Below, I’ll try and strip investing in baseball cards or prospecting down to it’s simplest form.
WHY INVEST IN PROSPECT BASEBALL CARDS?
To make money and to have fun, but mainly to make some extra cash. I can try over and over again to explain to you just how inefficient the baseball card market is.
The majority of the people that buy and sell sports cards are absolute morons but they still make money.
YOU CAN MAKE MONEY ON ALMOST EVERY PROSPECT.
A lot of people will tell you that you have to be right to make money on prospects, but so long as the prospect has some success in the minors or eventually makes the big-leagues, you can make money.
You have to work extremely hard and be extremely inpatient to lose money on sports cards. Their value over the entire year is incredibly predictable, so if all you did was purchase baseball cards during the dog-days or during the off-season and then re-sell during the spring or playoffs, you’ll make money.
This doesn’t even require intelligence, it just requires you to sit on cards for six months at a time. Again, I can’t begin to explain how irrational baseball card collectors on eBay are. Baseball card price increases are as predictable as summer gas price increased.
THE FIRST THING YOU NEED TO DO: SIGN UP TO BUY AND SELL
- SIGN UP FOR EBAY
- SIGN UP FOR CASHBACK PROGRAMS TO SAVE YOURSELF BETWEEN 2% and 8% on every purchase.
- SIGN UP FOR A SNIPING SERVCE.
THE SECOND THING YOU NEED TO DO: OVERHEAD & TRACKING
- ESTABLISH A BUDGET
- RESEARCH AND FIGURE OUT EBAY’S FEE STRUCTURE WHEN YOU SELL
- SET UP AN EXCEL, GOOGLE SPREAD SHEET or OPEN OFFICE file that tracks your buying and selling habits.
THE THIRD THING YOU NEED TO DO: RESEARCH PROSPECTS
- IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A GOOGLE ACCOUNT – GET ONE (I have plenty of gmail invites if you need one. I’m pretty sure you can sign up without one now though)
- IN THE TOP LEFT CORNER, THERE’S GOOGLE READER. CLICK IT.
- GO HERE: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/milb/news/rss/ AND ONE BY ONE, ADD THE FEEDS TO YOUR GOOGLE READER. YOU SIMPLY RIGHT CLICK “INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE” and click “COPY LINK ADDRESS” and head back to google and click “ADD SUBSCRIPTION.” PASTE IT AND YOU’RE GOOD TO GO.
- HEAD OVER TO BASEBALL AMERICA and their RSS FEEDS: You’ll want most of ‘em. They put out plenty of free stuff: http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/rss/
- Follow their twitter staff as well (and @cardarchives too!)
| Name | Specialty |
|---|---|
| Will Lingo | Everything |
| John Manuel | Prospects, Draft |
| Jim Callis | Prospects, Draft |
| Ben Badler | International/Minors |
| J.J. Cooper | Independent Leagues, Website |
| Matt Eddy | Minors, Transactions |
| Aaron Fitt | College |
| Conor Glassey | Draft |
| Josh Leventhal | Business Beat |
| Nathan Rode | High-School, Photos |
| Jim Shonerd | Minors |
Baseball Prospectus is also a great starting point: RSS: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/blog/feed.xml (particularly Kevin Goldstein’s FUTURE SHOCK blog: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/blog/future_shock_blog/feed.xml)
UNDERSTAND WHEN PRICES PEAK AND WHY PRICES PEAK
It’s important to remember that “The Next Big Thing” that hasn’t even been called up or won’t be called up for at least a couple years, could easily be seeing the highest prices of his entire career. Prospectors really over value young sexy talent and the prices get wild. Eventually, if these players take a standard path through the minors you’ll be able to buy at a huge discount.
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