Latest news with #NationalSportsCollectorsConvention
New York Times
4 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
The keys to making smart buys at a sports card show from someone who learned the hard way
Card shows are exciting because you can make a purchase in an instant, and often on a card you had no prior interest in buying. But this is also why they're dangerous. So with the National Sports Collectors Convention coming up at the end of the month in Chicago, here are some tips from someone who has made every mistake that can be made as a buyer at a show over decades. I've learned these lessons the hard way so you don't have to. Advertisement Being impulsive is fun. Planning is boring. But you need to have a plan before you walk in the door. It's hard to have a precise plan because we don't know what's going to be available to buy. But you can at least determine whether you want to buy ultra modern (current players), modern (non-vintage, let's call it Junk Wax Era circa 1986 to non-active players) or vintage (technically 1973 or earlier, when cards were issued in series, but basically everything else). That narrows your focus considerably. From there, you pick players to target. In ultra modern, maybe a player you think is about to be called up. In modern, maybe a rookie card of your dad's favorite player. A vintage plan could focus on lower-grade cards of inner-circle Hall of Famers from the 1960s or graded cards of post-WWII Hall of Fame quarterbacks. The bottom line: You can't be in the market for everything. The next step is setting a budget and sticking to it. And that's a ceiling and not a floor. Don't let your money burn a hole in your pocket. Window shopping is information gathering on prices and inventory, which is never a waste of time. And watching dealers make sales to buyers and listening to that negotiation process is free yet valuable experience. Be a fly on the wall. Don't buy anything until you've seen everything at the show. There's nothing worse than blowing up your show budget and then seeing a better deal or a better card at another table. This doesn't mean you're inspecting every table. If you're in the market for vintage, you just quickly walk by all the non-vintage tables with just a glance. Vice versa if you're buying newer cards. So casing out a normal show takes very little time. Obviously, something as massive as The National is a different beast. Once you've narrowed your potential purchases, you need to know what those cards are worth. So you need an app on your phone (and a decent cell phone connection, which is tougher to get the bigger the show). I use CardLadder but you could use Vintage Card Pricing or MarketMovers. They're all good. Make sure whatever you use has easily searchable sales data by card/year/grade. These apps can be expensive – nearly $200 per year though you can also purchase for less by the month. If you want to do this at no cost, use eBay advanced search and filter for 'sold items' only. Advertisement Now you need to know which sold prices to look at. Use auction only; Buy It Now prices are typically 20 percent to 30 percent more than auction prices. Pricing apps typically average it all; but I only average the auction prices. You can't pick the lowest sale any more than the dealer can pick the highest sale. Be reasonable. With most modern and ultra modern, the simple grade-to-grade comparison is sufficient. Vintage is more of an art with eye appeal/centering being king. Perfect centering means perfectly even borders in all directions. So a centered version of a card will be worth 30 percent to 50 percent more than one with more typical 70/30 centering in the same grade. And if the corners also look good for the grade, the total premium over the average price for the same grade could be 100 percent. Note that dealers will sometimes exaggerate how well centered a card is. What if you're buying raw/ungraded cards? Well you better have a jeweler's loupe to look at corners and edges closely. You can also take a picture with your phone and zoom in on all the corners. Never pay for the grade the dealer is saying or that you hope for — pay at least one grade less – so if you think the card is near mint (7), pay only the average for an excellent-mint (6). You need to give yourself a margin for error. I'm not accusing dealers of duplicity in their statements of what a raw card will grade. It's just REALLY hard to know if a card is getting a 5 or a 6, or an 8 or a 9. 10? Forget it. NEVER pay a 10 price for a raw ultra-modern card. Now that you have narrowed your general search and picked a handful of cards you're interested in buying, pursue them in order of your preference. Dealers who display their prices on the front of the card with a sticker are the best. A price on the back of the card once you've asked and the dealer turns it over is fine. Not having any price on the card is bad. Never let a dealer with no price on a card ask you what you want to pay. You can't both buy and sell the card. Insist the dealer gives you a price. If the price of the card is 50 percent or more over your research, just walk away. There is nothing to negotiate. You're not going to convince the dealer to be reasonable. You'll get the old, 'I have more into this card than that!' (That's the dealer's problem, not yours — the card isn't worth more because the dealer claims to have paid a bad price; if the dealer robbed some widow of the card at a yard sale, are you going to be given a massive discount? Of course not.) You should probably walk away even at 30 percent over comps. If the dealer is 15 percent to 25 percent over your researched price, you're probably going to be able to make a deal. Short your counter offer by the same amount the dealer is over in hopes of meeting smack dab in the middle. Advertisement Cash is king at a show. If you have it, always say you'll pay cash. Some people flip a coin for a small difference in negotiation. That always draws a small crowd to the dealer's table. If you lose, you're paying that premium though. I've never done it but you'll get your price 50 percent of the time. At a show, you should want the card for 5-to-10 percent under the online auction value. That's because the dealer isn't paying at least 15 percent commissions on the sale. That savings should be at least evenly shared by both of you. So 7.5 percent under comps is a perfectly reasonable offer because the dealer saves the other half of the commission. You don't even have to say this. You know it. The dealer knows it. Yes, the dealer has the small expense of a table at the show – maybe $100 at an average show on the thousands of sales they'll make. But you've paid a similar percentage of that sale to get into the show. A lot of people try to expand a deal by including other cards in it. Expanding deals to bring down the overall price is fine if you're a dealer and are just reselling. But if you're collecting, you're probably buying too many cards. Bundling is a step on the way to hoarding and having boxes of cards you don't even remember buying. Stay focused. Do not rush. Do not feel pressured. Do not hesitate to walk away from a sale that you're ready to say yes to because you feel you need to research the card more. Do all your due diligence so you can buy with confidence. The 10 percent of purchases you lose out on by being deliberate are nothing compared to the post-purchase anxiety or regret you risk by rushing to buy. There are so many cards at a show. Having someone swoop in almost immediately on a card you're pursuing while you gather more data is very unlikely. And even if it does happen, there are always other cards to pursue. Remember, about 95% of cards are easier to buy than to sell. It's almost always a buyer's market at a show. Figuratively, you hold the cards, not the dealer. If you plan to attend The National Sports Collectors Convention in Chicago on July 31 and you want The Athletic to help you track down a special card you'll be looking for on the show floor as part of an upcoming video project, email us at collectibles@ with the cards you're targeting. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence in all our coverage. When you click or make purchases through our links, we may earn a commission.
