From a $5 Flip to a $300 Win: My Latest "Slow Lane" Card Sales and When I Hit the Gas
No matter what your "lane" is in this card-flipping journey, it can lead you to where you want to be. From the highway to the side streets, you don't have to drive faster than a comfortable pace.
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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.
When it comes to flipping sports cards: “Stay in your lane.”
Now, I’ll admit—I kind of hate that phrase.
It’s limiting, plus, I’m not the boss of you.
Ironically, though, I’m really just telling you to do whatever works best for you.
As backwards as that sounds, does that make sense?
Here’s what I mean: flipping sports cards offers something for everyone, and there are so many ways to “win” in “the hobby.” Whether you’re flipping vintage or ultra-modern, chasing prospects or Hall of Famers, sticking to one sport or diversifying across the board, opportunity is everywhere.
That’s why the best approach is to be yourself. Chase what you know and are comfortable with. Play to your strengths.
Or, put another way: stay in your lane—because your lane is already wide enough with opportunity.
Now, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to grow. I’m all for testing new strategies, learning new areas, and taking calculated risks.
But the beauty of flipping cards is that you don’t have to force yourself into something that doesn’t fit your style. The market is big enough for you to succeed by doing what you do best.
So, stay in your lane—but don’t be afraid to widen it.
Flipping isn’t just about making money, but also about making the most of your time. Whether it’s spotting an underpriced gem, grading a card for max value, or moving a card quickly for a small but easy win, every decision should factor in both profit and effort.
For some inspiration, here are 4 recent card flips, ranging from big wins in the hundreds to a modest $5 profit.
I went way outside of my lane with this $300 Bryce Eldridge flip.
About a month or so ago I had a post talking about 10 recent flips, of which two were flops. It just so happened that the two flops stuck out like a sore thumb, not only because they lost money, but because of the types of cards and buys that they were compared to the others.
The eight profitable flips were all retired players - Tony Gwynn, George Brett, Koufax, etc - while the two losses were current players, Noah Gray and Jake McCarthy.
Not only that, the total I paid for the eight profitable flips was only $117.48. For the Gray alone I paid $153.63 (and the McCarthy was a whopping $218.86).
See where I’m headed with this?
I was cruising in my lane - flipping retired players - and making steady profits. This is an area I know well.
But the second I swerved into the diamond lane, trying speed ahead and try my luck on speculating with current players, I hit a pothole… twice.
All of that said, I just made about $300 on this Bryce Eldridge.
I bought it for $332.25 shipped off WhatNot (fixed price, not auction) and sold it for $793. Subtract out the $118.59 in sales fees, the $21.55 in shipping, and another $23.80 for the promoted listing and I was left with $629.27 (minus the $332.25 I paid and I’m left with about $297.
For anyone new here, I try to track all of these flips on my Purchases & Profit tracker:
(This is where an eBay calculator comes in handy. Sometimes it’s hard to know what your profit will be with so many different moving pieces.)
Ok, so what was different with this card compared to those two I lost on?
First, Noah Gray was a flash in the pan with the Chiefs this season, with back-to-back two-touchdown games in late November and stealing the spotlight from the Chiefs’ main tight end, someone you might have heard of, Travis Kelce.
I was speculating that this trend would continue, dreaming up a scenario in my mind where Gray catches the Super Bowl-winning touchdown and the card goes to the moon.
Well, Gray only got into the endzone one more time the rest of the season, so by the time week 18 concluded, my risk meter was BUZZING and I couldn’t accept an offer fast enough. (Not to mention this is not a PSA 10, but an Arena Club 10, and that 10 on the auto is questionable given I can clearly see it’s not perfect).
Thankfully I only lost $1.92, so essentially broke even.
Second, Jake McCarthy was the hottest hitter in baseball and Diamondbacks were pushing for the postseason.
The Diamondbacks did in fact NOT make the postseason, leaving me with $200+ purchase of a .285 hitting 27-year-old who only had 8 homers all year—not exactly what the hobby loves to see.
Thankfully, again, I only lost about $52.
What went wrong? Besides the outcome, in both cases here, I wasn’t just relying on the player to continue their ways, I was relying on the team to take the player to greater heights. I was also pulling for one big spotlight moment to increase the card’s value.
Which brings us to Bryce Eldridge, which is a bit of a different story.
I bought the card because he was/is one of the most-highly anticipated prospects in baseball, and I bought at what I felt was the tipping point of excitement where the masses were really starting to catch on to his potential.
I wasn’t buying because of the Giants, and the only event I was really anticipating was a Spring Training debut or Major League debut. There was and still is a long runway with a market that had room to grow naturally.
