How to INSTANTLY Improve Your Sports Card Raw-to-Grade Results | Understand This SIMPLE Concept!
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- Опубліковано 17 вер 2024
- Understanding this basic concept will help guide your sports card grading strategy. It's helped me create value by grading cards and avoid FOMO!
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Great video! Thanks for the information and break down.
Glad it was helpful!
Great video, love topics like this, keep up the awesome content!
Thank you and thanks for watching!
Nice video. A reminder how to think rationally when buying sports cards - one of the hardest things (for me) to do. I do think the COMC strategy is certainly risky. I am trying it with PSA now, and have had various luck with a couple CSG cards. One got a 5.5. I'm sure if I saw it in hand no way I grade it. It had nice centering and corners. I think you had to know the card (or the quality of the set) well to do it, and in the case of the 5.5 did not. Live and learn.
Thanks and agreed on COMC. For what it’s worth, anything I’ve ever graded from COMC I’ve had shipped to me so I could inspect in person. I only send in the cards that I think have a shot at a 9 or a 10.
Your Sadio Mane example is a pretty crazy distortion of your concept - if that card 9's your downside is huge - that card maybe gets back the grading fee as a 9 - to get it from COMC and to gem is also a ton of luck - the gold bubbles on auction as a 10 is break even so that was a pure casino buy with more downside than upside - I'm glad it all worked out but that needed a ton of steps involving luck to break your way
The jude example to me shows your current fallacy within cards - you bought the card raw at 13 - sell it for 25-35 and move on even if you think it will gem - why would you turn a 2x into a 50/50 for a loss - you'd be into the card for 30 plus if you grade it and it 9's and a 9 goes for 18-25 on ebay and this is jude hype time so that wont even sustain given how many ppl are probably grading and lessened demand
These two examples had considerably more downside than upside if your plan was to grade both - I'm glad Mane gemmed for you but the last place you'll find cards that will consistently gem is from COMC - the site almost frowns upon top loaders
Hey there, thanks for the comment and appreciate you watching with an open mind. I agree there are more effective ways to minimize downside if that is your only concern, but my approach is all about simultaneously limiting downside while looking for potential upside, not limiting downside at all costs.
I appreciate we have different strategies and ways of thinking about this, but here's how I thought about it:
Based on the low cost of the Mane Gold Bubbles, the potential outcomes are:
- Grade / PSA 10: $27 upside based on my sale
- Grade / PSA 9: $7 downside based on your estimated resale value of $19 (grading fee)
- Sell raw if not gradable: $7 downside max (cost of card), probably somewhere in the $2-$5 range
Based on these payoffs, I would need a PSA 10 about 34% of the time to not lose. I've found a number of cards from COMC that I've graded and done well on (some of which I've revealed on this channel). The scans looked good (centering and corners), so I went for it.
There's always a small chance at a PSA 8 or lower, but I've graded a lot of cards and felt confident I wouldn't grade anything that wouldn't get at least a PSA 9. Fortunately, I got a PSA 10, but I wasn't randomly selecting a card and blindly grading it, so when I decided to grade it I thought my shot at a 10 was greater than 50%.
I also mentioned in the video that you trade off velocity for upside buy selling buy-it-now vs. auction, but felt this card was a good example of a card to *NOT* send to auction. That was part of my plan when I bought it, so there wasn't a scenario where I was grading to then auction it off. The tradeoff is that the card sits for sale until the right person finds it and makes an offer.
On the Jude, If I wanted to guarantee profit without any risk of taking a loss, sure, I agree a strategy of flipping raw for profit makes sense. But I disagree with the assertion that buying this Bellingham card at this price and grading has more downside than upside.
The card just sold in a PSA 10 yesterday (July 31) for $117.50 at auction. I'm either gaining $85 ($117.50 resale - $19 grading - $13 cost) on a PSA 10 or losing $7 ($25 resale - $19 grading - $13 cost) in a PSA 9. Assuming 50/50 odds at PSA 10 and the $25 resale value on the PSA 9, I don't always make money here, but 50% of the time I grade I make $85 and 50% I lose only $7. If the card is only gradable 50% of the time, and the other 50% of the time you simply break even flipping the card, your payoffs look like this:
- 50% = $0
- 25% = $85
- 25% = - $7
If you did this 100 times (let's say you had 100 of these Jude cards), you'd expect to make ($0 * 50) + ($85 * 25) + (-$7 * 25) = $1,950.
you haven't included all of the fees associated with transacting in the hobby for your jude calcuation so this all seems disingenuous
ebay would make the 117 into 100 - psa isn't just 19 a card - you ship it there - maybe even insure it - more sales fees associated - id imagine youre putting a top loader on your comc card theres another 100 dollars not calculated
mane was also wildly overcalculated in the same way plus`the green bubbles went for 99 cents raw in april its so on auction you could even maybe go under 10 dollars sometimes - so a 7 dollar loss on a 9 seems pretty implausible id think more in the 15$ range after fees
im just giving the benefit of the doubt on the 10 sale as 60 - that seems extremely high for an average sale on a 10 - id think more in the 35-45$ range
from an outsiders perspective you always wonder how someone can be successful if they are only calculating hypotheticals wildly in their favor - i mean why couldnt you grade a 7 on a sapphire base they are notorious for that or an 8 on a gold bubbles mane? people never wanna think about that because it would show how much of a casino what they are doing is when in reality if you buy jude 100 times at 13$ and sell raw every time you are guaranteed a good 800-1k profit
The simplified calculations are meant to demonstrate the concept. Yes, you should add in shipping fees and insurance, which I do in my tracker. This wouldn't change the point of the video.
Here's the sales history that proves the $60 sale on the Mane so you can stop doubting: www.ebay.com/sh/research?marketplace=EBAY-US&keywords=sadio+mane+2019+topps+chrome+gold+bubbles&dayRange=CUSTOM&endDate=1690959600000&startDate=1437202800000&categoryId=0&offset=0&limit=50&tabName=SOLD&tz=America%2FLos_Angeles
On the Jude, was going fast, but if you update for your $100 after fees calculation, you'd still expect to make ($0 * 50) + ($68 * 25) + (-$7 * 25) = $1,525 vs. the $800 - $1,000 you say we could make selling raw.
I haven't graded the Jude yet, but once I grade/sell it there will be an update on the channel. Again, if the condition is bad it's not going to be graded, so hopefully a PSA 7 or 8 is out of the question.
I did a previous video where I graded 3 Moukoko's from the same set. I got two 10s and a 9, so I feel confident about being able to assess condition.
It's totally fine if you disagree, but I don't appreciate being accused for being disingenuous when I use most of my videos to share my:
- Thought process
- Strategy
- Costs
- Profits/Losses
I'm not claiming to be wildly successful. I'm just sharing my journey.