Friday, December 31, 2021
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
Great moments in propaganda
1918-8-13 "To Hell With The Kaiser" Ad for movie.
"It is a magnificent commingling of fact and imagination, showing how Wilhelm the monster of Europe, signs a pact with Satan for the mastery of the world." Uh.
1917 college pictures
https://newscomwc.newspapers.com/image/169066625/?terms=%22delaware%20county%20league%22&match=1
Two major leaguers, Cy Twombly and Joe (Howard) Berry pictured.
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
How the great depression affected small businesses
https://biziq.com/blog/american-small-businesses-past-present-and-future/
Small businesses suffered great losses during the Dust Bowl and the subsequent Great Depression during the 1930s. From 1929 to 1933, manufacturing productivity decreased by a third, while prices fell by 20%, causing severe deflation. Unemployment skyrocketed from 4% to 25%. In 1931 alone, 28,285 businesses failed, at a rate of 133 a day. Most of these were small businesses.
Monday, December 20, 2021
COMC flipping advice Blowout cards
Do you guys only buy cards to flip that have 1 listed, so that way if someone wants that card they have to buy yours? Seems like the most logical way to flip but I have no experience doing it.
Yes, it's one strategy. Key is still to squeeze a great price when buying it, then more room to adjust the new price accordingly.
Another strategy is to target items that have 4 or less cards listed, safer in my humble experience.
I also look for cards where there is a wide gap in pricing. Found one last night that was 12 cents there was one other listed for 1.25 bought is and put 74 cents on it sold it in about 30 minutes. This often works even when there are many copies on the site.
I buy and flip cards which can be priced under $0.75 to avoid storage fees. I used the revenue from the flips to buy more cards. I'm to a point where I have over 20,000 cards and virtually no storage fees.
By downloading my sales history from 2014 and 2015, I made a net profit of $222.88 in low-end flips in 2014. So far in 2015, I've netted $35.91.
Most of these are cards I buy for $0.10-0.15 and sell for $0.25-$0.50.
By downloading my sales history from 2014 and 2015, I made a net profit of $222.88 in low-end flips in 2014. So far in 2015, I've netted $35.91.
Most of these are cards I buy for $0.10-0.15 and sell for $0.25-$0.50.
m relatively new to flipping o the site (June/July free sale 2014) But I have built a decent port from about 200 cards I had on there through my intl mailbox, a 300 card submission and about $300 in deposits. I now have 2891 items in inventory (2715 for sale) and an asking price of over $12k (I am yet to cash any out, alays "reinvest") obv, I wont get $12k for it but most of my stuff is lowest on site
I'll give this a go to help out a (hopefully) soon to be first timer.
There seems to be many different approaches that work so by no means do I consider mine "best practice" but it works for me, mainly I think because I have somewhat of a budget and never have more than $100 in my account. Put it this way, I couldnt spend $300 on a card to sell at $390 but Bars and Bar does and he seems to really know his market and what a card will sell quickly for and seems to do really well and his flips are ballsy and I love reading about them
I was lucky because I sold some PC cards from ebay in my intl mailbox for decent (much higher than I paid on ebay) I sold 10 cards for $210 and figured I would use that to try flipping. I hit a legitimate 75% off sale that had some good low end jersey and autos and a few others during the period and with that initial $210 plus about another $150 I had a workable port. Patience is key, dont spend credit for the sake of it on marginal flips because as soon as you do, you will have no credit and the next day a ridiculous sale will hit or you will find a stupidly underpriced card and you either have to pass or add more credit (which will cost you 20% sooner or later)
Know your market and USE EBAY RECENT SALES to see if the card is selling at auction. My most consistent flips are COMC cards I buy for $1 and under that sell for 99c+shipping on ebay, because someone is paying $3-$4 dlvd for them and I list them around that.
Know your market. I am most familiar with football but will buy anything that I consider underpriced with recent ebay sales. Im sure Ive missed out on a lot of other sports as I cant ebay everything when Im trying to scoop up a blowout sale as quick as possible.
Activate AMAZON, even if it means raising everything 20% (Amazon cut), people can make an offer if they dont like full price. NON sport especially goes nuts on Amazon and sucks on COMC.
