Hi, Im fairly new to the hobby and came to the situation where I want to pay for the cards for my collection by selling other cards I don’t want. I am mainly interested in buying and selling ultra rare cards (EX, Full Art, etc.). At the rate I intend to sell them to save up for items I want to keep I’ll run out of inventory to sell. Whats the best way to obtain that sort of inventory?
So you’re paying for cards you want by selling older cards you have but don’t want anymore, but you don’t have enough to sell so you want to buy more cards you don’t want so you can sell them?
If you intend to buy cards cheap off of eBay or something and immediately flip them for profit that’s not going to happen and is a really bad strategy.
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You also need to take into consideration of shipping costs, time, and vendor costs (if you are selling online). You also run the risk of non-payment and scammers online.If you want to lose all those risks, you will have to buy and sell locally, and inventory will be dictated by your local area. Typically, I would recommend to trade with other people with cards that are playable and in the meta, and some people are willing to trade more for in-demand cards or cards they need for a tournament. Over time, if you are never desperate for a specific card and always trade for value , you may hit the goal of getting the cards you want. Flipping is a bad idea like fourthstartcg stated, and unhealthy for the community. I would recommend you to watch some of smpratte’s videos to get a better understanding on collecting, and if you really cannot afford items, I would aim to trade locally than to buy and sell until you can afford cards.
I see what your saying, I am not really intending to buy them and flip them immediately but just have those kinds of cards to hold on to for when the time comes where there is something I want to add to the collection, but I will look into trading, thank you. Is online trading a good option? Where I live there are not many options to my knowledge.
Also how much time has to pass before selling a card isn’t is considered flipping? Like if I bought something and waited six months to sell it, would that be flipping it, or by flipping does that mean within the week?
Online trading has inherent risks that some people are willing to accept and others are not. It is an easy target for scammers and every time you put something in the mail there is a risk of loss/theft/destruction. I personally avoid trading because I hate having extra cards I don’t want when I could have just spent my money more directly on what I did want in the first place. If you’re looking to trade online, we have a Buy/Trade subsection within our forum. It doesn’t have a lot of activity because most of our members prefer to simply sell cards they don’t want and buy cards they do instead of trading, so if you find you’re not getting the response you want you can research alternatives online. PokeGym has a little bit of activity left occasionally in their trading forum, but most of the low-dollar exchanges have moved to Instagram and Facebook. I’m not comfortable recommending anything related to trading, so I’ll leave that to someone else more involved in it.
Flipping is just a term for a quick buy/sell. It’s subjective and doesn’t have a hard and fast definition. If you’re looking to invest in cards long term, start by looking online for basic investing advice. Learn the ins and outs of the generic advice before approaching a specific avenue. Look into advice on when you can and cannot afford to invest and don’t invest anything you can’t afford to lose entirely. My personal advice to people is not to spend a single dime on Pokemon cards, collection OR investment, that you can’t afford to go five years without minimum.
Because of the low barrier to entry in the Pokemon market you’re going to have a lot of competition. The best way to make money for Pokemon cards is honest-to-God just getting a job in something unrelated. I don’t know your exact situation but most people can get some sort of part-time job for just 5-10 hours a week that pays $8-10USD, or the equivalent thereof, an hour. You’re simply not going to make that doing Pokemon. Most people that try lose money or a huge amount of time. Making money on Pokemon cards requires capital and it’s a reality of the hobby, and businesses in general really, that making money from it is not an option for the majority of those involved in it.
Feel free to ask more questions. I’m not trying to swat away your dreams but I do feel that the majority of people on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc. create a false image of what Pokemon investing is like. A small handful of people are making money. An even smaller number are making a living. And most of the money made by people who hype the opportunity is a one-off situation that they can’t replicate. I see several people a year get excited about the money they made on a card, reinvest that money into other Pokemon cards, then fail to generate a profit because they’re facing the realities of liquidity, supply and demand, time, and capital.
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I appreciate the insight, the idea or goal I had with my main question of this topic was to make my collecting self sustained, not really intended to earn a living off of, so that I can keep money that I make by other means directed where it needs to be, but I suppose a secondary job would achieve the same thing. I’m personally not very interested in the idea of trading either since what I have that is worth what I want is something I want to keep, and nothing that I have to trade is enough to get me what I want.
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If you have low capital look to buy cards at most 50% of what you could sell at, even then you will be surprised at how little you get after fees shipping etc.
The rest is up to you on how you find these cards, if it were easy then everyone would do it 
ask yourself what kind of seller would be interested in selling their cards at <50% of market value? Good luck!
If you so happen live between cities you can always try my cheap card routine www.elitefourum.com/t/the-cheap-card-routine/13188/1
Churlocker summarized your questions perfectly, but to add more insight (especially in the trading aspect) with my past experiences, it really boils down to your current situation.
I suggested trading but it really depends on your age, area, etc. I mainly did trading in my younger days (teens) because I had a great local community (both competitive and non-competitive) that I traded with, and it was difficult for me to get a job due to school/lack of time due to extracurricular. It was also important to note that I was playing competitively, so I know what cards may be influenced by the meta and being ahead in predictions enabled me to massively profit when the meta changes. With huge communities to trade with, easy access to more cards, good prediction, my card collection expanded dramatically.
So the upside to trading locally:
- You make more friends who are interested in the same hobby as you are
- You get the cards right away
- It’s quite easy to increase the value of your collection if you know what you’re doing
- Does not cost anything except for time
- You can inspect the cards right there so you know how mint the cards you will be receiving
However, there are some downsides from trading locally:
- You may never see the cards you want.
- Your collection may increase, but like before, you do not get the cards you want.
- Serious waste of time compared to simply getting a part time job and getting the cards you want
- Sometimes you may take losses, and if it’s not the cards you want you’re going to feel bad
Trading online is VERY dangerous at the beginning,because most websites are based on feedback, so if you are simply getting started, you basically have to be the first to send all trades until you gain some feedback. It also costs postage, and regardless if you use tracking or not, you can still get scammed depending on the person you are trading with, with very little penalty for the person who does not send the cards (they typically just get banned from the website). I got some insane deals and great trades online with people, and the collections do increase by a lot, but I would not recommend you to trade online unless you are trading low value.I took some crazy risks because I can’t get a job and that was the only way to get the cards my local community did not have.
So in summary, if you can simply get a job, I would recommend you just to do that to get the cards you want. Trading makes collecting cards sustainable without further costs, but it’s risky online and it’s very time consuming. Also, since you will always be in card stores, you will most likely be tempted to buy packs here and there so it won’t be 100% self-sustaining.
On the note about flipping, like churlocker said, there’s no guaranteed time that determines if you’re flipping the card or not. For me, when I purchase a card, I bought the card because I really like it and I want to keep it indefinitely. The only time when I would sell it, it would be because I felt that someone else would enjoy the card more than I do, and I finally decided that I do not want that card to be part of my collection anymore. If I had a flipping mindset, it would be more as if I bought the card because it’s worth a certain dollar amount lower than average market price, and immediately I am thinking of the profits I can make with the card when I sell it.
Smpratte makes a great summary of this in one of his youtube videos.
Apologies for my poor grammar and spelling, it is getting late where I’m at but I felt like I should respond to your question without any further delay.
@nuttun No worries, I appreciate the information and response.