So I’ve always been curious as to how some of you guys have SO many cards to sell to the point where it’s essentially neverending. And I’m not just talking about common Caterpies and Weedles; I mean WOTC 1st Edition holos and the like.
Now that I’m selling myself, my question is, where do you get your cards from?
Obviously, I’m not referring to things like trophy cards or 1st Edition Charizards, because those obviously aren’t that attainable. I’m talking about the more common WOTC stuff such as Shadowless cards, 1st Edition Jungle/Fossil/Rocket/Gym/Neo holos, etc.
Are they just cards you have from your childhood collections and/or cards you have accumulated over the years?
Do you frequent card stores/comic book shops and look for deals?
Do you buy bulk off of eBay (e.g. those listings where you can get hundreds of cards for like $50)?
I have a decent bit of inventory I’d say and most comes from large eBay collection buys personally. I typically only search for buy it nows above $5,000 and auctions above $1,000 otherwise the search results are just too vast and take too much time to go through. You can really find great collections to buy all at once sometimes that just don’t have any appeal to collectors because who wants to spend $5,000 on a lot in which they are only interested in $500 in cards or so from it? This guy because they go for well below pricing if you split them up. If you have the time and buy right you can build your own collection for free while selling off the extras and even making a bit of profit to plow back into it.
Craigslist is a tiny supplement as I occasionally find scores from my WTB ad that I cycle on there. Usually just time wasters though wanting $500+ for $50 of played wotc cards.
Another big source is just my accumulation and buildup from buying collections the past few years and cracking early WOTC boxes/packs from back when it was guaranteed profit to crack grade and sell. Many big stores have been doing this since 1999 so have an ungodly amount of accumulation considering they sold all the stuff when it was new and continue to sell new sets to this day.
From my experience, if you go to card shops in your area that specialize in sports cards/memorabilia. They’ll usually have boxes of bulk WOTC era commons/uncommons/rares and a binder or 2 of WOTC era holos stashed in the back or in the corner case covered in dust lol. Most of the time they’re more than happy to get rid of them so make an offer/haggle and go from there.
I’ve gotten WOTC R/U/C bulk in the thousands for $150-$250 and around 200-300+ WOTC holos around $2-$3 a card over the past year or so.
Its feast or famine doing this but start off googeling shops near you (90mins or closer) and plan other activites around where your going so when you strike out it’s not a complete waste of time lol
My notable finds doing this…
A few unopened Gym/Jungle booster packs
PSA 9 Shadowless Chansey
PSA 9 Unlimited Ho Ho
PSA 8 Unlimited Shining Gyarados
PSA 9 1st Edition Moltres
PSA 9 Base Set Charizard/Blastoise/Raichu
Close to complete No Symbol Jungle Holo Set
1st Edition Shining Kabutops
1st Edition Light Dragonite
1st Edition Dark Charizard Holo
1st Edition Jungle/Fossil/Rocket Holos
Blaines Charizard
1st Edition WOTC R/U/C bulk out the waazoo lol
Just stopped at a card shop/comic book store today actually! lol.
Not a huge selection, but was able to pick up a nice Shadowless Raichu and a 1st Edition Jungle Nidoqueen Holo.
One thing I have noticed, however, is that some card shops ridiculously overprice their cards, so I guess it’s just a matter of finding the right shop.
Definitely, I cant tell you how many times I’ve walked into a shop and seen a bent in half Charizard for $150 or an Unlimited Kangaskhan for $25. It’s probably my biggest pet peeve when it comes to pokemon lol. Needless to say patience is key if you go that route. That’s a pretty good haul though, if you dont mind me asking how much did you get them for? Condition?
And absolutely: I got the Shadowless Raichu for $30. It is actually in terrific condition aside from a few specks on the front of the card. Holo doesn’t have any scratches and the back looks great. The specks are the only thing stopping it from being a near-mint card.
As for the Nidoqueen, got it for $15. It’s a near-mint card.
I find most places cant distinguish between shadowless and regular unlimited so sometimes you’ll get lucky. All things considered those are pretty good prices for both of those cards. It’s a shame about those specks though lol
Part old stock from the past, but most now comes from “buyers”
The more stuff you put on ebay the more people you are going to have coming to you asking if you also buy. I would advise that you do not always have to close a sale. Find a price you are comfortable with and stick with that. Several times I paid more than I should just so I could get the product and then the margins were really low for the amount of time it took to sell through.
Source for me is almost always ebay still. Instagram and has opened up some buying/selling but most of my big deals happen either through ebay or originated there sometime in the past. I keep all of my big sales in folders so I can go back and possibly re-purchase in the future haha.
I didn’t really look but is $80 for a Shadowless Blastoise in NM condition a decent price? Sometimes sold listings on Ebay are just crazy, I was looking at Pokemonprice on some cards that I have in GEM Mint 10 and the this Charizard I was looking at spikes all over the place. What I am saying is sold listings on Ebay can’t be the sole factor in pricing, so I like to hear people’s experience instead.
Have a question for you, TCA: how long did it take you before you were consistently moving product on eBay? In other words, at what point did multiple sales per day become a regular occurrence for you where you basically would wake up and know you would have to ship several items out that day?
Right from the start it was 2-5 orders a day, but that was because I did auctions ending every night. Sales gradually became more consistent as I put more time into it. It was definitely a learning process.
I remember selling a 1st ed PSA 9 Ninetales for $90 and thinking to myself that if I could get 1 sale like that a day I could make a living. It was far from the truth, but I was single back then and could live off basically nothing.
When I graduated college in 2012 I moved back home with my parents for the summer and took that time to try it full time. It was easy money and much better than I would have made as a high school math teacher.
Gotchya! Yeah I do it all buy it nows/best offers on eBay, so it’s definitely taking a little longer for me. Averaging a little less than one sale per day so far haha (I started selling last week).
Thanks so much for the input! Greatly appreciated, my man.
Over time you build up a customer base and will need to rely on eBay less and less. I think I’m averaging only 2 or 3 eBay sales a month now but am selling a quarter million in just Pokemon a year.
Being helpful and reliable really pushes you forward.
I will tell you what. There’s a lot of talk going around about shill bidding on ebay. I have heard that pwcc and probstein are both connected to shill bidding. Dont know if its true but seems kind of fishy. I remember a couple of months ago I was bidding on a 1942 editorial bruguera joe louis card, and it was a probstein auction. I bid up to a certain point and someone kept driving up the price. This someone then started retracting his bids. Ebay lets these big time consigners get away with anything they want because they are making a ton of money from them.
PWCC and Probstein are two of the top consignment organizations in the business. They are not going to risk damaging their reputations by engaging in shill bidding.
Just because you lost out on one card does not mean that Probstein is engaging in unscrupulous activity.
And if anything, PWCC and Probstein auctions tend to go for LESS than market value. If they were truly shill bidding, you would see sky-high ending prices on their auctions.
They are consignment businesses that auction things on behalf of other people. It’s not unbelievable at all that people who consign could attempt to shill up the price of their own items.