Scour ebay and Blowout for "lots" to sell on comc, however it is harder for me as I use intl mailbox which cost $1 a cards I stick to underpriced lots with fewer cards. I've only spent about $150 on these all up. Generally not worth it for me. Better flips on site
Margins/markups are a tricky one. I like to AT LEAST double my money but prefer to purchase at 25-33% of relisted price to give me a bit of room to lower prices when undercut. If a card has a very strong sales history I pay a bit more as It will move quickly and you dont always need to be the lowest to sell in good time. I also may lower margin requirement on cards 75c and under as I dont pay storage for them
Some of my high priced cards, I am happy not to sell as I would be fine keeping them so if someone buys they are making it well worth my while (Such as the Brady a few posts above and a few Rivers Ive sold inc. A finest RC auto for $50+ that I got on ebay for $20) and those initial sales I made. The Rivers/Gates /5 auto in my port I paid $35 for, I am happy to have it PC so I have listed it high. I am very happy for it not to sell, but wouldnt be upset if it sold at that price I have it listed at.
Sales for the most part are crap for flipping (prices raised before sale to take 50-75% off) but some sellers have great sales for flippers, you will get to know them. I am in Australia, and while the time difference has meant ive missed out on stuff I have also lucked out and hit some great sales when you guys are asleep. I love how the big free sales start at midnight... that's 6pm my time, and I get all set
Only one copy on site is also a good thing, however, it still needs to be cheap enough. Be wary of how new it is (use recently added sort) if new, disregard sales history if no recorded sales
Check newly added to site cards but this is tedious and usually unfruitfull as most sellers start high to test market and they dont pay storage fees for 3 months. Have picked up some great stuff though, including Russell Wilson contenders champ ticket 2014 /99 for $3.57 and some ssp red ink autos that the seller obv had no idea about.
Maintain your port, lower prices if required to stay competitive and dont be afraid to lose a little on a sale depending on the card/player. Sold a stephen Morris press pass auto yesterday for $1.25 that I paid $1.50 for in preseason when he was still on Jets roster, now he is nowhere so I was happy to get rid of it. I also recently lost a dollar or two on a cpl of Greg Childs auto that I bought when he had some hype with the Vikings, but again, just happy to get rid of them at this stage for a bit of a loss
Ive left heaps out, but that should give you an idea of my approach. Again, others do it differently and Id love to hear what they say about the subject. You can always pm if you have direct questions but Im happy to help, as other have been here to me... SOme great COMC minds here, look back through old threads, etc... I did, worked great
I'll give this a go to help out a (hopefully) soon to be first timer.
There seems to be many different approaches that work so by no means do I consider mine "best practice" but it works for me, mainly I think because I have somewhat of a budget and never have more than $100 in my account. Put it this way, I couldnt spend $300 on a card to sell at $390 but Bars and Bar does and he seems to really know his market and what a card will sell quickly for and seems to do really well and his flips are ballsy and I love reading about them
I was lucky because I sold some PC cards from ebay in my intl mailbox for decent (much higher than I paid on ebay) I sold 10 cards for $210 and figured I would use that to try flipping. I hit a legitimate 75% off sale that had some good low end jersey and autos and a few others during the period and with that initial $210 plus about another $150 I had a workable port. Patience is key, dont spend credit for the sake of it on marginal flips because as soon as you do, you will have no credit and the next day a ridiculous sale will hit or you will find a stupidly underpriced card and you either have to pass or add more credit (which will cost you 20% sooner or later)
Know your market and USE EBAY RECENT SALES to see if the card is selling at auction. My most consistent flips are COMC cards I buy for $1 and under that sell for 99c+shipping on ebay, because someone is paying $3-$4 dlvd for them and I list them around that.
Know your market. I am most familiar with football but will buy anything that I consider underpriced with recent ebay sales. Im sure Ive missed out on a lot of other sports as I cant ebay everything when Im trying to scoop up a blowout sale as quick as possible.
Activate AMAZON, even if it means raising everything 20% (Amazon cut), people can make an offer if they dont like full price. NON sport especially goes nuts on Amazon and sucks on COMC.
