You Found a Potential Flip But Also Know the Market Changes Quickly—What to Do?
I don't find myself on the fence a lot, but this card and opportunity had me all over the place. It's a difficult decision, but this is how I'm thinking through it.
Affiliate Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. As I am a part of the eBay Partner Network and other programs, if you follow these links and make a purchase, I’ll receive commission (at no cost to you). I appreciate your support!
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.
We all have our limits and philosophies with our cards and purchases. For me, I hate risk, and I normally won’t spend over $150 if I feel there are too many unknowns.
McCarthy, who might be “the hottest hitter in baseball” right now for the Diamondbacks is finally seeing his card market respond.
While this specific Bowman Chrome auto isn’t one of the cards in the Market Movers database, my unofficial count of eBay sales of his 1st Bowman Chrome autos looks like this:
8/10: 5 sold
8/11: 9 sold
8/12: 4 sold
8/13: 10 sold
8/14: 11 sold
And this is coming at 4:23PM PST on 8/14, so you can expect even more to come. (This is counting all parallels, graded and raw.)
As of right now, I’m not a buyer…
(But we will see how things go by the time I make it to the end of writing this article.)
So, what is my thought process?
First, what has the card recently sold for?
Because this is a case where a card is blowing up “overnight,” sold comps might not do a whole lot of good, but important to check anyway.
I can see that someone - today of course - bought a raw copy of this card for $179.99 plus shipping.
So from this along, it seems like $218 (with shipping and taxes) for the card on WhatNot is a good deal. The thing you have to keep in the back of your mind, though, $218 for a PSA 10 is a great deal if I could turn around and sell it TODAY. I know I can’t, so it makes it a little tougher…
What is the card currently listed for?
I always put more stock into what a card is currently listed for versus what it has currently sold for, and that’s because “sold for” represents the past and the other current listing price represents the now.
Right now on eBay there are three Jake McCarthy 2018 Bowman Gold Wave /50 autos on eBay:
That is, one PSA 10 at auction with 6 days left and already bid up to $250+, one PSA 9 listed at BIN $335 with 2 watchers, and one raw at $549 BIN with 2 watchers.
Again, all good signals when it comes to whether or not the $200 is a good price for a PSA 10.
What did the card sell for before it got hot?
In these situations, I like to try and figure out the “normal” market for this card. To do so, I’ll look back even further to find a comp. This usually isn’t possible in eBay given it only gives you 60 days (I think) of data, so I’ll use Market Movers:
These results are a little scarier, which might further dissuade me from buying.
What I do know, though, is this is the hottest the card has been, most likely, which again, enables you to throw some of this data out of the window.
Meaning, worst case scenario and the card cools down, I still think it would decrease to levels higher than what it has previously “bottommed at” (not to mention these prices shown here are raw, too).
Sounds like I’m starting to feel better about taking the risk, perhaps….
How quickly can I receive this card to sell it?
Here is the toughest one for me—the unknown of shipping times and delays.
Quickest estimate would be what, three days? I’ve had cards take a couple of weeks sometimes, though. So where will the value be when I receive the card?
One counter to that is, if the card takes a while and does cool off before I receive it, does it have the chance to get hot again?
Sure, which brings us to…
Can the card get hot again?
While I don’t have a crystal ball, what are the chances the card gets hot again? As silly as it sounds, McCarthy is a relatively “old” player at 27 by hobby standards.
McCarthy hit .283/.342/.427 in 2022, his first year in the majors. He was considered a bright spot in an underwhelming year in which they went 74-88. McCarthy was primed to contribute in an important year for the Diamondbacks.
Instead, he ran into a sophomore slump that saw his OPS drop 125 points. This, plus the addition of Tommy Pham, led to him bouncing between the Diamondbacks and Reno Aces. This drop-off was made up for by the fantastic season that Corbin Carroll and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. had.
So, we know the talent is there. We just don’t know if it is there to stay.
The Diamondbacks are also in solid playoff contention, so there’s a chance he could be playing on a much bigger stage - in front of a bigger audience - soon.
How much do I need to sell it for to make at least $50?
Again, somewhat of an arbitrary number, but $50 sounds good to me in terms of net profit. It might be a lot more or less for you.
So, what does $50 profit look like?
Remember, my goal is to buy off of eBay and sell on eBay. So, there will be plenty of fees when it comes time to sell, and I’ll need to get least $100 more than what I paid for it to get around that number:
That said, if I’m going to take a risk on a $200 card, I’d really prefer that profit to be closer to $150, which would mean I’d need to sell it for about $210 more than what I bought it for.
Anything else? Now what?
Well, I bought it about half-way through writing this.
But there is one more key piece of info that loosened my stance a bit and made it easier for me to do so… and that is that I’ve had a string of good flips lately.
You can see all of my tracked (non-COMC) flips here, but most recently, I made $120 on a 2018 Jazz Chisholm Orange /25 BGS 9.5 and $50 on Austin Wells Road to Opening Day Auto.
So, I have a few wins, and this isn’t my first flip. If it was the first time that I was going about trying to flip a card for profit, I wouldn’t even be considering it. Meaning, I’m OK if I lose even $100 on this card. Sometimes that’s not the case, but right now it is.
Anyway, we will see how it goes!
First step is seeing that the card actually ships, next is receiving it, and then we will see where values are when it’s in hand.