A comprehensive guide to making money flipping sports cards

The recent surge in interest around sports cards has made it decently easy to make money on the internet and since March I have found a few ways to easily flip for profit. A lot of times when this topic is discussed, people can have a sour feeling towards flippers but the way I look at it, whether you are making money holding cards for the long term or trying to find bargains on eBay if you didn't do it, someone else would so there is no reason to feel bad at all.

1. You can make money by finding people's mistakes

I know this sounds a little aggressive and cocky at first but hear me out. As I started putting more and more money into cards around May I started realizing the trends in Auctions ending on ebay. Most people try to end their auctions on a Sunday night or at least at some point during the weekend, because that is when most people have free time to be surfing on ebay searching for their next prized posession. Often times, at the last seconds, 4 or 5 bidders would try to acquire a card driving the prices up.

So I started looking at times during the week when there would be less traffic on the internet. When I looked at auctions ending during morning hours or even at night (3 to 5 AM CT) I noticed that barely anyone is awake to bid at that point.

That is exactly how I snagged this Kobe card for so cheap and a few days later after it got delivered, sold for $299 immediately. After fees and shipping costs, that is $132.8 in my pocket.

In looking for people's mistakes you can also search keywords that you think people might have misspelled. Some examples would be "BSG" or "PAS" for graded cards, that obviously will not show up if someone is looking for a BGS or PSA graded card. Individual players can be tricky also, some of the best examples are Luca Doncic, Saquan Barkley or even Tyler Hero. These are all just tiny mistakes people make every day, right? But if you occassionally search for these terms and look at the listings, you might find some hidden gems that other people have not seen yet.

2. Bid like your life depended on it

This one is pretty simple. Don't expect to win a single auction unless you bid at the very last second before it ends. I am saying this from my own experience. In the beginning, I would put in my highest bid about a minute before the listing was about to end and would get outbid EVERY SINGLE TIME.

So then I thought what if I was the person hitting the bid at the last second? Every auction that I would watch from here on out would end the same way. I would win. If I decided in my head beforehand that I would pay $400 for a card, I would hit the bid a touch after the countdown hits '1 s' and would not lose a single auction.

I have made a lot of money by simply being aware of people's habits when bidding and becoming better at it.

3. Flipping Wax

Personally I have never had much luck buying boxes and packs in Target or Walmart and then selling on eBay because where I live in Houston, they were almost impossible to find. But if yours ever looked like this:

Then you probably have a decent chance of making some money by simply walking in, looking at eBay and figuring out which ones are worth more than the price tag on it. Easy cash...

4. Investing for the long term

Obviously, it is hard to predict a guy like Luka Doncic entering the league but his talent has been undeniable since the day he got on the court. So if you were smart and stashed mounds of his Rookie cards back then, you would be sitting on a gold mine right now.

For this you also have to know what people want out of the hundreds of products that are rolled out every year. For players like Luka the sets that move up the fastest are Prizm, Optic, Select, Revolution and then we have not even started talking about the Astronomical sets like National Treasures or Immaculate. If you pour all your money into the lower end sets and invest the same amout as you would in these more popular products, you will not see the same return.

5. Waiting for a new documentary to come out

'The Last Dance' has turned the sports card market upside down and made it difficult for the average collector to buy a Michael Jordan Rookie Card. Riding the waves of this fantastic documentary, you can find other ways to profit. Being on the lookout for new documentaries being announced might be the safest way to flip cards and I have done so myself with numerous Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa Rookies before their new movie hit the TVs.

The explanation is simple. When a new documentary comes out, people reminisce how much they enjoyed watching certain players and it creates a huge interest in those few, driving the prices up.

It is important here to dump your cards that you want to flip about 2-3 days before the documentary airs as the expectation will always be higher than the actual show so people will pay less money for those cards after the movie craze runs out.

6. Putting in hours of research

Selling on eBay is all about attention. After I was happy with my collection I started exploring new ways to find deals on eBay and found quite a few. if you simply type in 'rookie lot' to the search bar you will be hit with thousands of lots people have listed. Then all you need to do is go back in time a few months and start browsing.

You are looking for mistakes, bad quality pictures, players that are not in the listing but are in the pictures.

This is a great example right here. Bad quality pictures, only a few words (meaning less attention) and I bought 26 Lebron Rookies for $11.50 each. It is all about the work you put in beforehand, knowing what to look for and constantly studying trends in the market so that when you see a steal you know it right away.

You have to sell to make money

Obviously, just by buying these cards and finding good deals, you will not see cash on your account. I have mostly used eBay and Mercari to sell but there are also hundreds of card groups on Facebook where you can find potential buyers.

I definitely recommend creating a spreadsheet of some kind just so you can keep track of what you bought for how much for future reference as well. This will make it much easier for you to realize your profits too.