Scour ebay and Blowout for "lots" to sell on comc, however it is harder for me as I use intl mailbox which cost $1 a cards I stick to underpriced lots with fewer cards. I've only spent about $150 on these all up. Generally not worth it for me. Better flips on site
Margins/markups are a tricky one. I like to AT LEAST double my money but prefer to purchase at 25-33% of relisted price to give me a bit of room to lower prices when undercut. If a card has a very strong sales history I pay a bit more as It will move quickly and you dont always need to be the lowest to sell in good time. I also may lower margin requirement on cards 75c and under as I dont pay storage for them
Some of my high priced cards, I am happy not to sell as I would be fine keeping them so if someone buys they are making it well worth my while (Such as the Brady a few posts above and a few Rivers Ive sold inc. A finest RC auto for $50+ that I got on ebay for $20) and those initial sales I made. The Rivers/Gates /5 auto in my port I paid $35 for, I am happy to have it PC so I have listed it high. I am very happy for it not to sell, but wouldnt be upset if it sold at that price I have it listed at.
Sales for the most part are crap for flipping (prices raised before sale to take 50-75% off) but some sellers have great sales for flippers, you will get to know them. I am in Australia, and while the time difference has meant ive missed out on stuff I have also lucked out and hit some great sales when you guys are asleep. I love how the big free sales start at midnight... that's 6pm my time, and I get all set
Only one copy on site is also a good thing, however, it still needs to be cheap enough. Be wary of how new it is (use recently added sort) if new, disregard sales history if no recorded sales
Check newly added to site cards but this is tedious and usually unfruitfull as most sellers start high to test market and they dont pay storage fees for 3 months. Have picked up some great stuff though, including Russell Wilson contenders champ ticket 2014 /99 for $3.57 and some ssp red ink autos that the seller obv had no idea about.
Maintain your port, lower prices if required to stay competitive and dont be afraid to lose a little on a sale depending on the card/player. Sold a stephen Morris press pass auto yesterday for $1.25 that I paid $1.50 for in preseason when he was still on Jets roster, now he is nowhere so I was happy to get rid of it. I also recently lost a dollar or two on a cpl of Greg Childs auto that I bought when he had some hype with the Vikings, but again, just happy to get rid of them at this stage for a bit of a loss
Ive left heaps out, but that should give you an idea of my approach. Again, others do it differently and Id love to hear what they say about the subject. You can always pm if you have direct questions but Im happy to help, as other have been here to me... SOme great COMC minds here, look back through old threads, etc... I did, worked great
1) COMC has a smaller buyer pool than eBay or Amazon, and what shows up on COMC for $5 or more looks like a $10 card with "free shipping" on eBay. If you list a card for $4.99 or under including the embedded shipping charge, it will show up as 15% more on eBay with a $3.99 shipping fee.
2) Not really, it's not a big enough profit margin for me to worry about. I look for cards I can triple my money. So $2 cards that can sell for $6 or more. At this level, I can buy more cards with my flipping money and expect higher returns. And I have cushion in case the card doesn't sell that I can reduce it a few times before it gets down to where I originally purchased it at.
You also want to change your settings to Advanced Resellers Mode so that you can see the cards without the embedded shipping charges (a quarter for regular cards, 45 cents for topholdered, $1 for graded or oversized). This way you aren't investing an extra quarter for each card you buy to flip, leaving you more flipping money. This is how we see cards for 4 cents on COMC. If you don't have the ARM setting selected, you'll see it as 29 cents. So I can buy 7 cards at 4 cents each to flip for the same amount you can buy one.
2) Not really, it's not a big enough profit margin for me to worry about. I look for cards I can triple my money. So $2 cards that can sell for $6 or more. At this level, I can buy more cards with my flipping money and expect higher returns. And I have cushion in case the card doesn't sell that I can reduce it a few times before it gets down to where I originally purchased it at.
You also want to change your settings to Advanced Resellers Mode so that you can see the cards without the embedded shipping charges (a quarter for regular cards, 45 cents for topholdered, $1 for graded or oversized). This way you aren't investing an extra quarter for each card you buy to flip, leaving you more flipping money. This is how we see cards for 4 cents on COMC. If you don't have the ARM setting selected, you'll see it as 29 cents. So I can buy 7 cards at 4 cents each to flip for the same amount you can buy one.
1) I feel Comc lags a little behind eBay obviously. Small market, huge market. So that card might not be cross listed yet to eBay. That’s why it hasn’t sold.
