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This was one of my most expensive scavenging months of all-time, and most all of it will never make it to my eBay store. The consignment card site I use ran a big promotion starting April 15th and running to May 31st, 30% off all standard submission fees and 40% off regular. I ran pretty massive sales on my consignment inventory from November through March of last year and built up a little chunk of savings for the first time ever in my life, really. But I decimated that inventory and it wasn’t going to build itself back up sending them one large flat rate every 2-3 weeks like I have been since I started using them a year and a half ago. So I took the chance to rebuild. In the past month, I have shipped to consignment four 20+ pound boxes which each contained about 750 cards, with two of those shipments happening last week. I bought a lot of this inventory over the last 6-8 weeks and I took processing the cards, organizing and shipping them out more seriously than I ever have. My consignment profits will be lower for a bit because of all the processing fees, but these purchases will pay off huge for me in the second half of the year and beyond.
My average COGS on any individual consignment is about $1 to $3, with the occasional more expensive win mixed in there. One of the sellers I buy from regularly actually reached out to me over email, and now they send me pictures every week and I pick cards from there. Business is booming! It all adds up when you’re paying invoices with 35 to 40 items on them, and I want to tighten my belt over the next few months because the promotion is now over, I’d like to enjoy my summer and I want to continue to identify ways to improve my business around the margins.
Buying all these cards has allowed me to build up a few bins and shelves worth of other fun stuff, like this signed Jose Canseco jersey (just $12.50 with combined shipping!) and this signed framed Vanna White photo (again – $12.50!). These are not crazy valuable items, Jose has signed anything and everything for years and years, and the Vanna plaque looks like a boardwalk trinket. But the signatures are certified, which gives the items a floor of sorts and there is still demand for Wheel of Fortune stuff and Jose is enough of a celebrity that he gets new cards made every year even though he’s been retired for twenty years. I know these are good buys.
I have never been diligent about listing these types of things in the past, but over the last few months of spring cleaning I’ve started to make little progress here and there. I’m excited to see how much of this stuff I can get organized, photographed and listed by the end of the summer so we can find out what sells right away and what sells as sales pick up in Q3 and Q4.
My favorite card that I bought this week was from the Goodwin Champions Museum Collection set and contains a piece of Lord Horatio Nelson’s battle flag. I won the bidding at $56, which after combined shipping goes into my books at $57.50. There was a Terapeak sale from 2021 at $325, and in general these types of non-sports cards with a piece of historical memorabilia in it are made in small numbers and go for pretty high prices when they pop up for sale once or twice a year. I got keyed into this niche of cards probably five years ago when I sold a copy of this monster truck tire track card for a few hundred bucks, and I really enjoy buying and selling cards like this whether they’re $1 or $300. Of course I’m hoping my Horatio Nelson card ends up close to that $300 or even higher! I might do eBay with this one if the card condition is nice, if not it will go off to consignment with the rest of them.
What did you find this week?
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I did do much sourcing this week. I was in San Francisco over the holiday weekend and we did hit one thrift. Lots of people with their phones out, store was busy. However, in the very back room (full of men’s clothing) there were two large bins with linens mostly in package. I bent over and dug and pulled out 10 vintage sheets with cute prints of 70s butterflies and flower power. The prices were a little high, but I will do ok.
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Topps is doing a limited run of negro league cards right now. They just added negro leagues records to the books and now Josh Gibson is officially recognized as the greatest hitter in baseball history.
you might want to check those cards out.
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I appreciate the heads-up retro, there are so many sets released all the time that even though I subscribe to all the companies email, I still miss stuff.
When I was a kid, I used to love reading the Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Leagues. I must have donated the book at some point which is too bad because it’s out of print now and has a pretty nice Terapeak history.
The artist of these Topps Negro League cards is former player Micah Johnson and he has a niche following for his cards even though he was an average player (at best) because of his second career as an artist. I am going to buy some Micah cards to flip today because I think this set is going to be well-received and his cards will become more in demand. Plus with flipping sub $5 cards, which most of his are sub $5, it’s a volume game. You don’t need to be successful on every flip, just hit on some of them.
I rarely buy cards direct from the manufacturers (whether it’s sealed packs or individual cards only available for a short time) because they usually sell for much less than MSRP. The one exception I make is the Panini Rewards site because you buy those cards with points and I can often get a great deal on the points through eBay. But Topps does a lot of really great cards and I have enough credit on the Topps site to afford the six pack of cards once it comes out on June 20.
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When Nelson was interred in St Paul’s Cathedral his coffin was covered with the battle flag from HMS Victory. The intention was for the flag to be placed in the coffin, but before this could be done it was torn to pieces by the crowd for souvenirs.
I was thinking how could they stuff a huge flag into the coffin. What I reckoned happened was that the flag was a much smaller Union Jack, which accounts for all the fragments that sell for ten of thousands being parts of a Union flag.
The actual battle flag was usually a White Ensign with the Union flag in the canton, which would explain why the patch of flag in the card is white- three-quarters of a White Ensign is (ahem) white.
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The provenance for memorabilia cards has gotten thinner and thinner over the years. Back in the day, the back of the card used to show the full jersey that the swatch was cut from. But manufacturers learned that card addicts would need their fix regardless of whether they inserted memorabilia from a jersey with dirt from the game or a pile of napkins. Today, the majority of sets go the napkin route, and the premium sets with provenance for the memorabilia start at $500 for a 6 card box.
I received Horatio today and he is in fine shape, so with luck he’ll end up in a future sale of the week thread soon.
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My favorite scavenges this week were some vintage Mickey Mouse Mr. Christmas decorations. The lady said that when she bought the house the previous owner left a TON of mickey mouse stuff. There was a whole bunch more mickey stuff there that I passed on.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266832925619
Mr. Christmas Mickey Mouse Brass Band Animated 21 Carols 1995 Vintage WORKING
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266832892858
Mr. Christmas Disney Mickey’s Clock Shop Animated Musical Complete Vintage 1993
https://www.ebay.com/itm/266832891892
Mr. Christmas Mickeys Holiday Skaters Skating Rink Village Tested 1996
The best part of this scavenge is that I paid $44 for these 3 plus a few more items. One of the items which was basically a throw in item was an N Scale train car that I knew would be enough to cover the whole purchase. After I got home a created the draft listing I was correct – it sells for $50+ dollars. I always love when I scavenge and can hedge my costs for an entire lot on one item.
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