales:

1992 ProCards Madison Muskies
1993 ProCards New Orleans Zephyrs
1993 ProCards Medicine Hat Blue Jays

$3.99 each plus shipping (one was combined) for total of $8.98 shipping and a grand total of $20.95. After shipping and fees, that's a profit of $10.78.

I need to re-do my profit math, but by now it's clear that with just over 20 sets sold, we've already made a profit!

100 sets
3 opened / singles to be listed
94 complete sets listed on eBay
3 sets gifted to a friend
0 to be reviewed
21 sets sold
6 lots sold
$58.74 original purchase
$69.33 reclaimed