The BIG Sell Off! Why?? How?? Strategy!!

Hi, my name is Brian and I'm the HIPPO professor. This is going to be a lengthy video. Um, this is a video I've been dragging my feet on putting out. I'm going to be sharing a lot of my thoughts here. And really, this is going to come in three parts. The point is, the past month and a half, since January 1st, I have completed, well, mostly completed the single largest selloff of my collection that I've ever had in my collecting experience, my collecting history. And so, I want to kind of break this video down into sort of three parts. I'd like to in the first part discuss why I chose to sell what I did um and why now of all times and and what spurned me to to list these cards for sale and to sell them. Um and then I'll talk about too the methodology I went by and how I went about selling, what platforms I used um and what strategies I used to go ahead and sell those. In the second part, I'd like to actually talk about what cards I've sold. Um, again, since January 1st, I've sold over 40 cards, mostly in slabs, mostly in PSA slabs, by the way. Um, and so I do want to go through and sort of detail just a very quick outline of what cards I sold. Um, and when I talk about the cards I sold, I also do want to talk about what I paid for them. Um, these cards were largely acquired in the last four years or so. Um, and then so I want to talk about what I had bought them for and what I sold them for. And so I think that's going to be an important thing to to consider as we move forward. And then I'd like to finish up in part three of this video with some closing thoughts about my experience and and just sort of what I thought about a selloff like this because like I said, this is kind of new territory for me. This is not something that I typically do, at least not to this extent. Um, I have used the hobby to fund the hobby. That is a thing I do. Um, I do look for good deals to to turn around and sometimes flip cards and then use those proceeds to fund more PC cards. Uh, that's not a new thing. But this was different. This was an entire this was an entire severing of a branch of a bonsai tree. um a a deep pruning you might say um and really shaking it hard and seeing what fell out and and again we we'll go into reasons why. So let's go ahead and start with that. So why did I do this big sell-off? What was the impetus behind this? And really there were a couple things. Um, number one, as I was looking at my goals for this year, as I was prepping that video and looking at some of the cards I was targeting, looking through my collection, and I was realizing that, you know, when I had collected growing up, I was I was mostly active in the decade of the '9s, pretty much the entire decade. Uh, I remember 1990 Topps was the first, you know, cards I remember acquiring. uh specifically the Don Mattingly card from 90s was the first one I have memory of putting into a binder page. Um and and yeah, I kind of got out of the hobby around 2000 or so. And so the entirety of that decade, the evolution of what cardboards looked like from 1990 all the way to 2000, all the innovation that we saw, that's what really struck with me a lot of nostalgia. And those are the kind of cards that mean the most and that hit me in a way that these post 2000 cards, they just don't they don't have that they don't carry the same meaning to me. And so I started to realize as I had extended my refractor runs for Tops Chrome and Topps finest uh and Bowman Chrome as well into the early 2000s, the Braves years for Greg Maddox uh which would extend those to 2003 or 2004 in the case of Topps Chrome. I started to realize as I was getting down to the last couple that I really would need, like the O2 tops chrome black refractor out of 50 or some of the Bowman chrome gold refrators out of 50 or or 199. And I was realizing that yeah, those can be pretty expensive cards. And the issue with that is well, like it always is. Number one, opportunity cost. If I'm spending a lot of money on those cards, that's that's money that I can't spend on something else. But more importantly, it was that those specific kind of cards just didn't bring me the amount of joy. And I thought, well, gosh, you know, I started to do some thought exercises and thoughts about, you know, if if some catastrophe happened and I lost my entire collection, you know, what kind of cards would I what would I do if I got an insurance payout and I wanted to recreate a collection, put one together again? I think I still want to keep collecting, but would I reacquire every card that I have? And the short answer is no. Probably not. And the cards that don't bring