2) sure , take a chance. You could leave your cash on Comc doin nothing , or you could put it to work and make money. You’ll be surprised.
When you buy to flip, make sure you buy and reprice to make a profit and also be lowest price on the site or damn near close to the lowest.
Don’t worry about cards with condition notes, just price under the rest of the competition..
2) sure , take a chance. You could leave your cash on Comc doin nothing , or you could put it to work and make money. You’ll be surprised.
When you buy to flip, make sure you buy and reprice to make a profit and also be lowest price on the site or damn near close to the lowest.
Don’t worry about cards with condition notes, just price under the rest of the competition..
https://www.beckett.com/news/not-so-...k-deans-cards/
They have most of the black-background scans on COMC, and are normally way out of whack on pricing. You can eliminate their raw listings from your COMC searches by adding "-dcr" in the search window.
They have most of the black-background scans on COMC, and are normally way out of whack on pricing. You can eliminate their raw listings from your COMC searches by adding "-dcr" in the search window.
With that I also have over $160 in COMC store credit; it’s possible if you’re patient and your timing is right. Most of my successes come from refreshing the ‘Recently Added’ page, often. My goal is to score a nice Aaron Rodgers Autograph, and I think I’ll have the funds to do so, but there’s nothing that is calling to me as of yet. I suppose shipping and selling on eBay becomes an option to help reach that goal, but my sights might be set higher with a continuation of success. Be patient, the deals are out there. Be diligent to help achieve your goals with your flipping journey. This is a great resource to learn about the deals that are out there.
Can be by clicking: View all sales, then Download Sales History top right
It takes a while to learn the lay of the land and what sells. Just look back at the flips I started out with 5 years ago, and how they've gotten better and better over the years. More capital in my account also lets me grab higher value cards, have more confidence, and buy multiples to own "COMC monopolies" on rare cards that I think have room to grow. I also posted a neat "cheat" I found in my Primer thread that I've used to great success over the years.
I'm not here to mention a particular card, but finally did take the time this morning to download some spreadsheets by year and figure out my ROI on flips only. I rule out submitted cards on my own, so sorted the sheet by "Purchase Price" and removed those that didn't have one.
I sold a little over 2k in cards last year as pure flips for a 56% ROI, after commissions, so utilize the "COMC credit" column if doing this yourself. I use this profit to fund my PC and has worked out fairly well over the past few years. I rarely cash out unless it's a big card I submitted on my own and may have some costs to recoup on it.
I then decided to run the exercise for the first quarter of 2021 and came in at 55% ROI, so over the past 15 months my system has remained fairly consistent and I'm pleased with how it has gone.
If I see a "hot" card that can have a quick turnaround, I'll try and shoot for about 20% for it but like to stay in the range of right around 50% on most and those that do hit the 100% mark or higher end up being outliers to push the total up.
I'm curious to hear how others have fared if you're willing to share, no raw data needed and total profit, just percentages are great to hear.
I sold a little over 2k in cards last year as pure flips for a 56% ROI, after commissions, so utilize the "COMC credit" column if doing this yourself. I use this profit to fund my PC and has worked out fairly well over the past few years. I rarely cash out unless it's a big card I submitted on my own and may have some costs to recoup on it.
I then decided to run the exercise for the first quarter of 2021 and came in at 55% ROI, so over the past 15 months my system has remained fairly consistent and I'm pleased with how it has gone.
If I see a "hot" card that can have a quick turnaround, I'll try and shoot for about 20% for it but like to stay in the range of right around 50% on most and those that do hit the 100% mark or higher end up being outliers to push the total up.
I'm curious to hear how others have fared if you're willing to share, no raw data needed and total profit, just percentages are great to hear.
More interestingly than the flips, this is the first time that I've ever had a significant stash of a player on COMC when they got a no-hitter and so I was watching the market pretty closely from about 10 minutes after the last pitch through to now. Some observations, which I'm curious as to whether they are typical.
- The best time to list seemed to be between 10 and 30 minutes after the no-hitter ended. When I started repricing/pricing logging on 10 minutes afterwards, prices were still going up. As stock dwindled on COMC (and presumably eBay as well, but I wasn't watching eBay in real time afterwards, people started paying silly prices (like the $9.74 for a Bowman chrome rookie above, which is now at less than half that on COMC and can be bought for $1.95 free shipping on eBay).
