No, YOU check out MY cards: selling edition

I've seen enough people recently have some degree of success selling on COMC that I finally decided to give it a shot myself.  Armed with a $20 off coupon (that I might have ended up with thanks to one of you, I can't remember) I sent in 75 total cards for their one-week service, and yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to find that they'd entered everything in two days earlier than estimated.  I set about pricing my cards, either starting a bit higher than my lowest accepted price and/or undercutting what was already there, and in no time offers came flying in!  As of this writing, I've sold nine cards for $81, which is definitely beyond my expectations this soon.  You'll all be happy to hear that every bit of money I make there will go back into cards--you know I'm not in this hobby for profit, what little someone like me can make anyway--especially now that I'll have lots of COMC credit to play with.

So having already deemed this experiment a success, two things:  one, please feel free to check out what I have up just for fun or to make me some offers, and two, if you've been thinking about taking the plunge yourself, I say go for it!  It's a great way to make a little money back on that useless trade bait of yours that nobody wants.

As for me, I'm off to sort through a bunch more offers and rake in some cash!

Final 2011 Topps football case break sales report

Well, it's been three weeks since I busted my 2011 Topps football jumbo case.  As a refresher, here are the results:

• Hits
• Base and Wolverines (plus design grades)
• Inserts and final grades

I made it clear from the get-go that this would be an experiment for me to experience busting a case and trying to sell the contents (anything that wasn't personal collection-worthy, of course).  So how did I do?  Entirely through Blowout's forums (because I don't trust screwBay and I didn't wanna pay even more fees) I sold the following (all prices are shipped and obviously don't account for eBay fees or what I actually paid for shipping:

• Aaron Hernandez, Matt Forte, Randall Cobb, Jordan Todman, Bilal Powell autos, Ryan Williams Rookie Patch:  $25
• Most of the Golds (29) and Minis (57):  $30
• Kyle Rudolph Rookie Red Zone auto, Santonio Holmes and Jason Witten autos, Kyle Rudolph Game Day jersey, Jordan Todman Rookie Patch:  $65
• Black Chad Greenway:  $8
• Cameron Heyward Printing Plate:  $25
• Greg Little, Marcell Dareus, Leonard Hankerson Rookie Patches:  $12

All told I pulled in a grand total of $165 (again, not including fees/shipping).  This was my return on paying a bit over $500 for the case.  So what did I learn?  More bullets!

• Busting cases is fun!  Well, I already knew that, but busting cases entirely for me is fun!
• It's not remotely easy making a profit.  That wasn't my ultimate goal--really I was hoping to get half my money back, which is still possible if I can finish up and sell a few of my sets.  Wanna buy a set?  If I can't get a good price for them now I'll hold onto them for a time when they're worth a bit more and then try to get something for them.  I also have a couple more decent hits that could bring me some cash eventually.
• It's not the easiest thing in the world making deals as a seller either.  However, I really didn't get lowballed all that much, at least not as much as I was expecting.  Because I know as a buyer I'm only happy with a low price, I worked with each person as much as I could, especially when they bought multiple items.
• I didn't get top dollar for my items by not using eBay, but I felt much more comfortable knowing I wouldn't get screwed as a seller by forgoing that option.
• Don't give buyers so much leeway.  Early on, I had a guy with a pretty good reputation on Blowout ask about a good number of my best hits.  We eventually worked out a decent price on the condition that we would also work on each others' set wantlists. Although several people made offers on some of those same cards, I held onto them for him despite a couple weeks of "I'll have your lists tonight."  I eventually found out he had a personal situation, but I ended his dibs on those cards right then because he should have been more up-front and said "I have a situation, but by this date I can deal again."  Fortunately, I found an excellent buyer who was willing to take most of that stuff, plus I got a bit more for almost everything else he wanted as well.
• These cases are really hit or miss.  About three of my boxes produced pretty nice stuff, but the others were relative duds, especially compared to what I've seen.  It still doesn't look extremely easy to come close to profitability on these cases, though I realize they're not exactly designed for that.
• Most importantly, I won't be getting into the business of busting cases to resell items for cash--I just don't have the time or skills to maximize my profit (or even make one apparently).  But I'm totally glad I tried this, and I hope it proved to be useful info for some of you too.

What's left?  Well, I have the following stuff remaining, which is still for sale, but now available for trade as promised:

All available except the Jenkins--headed to BA Benny

I'd really like to get cash for the Black Jones and may try to sell that individually, but wow me with an offer and it's yours.