me that joy, those early 2000 shiny cards, I still love them. They're still great. But I could have a greater amount, a higher degree of meaning, of nostalgia, of joy by reallocating those funds and targeting them perhaps towards some very big cards. A true consolidation, which is something I really hadn't done before. And that got me thinking. It's like, well, I don't need to lose my entire collection to make this happen. I can just choose to do it. And so I said, "What's stopping me?" Well, not much really. I know how to list cards. I know how to sell them. So that's what I went ahead and did. And so I made a very large uh Facebook posting. I copied it to some of the big 90s inserts groups and I went ahead and listed them out. I put what I thought were, you know, highish prices on them and but would of course welcome offers. So I made a claim sale and listed what I had and I let some of the offers come in and some of the claims come in and what didn't sell immediately. I went ahead and listed on eBay and I listed a lot of them for pretty high prices um buy it nows with some best offers thrown in as well. And here we are about a month and a half after this selloff has begun and this operation has been a tremendous success. And so, yeah, I would like to go ahead and move on to part two. And I'd like to go ahead and discuss what did I sell, what did I pay for these cards, and what did I actually sell them for. So, that's where we're heading right now. Okay. So, as we go through this, I I literally have pages and pages written down of what has sold and all these numbers. I'm going to do my best to keep these straight. Um, but we're also going to go pretty quickly through these. I'm gonna go ahead and put some pictures up if I can. This is going to be a beast to try to edit, but that's that's why I've just got to pound through and and and get these done here. So, here is the list of the cards so far that have been included in this selloff. Um, I have a 96 Select Griffy and Fuego. There's a PSA 8. I bought that card for $60 and sold it for$145. There's a Maddox 2003 finest refractor. I bought it for $10, sold it for 16. We have a Maddox 2004 Heritage Chrome Refractor that I bought for 15, spent 20 more to grade. It came back a nine and I sold it for $75. I have a Ripken 94 Bowman's Best Refrator that I bought for $50 and in a lot and ended up selling for about 55, so about a wash. I had a Manny Ramirez 95 signature rookies autograph numbered out of 500. I purchased it for $35, sold it for 50. We had a Maddox 99 finest gold refrator and this was a gems refractor in a PSA 9. I had purchased it for $150 and sold it for $3.95. Great profit there. That was the first of three9 gold refractors that I would be selling. We had a Tony Gwyn Topps Gallery of Heroes acetate PSA 10 from 97 Topps Gallery. I had purchased it for $25 and spent 20 to grade and sold it for $1.95. We had a GutoniGuin 2000 finest moments refractor autograph that was purchased for $160, spent $40 to dual grade it. It came back a PSA 8 auto 10 and I sold it for $350. I had a Greg Maddox Mike Msina 96 collector's choice silver signature PSA 10 that I purchased for $20 and sold it for 36. I had a 97 fleer gaudy grates foil PSA 10 Gregmatics POP 2 that I had purchased for $220 and sold it for $230. So kind of a wash. And really I still would like the card but I kind of want to downgrade it. I want to get like a PSA 8 or 9. Um, and I'd like to pay closer to like, I don't know, 80 bucks for it or something. I sold the PSA 8 Griffy uh 2000 Tops uh Power Players and the PSA8 Griffy 93 Dawnress Diamond King. Uh, those were two cards that I got uh back in a in a relatively recent uh PSA grading order return through GameStop. And both of those cards I spent about $10 on the Power Players plus 20 to grade and sold it for 30. So, it was a wash. I spent about $7 on the Diamond King plus 20 to grade it. Sold it for $32. So that was also about a wash. Uh we had a 96 Pinnacle Skylines Cal Ripken that I purchased for about $120 in a lot and sold it for $140. So a little profit there. We have the second of my 99 finest gold refrators. This was the base card refractor gold refractor with the decal edge and the die cut. Uh number 100 out of 100. So, it was a bookend PSA9. Purchased it for $300 and sold it for $460. And then we had a Gregmatics 2002 Bowman's Best Blue Refractor numbered out of 300. I bought that for $15 and sold it for $15 for a wash. We also then had a 2003 finest X Fractor that I purchased for $36. This was numbered out of 99. purchased for $36, spent $20 to grade it, and sold it for $180, came back at PSA9. We also had the 03 finest gold Xfrator