(Do I feel I sold early? Of course there is that strong possibility. But again, I don’t like the risk. While this value still has a ton of room to grow given he hasn’t made his MLB debut yet, I’m fine with avoiding any of the negative scenarios and getting out with $300 profit. Plus, I literally had this card for sale around $650 BIN just a week earlier before his 1st monster spring homer.)
In all three scenarios, I still went searching for deals, and still had my mind on scarcity and resale value.
I wasn’t going to buy just any Noah Gray auto, but something much scarcer: a Gold Prizm /10 for $150. And, while it wasn’t a PSA 10, it was at least a 10.
I wasn’t going to buy just any Jake McCarthy auto, but something much scarcer: a Gold 1st Bowman Chrome Auto, PSA 10.
And for the Bryce, even though hype was picking up, I don’t think I bought at hype prices in August, and made the purchase before the seller could adjust to the hype.
All said, look at the monstrosity I just typed above. So many words to describe a card-flipping situation.
That is an exhausting game to play, for me at least LOL.
My lane is typically much slower, and a lot simpler; not based on hype, and not rooted in speculation. Not saying I won’t touch my blinker ever again, but I know I won’t do it often.
And for anyone who doesn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on risky flips, steer over this way…
I stayed in the middle lane and flipped this bat relic card for $35 profit.
Ok, deep breath and easy exhale. Things are much safer here.
One of my favorite flipping tactics and learning processes is to simply save searches by year on eBay and then check them every so often for recent sales.
My saved searches look like this:
Doing so helps me learn about new and valuable cards that I either didn’t know existed or had no idea sold as well as they do. I know a lot, but there is a lot more to learn as well.
So, upon reviewing a few 2001 sales, I saw this:
First of all, as an A’s fan and collector, stunning card. Doesn’t really fit my collection, but I thought about it as a PC purchase.
But for everyone else, $45 for a bat card of…Joe Rudi?
Even more perplexing, on a checklist that includes Willie Mays, Yaz, Reggie Jackson, and others, why is the Rudi so much more valuable?
I’m still trying to get to the bottom of that question (could just be scarcity of this particular card), but all I needed to know at that point was this card was valuable, and I was going to try and find it.
First stop? CollX. Always.
Sure enough, there he was, listed for $10+shipping:
Bought it, got it in hand, listed for $59.99 BIN and sold at full-price. No guessing, no waiting, and only $15 to acquire the card.
I also moved over to the slow lane and flipped this black refractor for $6.
While the above flip is right in my wheel house, sometimes things get a lot slower, and there just aren’t many opportunities (or at least I’m not finding them).
So, I shift gears and move a little slower as well, trying to find cards where I can at least profit $5 to keep things moving.
A favorite sneaky card type to look for and flip is the Topps Chrome black refractor, like this 2002 /50:
Check out my full list of 65 cards (and growing) of sneaky valuable sports cards:
Others include 2003 black refractors /199, and I had my eye on this Ventura for a while…
The last couple had sold for only about $7-$8, but I noticed one hadn’t been sold since July 2024.
Sometimes, especially with older cards like this, I pay less attention to specific comps and like to review comps of similar cards/players.
So, seeing things like the above make me feel good about taking a $5 chance.
When I got it in hand it was a bit more scratched up than I expected, so I had to adjust. I sold it for $16.42 shipped and ended up with about $6 profit.
Not the most exciting flip in the world, but safe, and again, had it been in better shape, probably would have been more in my favor.
Last, I took a different route to Eldridge as well, and flipped this orange /25 for $50.
Ok, let’s circle back to and end with Eldridge.
With the big name prospects, you can easily be priced out of your comfort zone. I was close to my personal threshold and wouldn’t have spent more than $500 trying to make a flip.
Many other prospects you see coming up behind him - even fresh out of 2024 Bowman and further from their debut - are commanding $100+ for base Chrome autos:
Cam Smith is now over $100
Leo De Vries has been over $100
Walker Jenkins has been over $100, and close to $200
The list goes on.
When that happens with the biggest of names, sometimes it’s a good idea to take a different route. One that won’t get you there “as fast” but is less rocky.
I mentioned this with the Kristian Campbell Elite Extra Auto /60 that I bought for $16.74. His base 1st Bowman Chrome autos are currently selling for $135, (and I already made my modest $30 flip when I bought one card at $65, whoops LOL).
So, I turned to unlicensed.
I haven’t sold it yet, but comps are favorable even for a non-auto:
So with Eldridge, while everyone was rushing toward his 2023 1st Bowman Chrome, I took a slight detour, and picked up a 2024 Sapphire /25 for about $25 on CollX.
This card isn’t as valuable to long-term card holders, but as a team collector and a sucker for a good color match, I know that a low-numbered orange could play nicely.
I ended up selling it a few days ago for $92 before fees, or about $50 profit.
Ok, time to get on with Sunday, and hope everyone has a great day to finish out the weekend. Questions, comments, flips to share, feel free to connect!