We are all familiar with the "my best Ebay find!!!" thread where collectors boast about how they got a great deal on such and such a card or set etc..
So I thought why not start this thread for those of us that also sell on Ebay to get bragging rights on the top prices obtained on certain cards that have ALREADY been SOLD. This also helps the community to gauge the collective pulse in order to evaluate what cards/sets are in higher demand.

Right now, older MARVEL cards and some sets are on fire. I sold a 1996 Marvel Masterpieces sell sheet for $90.00 and a 2002 Marvel Perdue 17 card set for $200.00.

Please tell us about your hot sales!

I sold all my Marvel Masterpieces 1996 extra base cards and a couple of the extra chase cards for something over $700 total, and I still have the complete set plus a few chase doubles left.

I made around 500 parting with a ton of childhood collectables including Barbies, Polly Pockets, Nickelodeon franchise toys and similar items. Ironically gave away most of my trading cards rather than sell.

I ended up with two extra tickets to a sold out A Day to Remember concert. I sold two $40 tickets for $110 a piece.

Yeah, I know what that makes me but at least I can say I did it once. And I still sold em for cheaper than anyone else!

- David Bowie autograph card for $1234.56 AUD
- Tommy Lee Jones autograph card for $1234.56 AUD

The Tommy Lee Jones card paid for my plane ticket to Japan.

quote:

Originally posted by bone:
- David Bowie autograph card for $1234.56 AUD
- Tommy Lee Jones autograph card for $1234.56 AUD

The Tommy Lee Jones card paid for my plane ticket to Japan.

Yeah that David Bowie went crazy after he passed away. It was between 300 and 400 all day until then.

- Just sold Robert Downey Jr.'s variant autograph card (dated '08) for $2500 USD

Very nice. WOW!!!

Wow !! Nice done, bone.

Bone,

Was that the Downey auto of him dressed as Iron Man (as opposed to the regular one of him as Tony Stark) that was available for purchase from Rittenhouse ?

I forget, what was the deal with that ? You were able to buy them directly from RA ? How many were there, and how much did they cost back in 2008 ?

I've been hearing that there is a major rise in the price of sports cards happening. . . Perhaps that will raise the profile of some non-sport cards as well.

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:
I've been hearing that there is a major rise in the price of sports cards happening. . . Perhaps that will raise the profile of some non-sport cards as well.

That is very interesting. Is it all sports or certain ones? Older or newer cards? Tell us more!

Sports cards run in cycles for the three major pro sports, Baseball, Football and Basketball. Higher activity comes at the beginning of every season. The quality of the rookie class is the main driving force. Some years there is a wealth of good rookie cards, other years hardly no one stands out. Superstars always sell, but on a sliding scale as the years go on. Someone retiring or going into the Hall of Fame brings movement also. Vintage retired stars on new cards have decent value, but nothing what you would think. A rookie with only potential to show is often worth twenty times the card of the Hall of Famer. Sports card collectors often collect only certain players or certain teams. Sets are large, so the master collector has all but left the hobby, yet there are fewer card makers with sport licenses. Premium sets dominant and what big money exists is going to the big premium cards going for $100s per box. A lot of the rest is retail, not worth much. The vintage sports card market depends on high grade cards. Raw cards sell for much less and there are lots available. That's one of the reasons why big sports card collectors are so worried about the current scandal in graded cards. Despite anything that goes on through the internet and direct buying, sports card shows and hobby stores selling sports cards have not come back or even look like they are coming back in my metro area. And that with all the interest in the Yankees and their big hitters going nuts in NY.

I say this, and could go on longer, because sports card collecting and non-sport card collecting is fundamentally different. Goals are different. It is less a love of cards and more a pursuit of players. There are some people who do both fields, but its a fraction of the market and its usually a limited interest one way or the other. On a practical level, most collectors couldn't afford quality cards for both a sport and non-sport collection. On a basic level they have no interest or knowledge of the other one, especially of particular sports. So even if you could show that sports cards in general, or sports cards in this current year, or vintage sports cards have gone up (which would be hard to prove beyond citing a few examples that could probably be immediately challenged), what would it mean to the non-sport card market? In my opinion, nothing.