San Francisco Chronicle
08-07-2025
- Sport
- San Francisco Chronicle
Giants legend Willie Mays' personal collection to be auctioned off in S.F.
Baseball history heads to San Francisco this September as the personal collection of Hall of Famer Willie Mays — from his 1954 World Series ring to his Presidential Medal of Freedom — goes up for bid at Hunt Auctions. One of the greatest players in baseball history, Mays was a 24-time All-Star and stands alone as the only player in MLB history to retire with at least 3,000 hits, 300 home runs, 300 stolen bases and a .300 career batting average. Mays died just over a year ago at age 93. Honoring Mays' wishes, all proceeds from the auction will be donated to the Say Hey! Foundation, which he founded in 2000. The foundation provides athletic training, education, health services and other support to underprivileged youth. 'For all of his extraordinary achievements, as a baseball player, Willie Mays wanted his enduring legacy to be helping children,' said Jeff Bleich, Mays' friend and chair of the Say Hey! Foundation. 'Willie believed that every child deserves the chance to make the most of their talents.' More For You Giants blend Roupp's start and a small-ball attack to beat Phillies in series opener Giants welcome Casey Schmitt back from IL, option Tyler Fitzgerald to Triple-A Among the most illustrious items from Mays' personal collection that will hit Hunt Auctions are his 1954 New York Giants championship ring, National League MVP awards from 1954 and 1965, his 1979 National Baseball Hall of Fame induction ring and his Presidential Medal of Freedom, which he was honored with in 2015 by President Barack Obama. With exception to a few items that Mays re-acquired from the public market, almost every item in the auction will make its debut for public purchase. Bleich said that Mays had one piece of instruction to Hunt Auctions president David Hunt: 'Make this the best auction ever to help those kids.' The auction will take place on Sept. 27 at the King Street Warehouse event space, which sits adjacent to Oracle Park. Following the auction, hundreds of additional items from the collection will be sold exclusively online on Sept. 28. The National Sports Collectors Convention will feature the first public display of the collection in Chicago between July 30 and Aug. 3.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
PSA to open first retail location inside new Burbank Sportscards store
PSA will open its first retail location inside the new Burbank Sportscards store. (Credit: PSA) Two of the biggest names in the trading card hobby are collaborating for a first-of-its-kind retail location later this month. On Friday, grading giant PSA announced it will open its first retail location on May 30 alongside the grand opening of the new Burbank Sportscards location. Advertisement The PSA storefront will be located inside Burbank Sportscards and be staffed by PSA employees. 'We're excited to partner with Rob [Veres] and team on the first-of-a-kind experience,' PSA president Ryan Hoge told cllct. 'We know customers value being able to interact with PSA employees at our popular local events. This gives us an always-on location now.' Burbank Sportscards owner Rob Veres told cllct on Friday that the new location will feel more like a sports card show than a shop. Already known as one of the largest and most popular card stores in the world, Burbank's new 14,000-square-foot location will feature an inventory of more than 40 million cards, as well as kiosks with access to cards that can be retrieved by store employees on-demand. Advertisement The store also plans to have more than 1 million cards available on the floor for just 25 cents, sorted by year and sport. According to Veres, the goal is to offer as many types of cards as possible to collectors in a more organized way than what they may find at other stores and card shows. When a customer arrives with a checklist, Veres wants Burbank to check off as many cards as possible. 'I want [customers] to feel like they have just entered the pulse of the hobby … we're melding the virtual experience with the physical experience,' Veres said. 'The best shops are the ones that can say 'yes' to more queries than anybody else, including card shows,' Veres added, 'and I think that's the experience people are going to get.' Advertisement PSA's retail location will accept grading submissions for trading cards, autographs, tickets, packs, Funko Pops and memorabilia. Items can also be submitted for storage in the PSA Vault or for consignment on eBay. The Burbank retail location appears to be the latest attempt by PSA to simplify the submission process for customers. PSA has greatly increased the number of pop-up events hosted at shows and card shops in recent months, which allow collectors to submit cards in person or have questions answered by PSA employees. It's currently unclear if PSA has plans to open other physical locations at other stores. A new location, including a PSA storefront, is the latest in a number of key moves for the Burbank brand in recent years. Veres stunned collectors during the 2024 National Sports Collectors Convention in Cleveland when he announced that Burbank was moving its full inventory of cards from eBay to the new Fanatics Collect marketplace in an exclusive deal. Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture. He was previously the Collectibles Editor at Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on X and Instagram @benmburrows.