- With that said, I wish on the cards that I had 3+ copies of that I'd been listing from the 9th inning onwards to catch the top part of the rising curve and to be able to sell more around the top.
- At about 30 minutes out from the final pitch, it appeared that the people digging frantically through 2017 boxes were able to start listing on eBay in enough quantity for the market to peak. This accelerated through the evening. Around 10pm PT there were 80ish results for "Musgrove Topps Chrome 2017" on eBay. By 10.30 PT, that was up to around 120. It's currently 199.
- This and people listing cards from inventory quickly started to bring down prices on COMC.
- I've long believed that people pricing lots of cards the same psychologically deters people from buying them. The flagship base rookie on COMC was a good example of this, with a wall 11 of these priced at $1.99 or $2.00 never getting breached. I suspect if someone had just put all of those in the cart and bought them at final pitch, the price would have got close to the $10 range Topps Chrome and Bowman Chrome were briefly at. It also means that, very unusually, for the moment on COMC his flagship rookie is roughly the price of Gypsy Queen rookie.
- Speaking of which, a brief rant on the subject of people that undercut the low price by a penny or list their cards at exactly the same price as the lowest price and then follow your repricings around so the two lowest cards are always priced the same. EVERYONE LOSES. When people see two or more cards at roughly the same price, it makes it look as no urgency to buy the card, which is particularly dumb in cases the same card is available for less than half the price on eBay since it encourages people to take the time to price check. By all means establish a new low price, but for you own good make it 5%+ (I usually aim for 10% unless it is a very high turnover card) lower than the other available cards. Rusignola has been a terrible offender on this with Musgroves over the last 24 hours. And several people who post here do the same, although at least Boxbuster can plead partially mitigating circumstances that his perma-sale means that this doesn't screw over the next person on eBay crosslistings.
- The best time to list seemed to be between 10 and 30 minutes after the no-hitter ended. When I started repricing/pricing logging on 10 minutes afterwards, prices were still going up. As stock dwindled on COMC (and presumably eBay as well, but I wasn't watching eBay in real time afterwards, people started paying silly prices (like the $9.74 for a Bowman chrome rookie above, which is now at less than half that on COMC and can be bought for $1.95 free shipping on eBay).
- With that said, I wish on the cards that I had 3+ copies of that I'd been listing from the 9th inning onwards to catch the top part of the rising curve and to be able to sell more around the top.
- At about 30 minutes out from the final pitch, it appeared that the people digging frantically through 2017 boxes were able to start listing on eBay in enough quantity for the market to peak. This accelerated through the evening. Around 10pm PT there were 80ish results for "Musgrove Topps Chrome 2017" on eBay. By 10.30 PT, that was up to around 120. It's currently 199.
- This and people listing cards from inventory quickly started to bring down prices on COMC.
- I've long believed that people pricing lots of cards the same psychologically deters people from buying them. The flagship base rookie on COMC was a good example of this, with a wall 11 of these priced at $1.99 or $2.00 never getting breached. I suspect if someone had just put all of those in the cart and bought them at final pitch, the price would have got close to the $10 range Topps Chrome and Bowman Chrome were briefly at. It also means that, very unusually, for the moment on COMC his flagship rookie is roughly the price of Gypsy Queen rookie.
- Speaking of which, a brief rant on the subject of people that undercut the low price by a penny or list their cards at exactly the same price as the lowest price and then follow your repricings around so the two lowest cards are always priced the same. EVERYONE LOSES. When people see two or more cards at roughly the same price, it makes it look as no urgency to buy the card, which is particularly dumb in cases the same card is available for less than half the price on eBay since it encourages people to take the time to price check. By all means establish a new low price, but for you own good make it 5%+ (I usually aim for 10% unless it is a very high turnover card) lower than the other available cards. Rusignola has been a terrible offender on this with Musgroves over the last 24 hours. And several people who post here do the same, although at least Boxbuster can plead partially mitigating circumstances that his perma-sale means that this doesn't screw over the next person on eBay crosslistings.
Thursday, December 16, 2021
Friday, December 10, 2021
Saturday, December 4, 2021
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)