Wanna Be Card Dealer Seeks Advise - Case Breaking

[gbass34]

For those of you that have invested and cracked cases, is it worth it? Is something like a case of Topps at a reasonable price worth opening and flipping?

If the return generally enough to be worth the pain? Also, is this something that needs to be done in the first two weeks of product release to obtain the best return?

[Stat Monsters]

I'd say in all honest, if it sounds to good to be true, it is. So, where you'll read about case hits and big dollar cards here and there, it's not for the faint of heart.

You can easily lose 75% of your investment and open a case of crap, and not only will many of the cards be of low value, but you'd be challenged to find any buyers short of giving some away or bundling up dollar bin team based lots.

If you think about it, if it were as easy as dropping a few thousand on a case, cracking it open and seeing a guaranteed return on your investment, then everyone would be doing it and in turn the single card market would crash with so many sellers, many of whom may not be so greedy to demand high margins and want to recoup their money plus 10-20% profits.

I'd say, if you like buying lottery tickets, pulling slot machines, playing bingo or keno, or high odds gambling with jackpot potential, then try it out.

If you're risking your rent money, kids 529 college fund or money that's important to you that you can't afford to lose, then refrain from this proposed venture. The true odds are you'll not only lose, but will have to put in hard labor to open the case, organize the cards then worst of all trying to find buyers be it these msg boards, eBay, Craigslist, etc. and then collecting the money and shipping/delivering the product nearly one at a time. It's tedious and time consuming.

There are way better business propositions and investment opportunities than chasing cardboard gold if you're int into the hobby with any personal passion (as a collector) and just want to rip and flip.

[evileddie]

Originally Posted by Stat Monsters

I'd say in all honest, if it sounds to good to be true, it is. So, where you'll read about case hits and big dollar cards here and there, it's not for the faint of heart.

You can easily lose 75% of your investment and open a case of crap, and not only will many of the cards be of low value, but you'd be challenged to find any buyers short of giving some away or bundling up dollar bin team based lots.

If you think about it, if it were as easy as dropping a few thousand on a case, cracking it open and seeing a guaranteed return on your investment, then everyone would be doing it and in turn the single card market would crash with so many sellers, many of whom may not be so greedy to demand high margins and want to recoup their money plus 10-20% profits.

I'd say, if you like buying lottery tickets, pulling slot machines, playing bingo or keno, or high odds gambling with jackpot potential, then try it out.

If you're risking your rent money, kids 529 college fund or money that's important to you that you can't afford to lose, then refrain from this proposed venture. The true odds are you'll not only lose, but will have to put in hard labor to open the case, organize the cards then worst of all trying to find buyers be it these msg boards, eBay, Craigslist, etc. and then collecting the money and shipping/delivering the product nearly one at a time. It's tedious and time consuming.

There are way better business propositions and investment opportunities than chasing cardboard gold if you're int into the hobby with any personal passion (as a collector) and just want to rip and flip.

This is an excellent post. I agree with it 100%. Great advice. I still love to open cards, but I am even more happy when I get that nice PC card in the mail I bought from here, ebay, COMC, etc.

[RedMikeC]

Opening Cases/ Joining Breaks got me some of my best cards but also got me a whole bunch of junk. If I sold my best cards it wouldn't cover 20% of how much I spent overall opening boxes/joining breaks but it was fun at the time lol.

[enbambam6986]

Have fun sorting and listing hundreds of cards. Not worth the time IMO

[rutgersjpm]

It's all about how you define value. If you consider opening and selling cards fun, then yeah, it's "worth" it. Should you quit your day job solely to spend your time ripping and flipping? No, definitely not. Doesn't matter what the job is.

[salthill]

Yeah, if you could guarantee a profit ripping cases, then banks would give loans to buy them.

Plus it’s not a straight calculation of the case cost $600, cards sold on eBay for $700, therefore profit! (And even that’s a stretch for most cases.)

You’ve got to count supplies, losses/refunds (for the increasing number of eBay ripoff/scammers), and most importantly a $ value per hour of your time doing it all.

[Uwfootball1]

Everything said above is pretty solid advice

[CharlieHustle]

Originally Posted by gbass34

For those of you that have invested and cracked cases, is it worth it? Is something like a case of Topps at a reasonable price worth opening and flipping?

If the return generally enough to be worth the pain? Also, is this something that needs to be done in the first two weeks of product release to obtain the best return?

Case breaking and flipping is one of the easiest things you can do. But don't misunderstand what I'm saying. When I say "easy", what I mean is that you open the boxes, sort the cards, list the cards, then ship the cards you sold. It doesn't get anymore straight forward than that. That said, it's a long process. It's easy work, but a long process. IIRC, it takes about 12-14 hours to break and sort a case, as singles, by yourself (this includes listing).

