I passed on the two cards offered last week, and I'm glad. They're already tanking.
Look at Tom Brady's 2011 card drop! Wish I had sold the first week and bought a couple later with the money.
Speaking of Tom Brady, I'm not actually a big fan of his, but I seem to keep picking him up here and there. I traded for another of his 2010 cards this week, giving up my AJ Green. That may have been a mistake.
Aaron Rodgers is still doing well, although I did say if the card started to move down, I would sell. I probably won't now though since he is in line to rack up a ton of performance points at the end of the season and I can use those for the catalog or shipping.
I was able to chuck the Steve Johnson card for a Nelson Cruz baseball card. A little more value, and a card I'll want in hand when it's printed this December.
… yet so much fun! Lots of things going on this week with my eTopps portfolio, so I’ll briefly summarize the key happenings:
Aaron Rodgers was added this week, and it’s blowing up! I love this card, and even though the chart above shows me generally the best time to sell is immediately after cards are released, I just can’t make myself pull the trigger. This is a sweet card, and might still go up. However, the moment I start to see it move south in value, it’s gone.
Of course when I do attempt to sell/trade high, it backfires on me. Take Demarco Murray… please! Last week I traded the Murray card for a T206 Cal Ripken, with a value of around $11. The Murray climbed another $4 this week, and I could have got more for it had I waited. I won’t get too down though. It still worked out positive for me.
Speaking of the Ripken card, I traded it for two T206 cards: Jackie Robinson and Cy Young. I love these T206 cards, and will take them in hand eventually, so I’d rather have two, especially when one is Jackie Robinson. The value is of the trade is a wash so far.
I also traded Fred Jackson, and received a 2010 Tom Brady, a 2010 Steve Johnson (which I am attempting to trade for something else) and 4 eTopps points. The points are worth a buck each when using them to pay for shipping, so that will come in handy when I take my next delivery.
The red squares on the chart are cards I sold on www.cardtarget.com. So now I have some money in my cardtarget account. I can either blow it at www.sportlots.com, or wait and see if I can buy back these cards (or other eTopps cards) cheaper in a few weeks on cardtarget. I can probably get quite a bit with $15 on sportlots, so I’m sure that’s what I’ll do.
Andy Dalton continues to haunt me. That’s the only card I passed on that I regret.
One of the great things about eTopps is that you have a pretty solid idea of what your cards are worth. At least, you do for the cards that are in port. Since the IPOs from the first week are just now starting to hit portfolios, please follow along with me as I track the value of what I purchase throughout the football season. I will maintain a worksheet of the cards I purchase, updated weekly, at the top of my blog. For comparison’s sake, I’ll also keep tabs on what I didn’t buy. I will list the current best price for immediate sale from cardtarget.com as the current “value” of the card.
Along the way, I will likely sell or trade some of these cards, and will update the worksheet to reflect those changes.
Week 1 Summary:
Since this is the first week of running this report, let me walk through it for those of you not familiar with eTopps. Here is a quick primer of the basics. Last week, the first offering of 2011 football was posted. There were 3 cards you could request for purchase: Tom Brady for $5, Titus Young for $5 and AJ Green for $6. I chose to purchase the Brady and Green and passed on the Young. Cards were allocated this week (Brady was not allocated until today, which was very frustrating- but I won’t complain since I got one and not everyone did. In fact, the feeling is the Brady card was sold out in about 10 minutes). Once cards are allocated to your portfolio, eTopps states the value of the card as the average of the 10 most recent sales of the card on eBay (not including the highest and lowest price sale). There is also a site called cardtarget.com that coordinates directly with eTopps where you can purchase/sell eTopps cards, but using an instant purchase/sale method. To me this is a better indicator of the current value of the card. Here is where I am so far:
I've listed the cards that were offered this week as well as last week, but since they have not yet been allocated, I've left off the values. After one week, my portfolio is up 90% over the cost of IPO! I could sell my Brady card and have a $10 profit. Of course, that would take all the fun out of it, so I will decline the opportunity to quit while I am ahead. The Green is slightly down to IPO, but unless he really tanks, his card should stay close to IPO cost. And even though the best offer for this card on cardtarget.com is $5.89, the best sale price is $6.35. In other words, to purchase this card, so far getting it at IPO was the cheaper option. It looks like I was wise to pass on Young since this card is already $1.05 under IPO.
The Brady card significantly put me in the black this first day of its availability on the secondary market, and should stay there though the season. It will be interesting to document the peaks and valleys of these cards along the way. Interesting to me anyway- some of you likely got bored two sentences into this post and bailed.
I began having a palpable sense of dread the moment I started driving home from Cleve's tonight. No, I didn't score any of the Mantles (each went for at least $180 or more, with a certified auto card going for nearly $2,000). No I didn't score the Michael Jordan auto ($350 I think). But I did spend some money, and more than I planned. Not only did I get the two cards that I had a fix on all week, 3 other cards slipped through the other bidder's nets and landed safely and cheaply on my lap. But great values or not, I spent $47 tonight, and I knew that was not going to go over well with the lovely wife. So I got to hear about it a little bit when I got home. Here is what she said verbatim:
And I listened, and I nodded and agreed to be better. But on the inside, I felt like this:
I dare you to find a better video.
Why was I so stoked tonight? Well because I got some dang cool cards! Let's start with this:
This is my first 1951 Topps Red Back card. I've always wanted one but have never pulled the trigger. The fact that Roe was Brooklyn Dodger, as well as an Arkansan made it even more special to me. I know 1951 Topps aren't that hard to come by, but this one is in pristine shape, with no creases or tears, and it has great color.
I also picked up two bonus cards that I snagged on the cheap:
This Seau/Merriman dual jersey card holds little interest to me, but the lovely wife has family from that area that are huge Charger fans and I'm sure their boys will dig it. And it's numbered to #200.
If I can get a Tom Brady Jersey card for $4, don't I have to do it? The jersey is nice and dirty too!
I also picked up two other cards that I will post about tomorrow.
Here are the grades:
1951 Topps Preacher Roe $15 B+: This is about what I would pay online for one of these in just ok shape. A little expensive I guess, but shouldn't every collector have at least one '51?
Panini Threads Seau/Merriman $3 B: I'll get more enjoyment giving this to a kid who will like it than keeping it for myself.
Tom Brady Topps Pro Bowl Jersey $4.00 A- : Now I have a Brady jersey.
Here is a conversation I can see happening down the road with my son:
Son:Dad, who was the greatest athlete of all while you were growing up?
Me:That’s easy.Michael Jordan.He might be the greatest athlete of all time.
Son:How many cards of him do you have?
Me:Um, none actually.
Son (Looks over my paltry basketball card collection):Was Todd Day better than Michael Jordan?And who’s Oliver Miller?
Me:Well, they were Razorbacks, son, and that’s why I have them. But no, no they were not better.
Son:You have about 30 cards of those guys.But you don’t have one Michael Jordan?
Me:Uhhhh
Son:Who was the best football player?
Me:I don’t’ know.Tom Brady was pretty amazing.And he married Giselle.
Son:Who?
Me:Never mind.
Son:How many of his cards do you have?
Me:Uhhhh
Well, now I at least have a few of both of these guys, although in my defense, their cards can get pricy.However, there are always good deals to be found on the internet, and I finally have some cards of His Airness and Brady.Yes, these are pretty standard cards, but I’m proud of them all the same (and I did get multiples of many of these).