The case to be made, purely as speculation, is that sports card flippers/dealers have taken an interest in a few non-sport card autograph cards and sketches and have been buying product in the hopes of pulling them from boxes or buying them individually to post at a higher resale afterwards. That rumor has been going on for some time now and given the level of greed that we have, which has nothing to do with actual card collecting, I'm pretty sure it's a safe bet that certain high value non-sport cards are attracting flippers who can make good profits from the right sales.

quote:

Originally posted by promoking:

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:
I've been hearing that there is a major rise in the price of sports cards happening. . . Perhaps that will raise the profile of some non-sport cards as well.

That is very interesting. Is it all sports or certain ones? Older or newer cards? Tell us more!

I think the trimming/altering scandal has rocked the sports card world. It's far more rampant than I ever thought. That's what happens when the values of certain cards in high grade start to skyrocket. With the amounts of money exchanging hands the temptation of doctoring the cards became too high for some people I guess. Hopefully they're caught and punished. But now I wouldn't trust buying any sports card anymore, unless I pulled it from a pack myself. There are those who believe though that certain sports cards that come with the right provenance may actually rise in value 25%-50% because of this. I don't know that I believe that and besides, what exactly is meant by "provenance", especially when it comes to 60 year old cards? Is someone supposed to have video of the pack being opened? Everything else is just a story that can easily be made up. I'm curious to hear what was said about the scandal at the National this weekend. All the heavyweights in the industry are there so it should be interesting.

quote:

Originally posted by Logan:
There are those who believe though that certain sports cards that come with the right provenance may actually rise in value 25%-50% because of this. I don't know that I believe that and besides, what exactly is meant by "provenance", especially when it comes to 60 year old cards? Is someone supposed to have video of the pack being opened? Everything else is just a story that can easily be made up. I'm curious to hear what was said about the scandal at the National this weekend. All the heavyweights in the industry are there so it should be interesting.

I would think that you will hear as little as possible and only if they get pressed will they say something like "it's a few isolated sellers" or even "the investigation is on going and we will have to wait for the results". Meanwhile, not even counting the outright scammers, repairers and trimmers, it has become a cottage industry to buy mid range 7s, bust them out, resubmit, get 8s or 9s, and resell for profit. All perfectly legal and using the unreliable, inconsistent and unregulated grading systems to rate the same card up or down and make good money on a point swing up.

And its not just sports cards. There are plenty of Mars Attacks, Three Stooges and lots of other vintage and modern non-sport cards in slabs.

I am not a member on blowout but do occasionally peruse it .
in my opinion it is all greed amongst sports card collectors , they are buying cards to grade and flip , and sometimes tripling the price .
Cards are even sold with descriptions of gradeable etc ,You just have to read the posts to realise this there seems to be a lot more money around sports cards than non sports cards ,how many non sports cards can you say are worth over $250 in the sports card world there are hundreds ,and these are all graded cards .
And there are posts that moan about the grade given break the case and resubmit them again for grading to another grader.
This seems to reek greed . Some sellers have up to twenty or thirty cards for sale all being priced at up to four to five hundred dollars.The grading companies must also be cleaning up over this
As for the trimming scandal it just seems to have been swept under the carpet
I just hope this dose not cross over to the non sports card world

quote:

Originally posted by promoking:

quote:

Originally posted by webjon:
I've been hearing that there is a major rise in the price of sports cards happening. . . Perhaps that will raise the profile of some non-sport cards as well.

That is very interesting. Is it all sports or certain ones? Older or newer cards? Tell us more!

It's been a minute and this is a topic I haven't revisited so I am not sharp on the details, but at the time I was reading posts on Blowout talking about how the 'blue chip' athletes (Tom Brady, Jordan, etc) were bringing way more than they were just a few years ago.

This was not in reference to any cyclical collecting.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes from the trimming situation.

quote:

Originally posted by piko:
As for the trimming scandal it just seems to have been swept under the carpet
I just hope this dose not cross over to the non sports card world

Some of the trimming examples that were posted were of vintage non-sport cards. . . so it already has crossed over in to vintage. . .

Sadly grading seems to have taken hold of vintage non-sport cards. . .