Sell all the cards as singles and you'll make a guaranteed profit on any case where you're paying less than .50 cents per card. No need to worry about case hits or SiCk MOjO patches. Just sell everything as singles and price your cards accordingly. My motto is "you paid for every card in the case, so you need to sell every card in the case".

Don't get caught up chasing product hits, making master sets, selling bulk team lots or competing with those ebay knuckleheads selling complete sets for $14. For everybody that complains about gambling and losing money, I guarantee you, they're making base sets and trying to compete during the flood of new release listings.

As for the timeline, if a product releases on Wednesday, you need to have your case ripped and at least have all the inserts listed before you go to sleep on Friday night. Your base cards need to be listed by the time you go to sleep on Sunday night. If you can have your cards listed before these days, then you make exponentially more money, but you absolutely need your cards listed by this timeline. Also, you need to lower your prices accordingly as the market is getting flooded with product. If you can't do these things, then you can't break cases, plain and simple.

Oh, also, don't do auctions. Unless the card is super low numbered or completely unique (ie, nobody else has it listed), then you're losing valuable time and money, waiting for an auction to end. When a new product releases, buyers are flooded with listings on ebay. They want to check off all the items on their want lists and be done quickly. The last thing they want to do is to wait around 7 days to see if their bid won, not knowing if they need to look somewhere else to pay for the card they want. Offer the card at a fair price, combine shipping and ship quickly and you'll build a new release customer base very quickly.

[CharlieHustle]

Originally Posted by Stat Monsters

If you think about it, if it were as easy as dropping a few thousand on a case, cracking it open and seeing a guaranteed return on your investment, then everyone would be doing it and in turn the single card market would crash with so many sellers, many of whom may not be so greedy to demand high margins and want to recoup their money plus 10-20% profits.

The one thing I've learned about the sport card community is that they are lazy. I hate to put it that bluntly, but I don't want to dance around the issue either. They are lazy.
Most who fit into this category, will justify their actions by saying that they aren't going to waste their valuable time listing $2 cards on ebay. But then you look at their ebay store and they have 34 cards listed all ranging from $1.99 to $9.99.
The fact is they don't want to spend time creating ebay listings. I could tell you that I could guarantee you a profit on every case you open and you probably wouldn't believe me. I can tell you that I can guarantee a return on every bulk collection you buy and flip for a profit, but you probably wouldn't believe me. And most importantly, I could tell you that I can guarantee you a profit, just buying a single pack of cards from Target and you probably wouldn't believe me. Well, it's all true. I can guarantee all these things, so long as you're willing to put in the work.

[Big35Hurt]

Originally Posted by CharlieHustle

The one thing I've learned about the sport card community is that they are lazy. I hate to put it that bluntly, but I don't want to dance around the issue either. They are lazy.
Most who fit into this category, will justify their actions by saying that they aren't going to waste their valuable time listing $2 cards on ebay. But then you look at their ebay store and they have 34 cards listed all ranging from $1.99 to $9.99.
The fact is they don't want to spend time creating ebay listings. I could tell you that I could guarantee you a profit on every case you open and you probably wouldn't believe me. I can tell you that I can guarantee a return on every bulk collection you buy and flip for a profit, but you probably wouldn't believe me. And most importantly, I could tell you that I can guarantee you a profit, just buying a single pack of cards from Target and you probably wouldn't believe me. Well, it's all true. I can guarantee all these things, so long as you're willing to put in the work.

I don't disagree with your assertion that many in this hobby are too lazy to do things you say. However, it seems like your focus is strictly on acquisition cost versus selling price less fees. On paper, you may be making a profit, but how much time did you have to spend to list all those cards, pack them, ship them, etc? I agree with others that it seems like an awful lot of work for little profit, and that one would be better off picking up a part time job if they wanted to make extra cash.

[mjohnatgt]

Dave Ramsey would recommend delivering pizzas way before case-breaking.

[TarjetasBéisbol]

Some great responses here! Busting a case can be some back breaking work and it’s also very monotonous, I have no idea how guys like Brent (BrentandBecca) the amount of cases they break, sometimes 45 plus of one product. After one case I’m done and it takes so much work to sort, organize, search for variations, list and sell. It takes some serious work, knowledge and education to get it done.

Originally Posted by mjohnatgt

Dave Ramsey would recommend delivering pizzas way before case-breaking.

BO needs a like button!!

[COMCMax]

Be better off buying a booklet of scratch tickets.

[DegaBama]

Originally Posted by CharlieHustle

Case breaking and flipping is one of the easiest things you can do. But don't misunderstand what I'm saying. When I say "easy", what I mean is that you open the boxes, sort the cards, list the cards, then ship the cards you sold. It doesn't get anymore straight forward than that. That said, it's a long process. It's easy work, but a long process. IIRC, it takes about 12-14 hours to break and sort a case, as singles, by yourself (this includes listing).

