Card Bought for $1.75, Sold for $65. Here's How I Found It (and Others) Sitting, Waiting to be Purchased.

Some of you might not think $50 profit on a card is worth the effort. For me, it's more about stacking sales like this (some larger, some smaller) on your way to accumulating a nice $$$ chunk.

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Disclosure: This is not buying or investment advice. I’m simply reporting the data I’m seeing. Please do your own research and make your own decisions. Just because cards have increased in value up to this point, it doesn’t mean they will continue to do so.

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Rinse and repeat.

Some of you might not think $50 profit on a card is worth the effort. I won’t argue how you value your time, but I will say this isn’t just about one card sale for $50 profit.

It’s about stacking sales like this (some larger, some smaller) on your way to accumulating a nice chunk (for what I think isn’t a lot of work; and of course, what I feel is little risk).

It’s a a rinse and repeat process, and this 1997 Topps Gallery Will Clark Player’s Private Issue /250 sale is just the most recent of the many. It’s also the exact type of card I love to seek out:

• Not super flashy

• Not all that different from the base version

• Not a baseball superstar

• Not a low-number print run

Anyone is going to stop and research the heck out of a super shiny Ken Griffey Jr. Refractor /50. But a Will Clark /250? Not so much.

I try and track most of these flips here so you can see the cards I’m flipping and what they can add up to be. I also have a sneaky valuable card list with more details on sets like these and how to identify them.

Where Do I Find These Cards?

I go back and forth between a few processes, but it really depends on the platform.

If I’m looking for cards on COMC, I mainly sort listings by “Recently Added” in order to scoop a deal up before anyone else does. (I used to do this a ton, but am doing less; my 2024 sales were about half of my 2023 numbers. There is still a ton of opportunity.)

But for cards like this Clark and others recently, I like to comb through lesser-known card sites to find something just waiting to be purchased. CollX is the biggest, BuySportsCards.com is another, but there are more.

This is exactly what I did with this $1,500 Toni Kukoc I bought for $5. The card was just sitting there for anyone to buy, and might have been impossible to find unless it was being searched for specifically.

How Do I Find These Cards?

I don’t just cross my fingers and waste time clicking around. I go in with a plan.

Sometimes that plan is to search for players I know sell well like George Brett, Tony Gwynn, Tom Seaver, etc., like I outlined here. I’ll search for things like “George Brett 25” or “George Brett 50” to try and find cards like this one /50:

Paid $3.25: 2018 Topps Triple Threads George Brett Royals Onyx /50 (+$25.71)

You can also search things like “player name relic” or “patch,” etc.

Other times, though, I’ll learn about a valuable card I didn’t know about, and then I’ll go out and look for that card. I call it “Know and Seek.”

One of the easiest ways for me to keep learning is to simply set up saved eBay searches for completed listings for queries like:

1997 -psa -auto -bgs -credentials -rubies -jordan -kobe -sealed -box

And then every day I’ll click into the saved search and take a quick look (sorted by highest $) at the handful of cards that have sold over the last day or so.

When I come across a card I didn’t know about and fits the bill for one I might be able to find at a steal of a price, I’ll go looking for that set.

Meaning, if I see a 1999 Topps MVP Promotion Frank Thomas sold for $370, I’ll go looking for 1999 Topps MVP Promotion cards (and not Frank Thomas, specifically).

Funnily enough, though, it was a Will Clark Player’s Private Issue that I saw sell in late October that got me searching for that set. It just so happens that Will Clark was one of the better cards I found.

My sale on the top, and the 10/26 sale that inspired it on the bottom.

Really, that’s about it.

I’m also not too concerned with condition most of the time, and in fact, most of the cards I buy this way have a bad corner or something obvious that would make it ungradable. And most of the time I go to sell them, it’s a non-issue. Creases and other major issues aside, of course.

Anyway, thanks to those who have shared their wins with me. I love hearing about them. Good luck!