that was in a PSA 9, purchased for $95, sold for 150. And then an 03 Bowman chrome gold refrator out of 170 in a PSA 9. Purchased that for $139 and sold it for 150 for pretty much a wash. Also sold a couple of Diamond King autographs. I sold the Raphael Palro 91 Diamond King autograph. I had purchased it for about $11 and sold it for 35 and that was already encapsulated and slabbed up by PSA. I also sold a Wade Bogs Diamond King autograph for 92. I paid about $13 and sold it for about $15. So, a wash. Um, I also sold my third and final 99 finest gold refrator. This was the sterling one. I purchased it of all places, one of two cards I ever bought on whatnot, believe it or not. And I bought it for $80 ungraded, spent 20 to grade it, came back a nine, and I sold it for $350 direct. And then the largest deal that I made was actually for nine slabs that I had um had listed. And this was a package deal that I put together. And um it was by far the biggest deal that was part of this sell-off. And so here are the nine cards that are included. We had the 2003 Topps Chrome Blue X Fractor numbered out of 50. Um, and I paid $200 for that. Now what I'm going to do is basically for all nine cards I uh the way this worked out was that I sold all nine cards for $1,500 plus it was a cash trade deal. So it was that much plus I got two cards in return. I got a uh a 97 uh Top's finest silver refractor of Derek Jeter and a PSA 9. Um and this card just sold on eBay for $225. And also what was included was an 86 tops Barry Bonds rookie card. This is not the Tiffany, just regular PSA 9. Uh it's a card I just wanted to have. So this one I'm not going to be selling. This Jeter I am going to be selling. In fact, it's listed on eBay right now for $225. Um, but this one I'm not going to be selling. I actually kind of just wanted this card. I used to have it before in a Becket nine, but it kind of had a bum corner. Wasn't happy with it, so I sold it. And just keeping an eye out for this one, and it it fell into my lap. So, that one is going to be going away. So, what did I get for that $1,500 plus this Jeter card that I'm gonna call about 200 bucks. Well, this is this is what um and so what I did here for these cards, I have what I paid for them, and I broke down that value of roughly $1,700. Um I'm calling it six uh 1640. Uh but in reality, it's it's a little more when you consider that this is more than 140. So basically I for the 03 blue tops chrome Xractor I paid um $200 for that. It was$180 plus shipping plus tax. So it was about 200 exactly. Um and I sold that for equivalent of $400. We had a 96 Zenith artist proof Gregmatics PSA10. Uh I bought it for $60 and sold it for 100. We had the ' 04 Topps chrome red X fractor was 63 made um that I paid 400 for and that includes the grading fee. I bought it for like 343 plus, you know, tax plus shipping plus 20 bucks to grade it. So I'm in it about 400 bucks and I sold it for 500. The uh 2001 Bowman Chrome Xrator, I paid 75 for that card and PSA 9 and sold it for 80. Then there's an 03 Bowman chrome refractor uh in a PSA 9. I bought that for $27, sold it for 50. Then we have a 94 Pinnacle Museum collection PSA 10 Greg Maddox that I bought for $50 and sold it for 100. Then we had a 2002 finest X fractor out of 299 PSA 9 that I purchased for 40 bucks and sold it for 80. Then we had an 03 tops chrome black refractor that I purchased for $115 plus 20 to grade it. So I'm in it for 135. Came back a PSA 9, sold it for 200. And then a 2004 Tops chrome black refractor that I spent a PSA 9 that I spent $125 on and sold it for$130. So those sale prices add up to 16.40. And like I said, I actually got more value when you consider this on top of that, which was by far the largest deal that I made. And then of course, the sales continue on to page three. And so I also sold an O2 finest. Um this is a uh Xfrator out of 99 with a protective coating. I purchased that card for $20 and sold it for 75. 2000 Stadium Club Chrome Refractor. I bought it for $16, sold for 25. 2002 Bowman Chrome refractor. Bought it for $10, sold it for $10. 