I also have three base sets available right now (with hopefully one more up for grabs soon as well).  I'm asking $35 dlvd on those, but I'll work with you.  If you want to trade for one I might be willing as long as you pony up for shipping and give me fair trade value.

Thanks for following along with this crazy experiment--I hope you had some fun with it too, especially vicariously since I'm the one that took the shot to the wallet!  One thing I should stress though, is that, as I intended, any money I brought back in selling stuff was spent on more cards, as you've likely deduced from my recent (and future) Blowout acquisition posts.  Cards über alles!

A card experiment: FOR SCIENCE!* (*not actually for science)

I just wanted to let you all know about a new development in TMG land today, a sports card experiment that promises to be as exciting as it is enlightening, at least for me.

*Not actually sexy.  Or science.  For!

As usual when there's a new product, there's been a lot of buzz about 2011 Topps football.  I've seen a good number of breaks and like some of what I've seen pulled.  Add to that the fact that I always pick myself up a box of these because I like grabbing a set for myself.

Well, while looking over some of these breaks, I started to consider the circumstances and consequences of picking up a case.  I knew this would guarantee me a couple sets and potentially some pretty nice hits, some of which I could try to sell back.  I cruised over to the general football/collecting discussion board on Blowout and solicited advice from people who usually do that sort of thing, including those that had already cracked some 2011 Topps.  I really only got one response that included any kind of advice, but the overall tone was a thumbs up based on his experience.

My next step was to see what kind of pricing I could get among Blowout, Atlanta Sports Cards and Dave & Adam's Card World.  I'd previously ordered from the first and last, but not Atlanta, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.  Overall, Atlanta had the best price, but I had hoped to buy from D&A because they're located closer to me (for shipping purposes, natch) and because they throw in free stuff once you spend $75 or more, which is always nice.

I decided to ping D&A's customer support to see if they'd price match Atlanta's then-low price (which has since gone up a few bucks).  When they got back to me, they told me that while they wouldn't match THAT price, but would go as low as a few bucks more, which knocked off enough to make them the best value for me (taking into account the freebies as well).  They really are great people over there and, considering this is now my second time purchasing from them, and keeping in mind that my customer service experience with them was so positive, I can't recommend them enough, so please keep them in mind for your future orders.  To be fair, I can also give Blowout my seal of approval, and they also cut me a deal on a case break in the past.

Anyway, after all that, I placed my order with D&A's this afternoon, and hopefully I'll be seeing my case very soon (along with a free box of 2008 UD First Edition football!), because after that, y'all will get to see every part of it as well.  So what's the big deal with all the talk about card experiments?

This is essentially my first case I'll be busting on my own that's not part of a group break (discounting a rack case of 1988 Donruss my brother and I split way back--junk wax doesn't count!) and my intention is to see how I fare trying to recoup some money after keeping what I want.  My expectation is that I'll be able to make some money back on a couple complete sets (maybe even a master set), SPs, hits (relics/patches and autographs) and other stuff (plates?).  I'm not even dreaming of making back close to what I'm paying for the case, but I feel that, rather than drop $90 on a jumbo box (which seems like the best value), I have the best chance of pulling valuable stuff to sell by getting six of them.

So whenever that case arrives, I'll treat everyone to a box-by-box look at the case, then keep y'all posted on my progress as I see what I can sell things for.  I'll make everything very much available to each of you that's interested since I feel you deserve dibs, but I want to be clear that for the purposes of this experiment, I'll be selling only to start with.  After a reasonable amount of time, I'll cease the sell-only attitude and make things available for trade.  My plan is to try to sell stuff through Blowout's forums first as I have a pretty good rep there and wouldn't have to pay Feebay's outrageous, um, fees, but I'll have to see how that goes.

I'm very interested in finding out how a casual collector who doesn't sell cards as his day job can do cracking a case and trying to sell back some of it.  Still, I want to be clear that, especially during my time with this blog, the trading and collecting aspects of the hobby are still my primary focus; I'm not going to flip out on you and become a distributor or worse, an eBay seller (::shudder::) anytime soon.  I just saw this as an ideal opportunity to combine set-building with the experience of selling to see what happens.  I hope some of you find this interesting and follow along as I bust boxes and list stuff for sale.  If there's enough interest I'll consider some sort of live break, maybe even with contests and stuff to make it more interesting, so please let me know if you'd be down for that.  Right now I'm very excited and can't help thinking that no matter what happens, this will be tons of fun...FOR SCIENCE!