Sell all the cards as singles and you'll make a guaranteed profit on any case where you're paying less than .50 cents per card. No need to worry about case hits or SiCk MOjO patches. Just sell everything as singles and price your cards accordingly. My motto is "you paid for every card in the case, so you need to sell every card in the case".

Don't get caught up chasing product hits, making master sets, selling bulk team lots or competing with those ebay knuckleheads selling complete sets for $14. For everybody that complains about gambling and losing money, I guarantee you, they're making base sets and trying to compete during the flood of new release listings.

As for the timeline, if a product releases on Wednesday, you need to have your case ripped and at least have all the inserts listed before you go to sleep on Friday night. Your base cards need to be listed by the time you go to sleep on Sunday night. If you can have your cards listed before these days, then you make exponentially more money, but you absolutely need your cards listed by this timeline. Also, you need to lower your prices accordingly as the market is getting flooded with product. If you can't do these things, then you can't break cases, plain and simple.

Oh, also, don't do auctions. Unless the card is super low numbered or completely unique (ie, nobody else has it listed), then you're losing valuable time and money, waiting for an auction to end. When a new product releases, buyers are flooded with listings on ebay. They want to check off all the items on their want lists and be done quickly. The last thing they want to do is to wait around 7 days to see if their bid won, not knowing if they need to look somewhere else to pay for the card they want. Offer the card at a fair price, combine shipping and ship quickly and you'll build a new release customer base very quickly.

Perfect example is here: https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=1185989

Look at some of the comments. No, I didn't hit any MOJO SICK PATCHES 1/1. But I did make $100 over what I spent, in less than 5 hours of work. It just takes time and understand the market you are selling too.

[PDCCollectibles]

....also all depends on which product you open. Flagship, Heritage, Bowman, Archives and products of the like, I've never lost money (even taking into account EB fees, shipping charges, etc.) off of at least a case or more (getting in a dist prices of courses). Now if we are talking about a case Tribute, Triple Threads, Museum, etc, it could be a blood bath and most likely will be

But, you do have to be smart and put in the time....pre sell sets, insert sets, get everything listed day of or before release (first 24-36 hours is key), accept reasonable offers and don't get greedy, etc. It does take time, but it's not my day job, it's more for fun, adding to my pc and paying for vacations, housing appliances, weekend trips, buying vintage, etc., so if I clear even $100, it's a $100 I never had and you have to LOVE IT

[tonedef2oo8]

I would say ask Houdini but you incorrectly and stupidly accused him of pack searching a year ago lmao

[CoolG]

Best advice
Buy 10 cases of draft yearly keep sealed
hold 2-3 years and flip
You’ll make $

[Neo]

Originally Posted by tonedef2oo8

I would say ask Houdini but you incorrectly and stupidly accused him of pack searching a year ago lmao

[jewcer2k5]

If you want to be a card dealer why do you want to rip/sell wax?

First rule of being a dealer of any kind is don't use your product.

[bigboysoffootball]

Case breaking can be fun but always expect to take a loss and if you come out ahead great. In 09 I bought 2 cases of Finest Baseball and made a very good profit but there have been cases where I took a good loss on. I don't do cases often but once and awhile I get the urge to.

[gbass34]

Originally Posted by tonedef2oo8

I would say ask Houdini but you incorrectly and stupidly accused him of pack searching a year ago lmao

It’s true.

I hadn’t been on the boards in a few years, and had no idea who he was. Found one of his videos and then found the card on eBay. It’s was a painful way to learn that it was a prank video, that most others people were in on it. We traded a few emails, and he was really cool about it.




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[gbass34]

Originally Posted by PDCCollectibles

....also all depends on which product you open. Flagship, Heritage, Bowman, Archives and products of the like, I've never lost money (even taking into account EB fees, shipping charges, etc.) off of at least a case or more (getting in a dist prices of courses). Now if we are talking about a case Tribute, Triple Threads, Museum, etc, it could be a blood bath and most likely will be



But, you do have to be smart and put in the time....pre sell sets, insert sets, get everything listed day of or before release (first 24-36 hours is key), accept reasonable offers and don't get greedy, etc. It does take time, but it's not my day job, it's more for fun, adding to my pc and paying for vacations, housing appliances, weekend trips, buying vintage, etc., so if I clear even $100, it's a $100 I never had and you have to LOVE IT

Great way to look at it. I appreciate the tips. I probably would have targeted tribute and museum. Thanks!


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[gbass34]

I replied to a few posts here, but did read them all and appreciate the input and well thought out responses.


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[TLR]

Originally Posted by jewcer2k5

If you want to be a card dealer why do you want to rip/sell wax?

First rule of being a dealer of any kind is don't use your product.

Don't get high on your own supply.