2002 Bowman Chrome Xfractor. Bought it for 20. Sold it for 20. Uh 04 Heritage Chrome Refractor. This one was ungraded. Bought it for about $10. Sold it for about $10. They also had an Edgar Martinez 91 Donner Diamond King autograph. I bought it for about 70. Sold it for about 70 for a wash. It was a duplicate that I had. Um, then it was a 2005 Fleer Ultra Platinum Medallion Greg Maddox that was unnumbered and I bought it for $15 and sold it for 30. We had an O2 finest refractor for Greg Maddox, numbered at $4.99. I bought it for $5.50 and sold it for 16. And then we have a 2003 EX essential credentials future Gregmatics that was unnumbered that I bought for $15 and sold for 40. And so that's a lot of cards. That's a lot of sales to make. That's a lot of shipping labels to to print out and package up and ship out. And it's been a hectic um month and a half here, which is probably why I haven't put out as many videos. Um, but when you add up the total of all of these cards, um, for every one of those cards, I had paid uh, $3,024 for them and sold them for $5,23. Um, and so anyway, that's a roughly a 72% value ad. And so that is what I sold. That is what I paid for them. And this is the state of what that selloff has allowed me to do. Now, of course, I have been picking up a few Grail cards, right? I now have a Barry Bonds Diamond King autograph. I now have an Epics Emerald Moment Greg Maddox in the 97 finest gold refrator with the wrong refrator pattern. I have these really amazing cards. Um, but I've reserved a good chunk of this uh of this weapon uh to to work on something bigger and and I have something in the works here that I'm really excited about uh that that I can't say much about right now, but um hopefully in a week or two um I'll be able to divulge everything. And so I want to finish this video with part three. And I just want to talk about my thoughts a little bit on this selling process. And the selling process that I'm I'm thinking about and I fully acknowledge that this statement is going to enrage some people in the hobby and I'm okay with that. But this is I'm going to call it like I see it. Okay. And what I'm going to say is this right here, this value ad, this is the value and the importance of sending cards in to get graded by PSA. Most of the cards that I sold were PSA graded cards. A good chunk. And and by the way, you know, only a small handful of those whatever 40 cards were PSA 10. Most of the ones I sold were nines. All right. So, considering how much of that value was added because of that PSA holder and not just that, but the fact that the liquidity was so much higher. You know, when you sell cards, you you you kind of have a seessaw. You know, you want to sell them and you want to sell them quickly and you want to sell them for maximum value, but you can't have both. If if you want max value, you have to be patient to find the exact right buyer that's in the exact right emotional frame of mind, right? That will pay up for it and pay your full comps, right? But you might have to sit around for months or maybe years until you find that right buyer if you're that stubborn. And so, you know, where's the balance here? So, I wasn't desperate. I didn't need to dump these all off within two days. There wasn't any kind of financial emergency for me or anything. Um, but I had a decision to make and I kind of decided that really when I was posting these on Facebook, if people reached out to me wanting to make a deal, I was going to be very reasonable. I was going to go ahead and work with them. I was going to look at comps and I was going to give what I thought was a fair deal. I was going to give people a fair shake. And it's not necessarily about Well, okay. So, I wanted to sell them relatively quickly to have that sort of weapon ready ready for another grail card. Yes, that's true. Because you never know when one is going to come available and you want to be prepared for that. Okay, so that's number one. But also, it's kind of like there are other considerations when you're selling cards than just necessarily maximizing value. It's kind of like you're playing a game. Let's say you're playing a game with someone. And maybe even though you want to win the game, maybe there are other considerations there. Um because maybe one of the things you want to focus on isn't just winning the game, but maybe you want to play the game in a way that ensures that there will be future games for you to be able to play. You want to play it so that other people are having a great time, too. And so I want to operate in the hobby in a way that lets other people know that I am easy to work with, that I am willing to negotiate and and so yeah, if it means that I get to sell my cards a little bit quicker and maybe I sacrifice a little bit of value, maybe if I was a little more patient, I could have made a little more even, that was a consideration that I thought was a a worthwhile tradeoff. So anyway, if you're still watching, thank you for your patience, for coming along with me for the ride. And like I said, there's going to be a video coming out in about a week to two weeks with hopefully some very big news. And on that, I will see you in the next video. Thanks for watching.