A hobby “career?” - where might the puck be going?
 

Good morning all

I don’t recall seeing a recent thread on this topic and I hope this is a reasonable place to raise this question for discussion…

I may the opportunity (ie, time) soon to contemplate a career change in one way or another. Like many of you, I am a hobbyist 98% of the time but spend ~2% as a seller to help fund my PC interests.

But if I wanted to dive more fully into the hobby as a career change/move, where do you all see the best and most interesting opportunities? Major auction houses? TPGs? Larger/national dealers?

I hope this is a topic of interest to others - I don’t mean to make this about me only! It’s more a question of where could our passion for the hobby intersect with possible career opportunities? I’m not a kid 😢 even though I thoroughly enjoy this kid hobby! I wonder if there are more advanced opportunities for people of my “vintage” and considerable business experience

Thanks all - I look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas!

Jeff

Becoming a small business selling cards is becoming a more level playing field thanks to the hopefully enforced $600 rule.

It really depends on how much money one needs to make and how they plan on paying for health insurance.

If you have health ins through a spouse opening your own business is WAY easier. It also helps to not be in debt so you have time to learn your new business because the early few years are the hardest in my experience.

If you need the regular paycheck and health ins then it would be time to see what each different area pays their employees.

I would recommend talking to a large dealer or auction house first. Get the lay of the land and what skills are in demand.

I also think some of the challenges are the mindset of the "average collector" vs the type of collector that gravitates to a board like Net54. I think it would be fun to be buying and selling (ok, maybe selling would not be as fun) great vintage sportscards as a business. But, realistically, I think it is pretty tough to find heavy "discounts" on vintage cards, because everybody is hunting for an underpriced Aaron, DiMaggio or Ruth. So, unless you are willing to gamble on raw cards and make margin by getting lucky on grading, you are basically just gambling the vintage card market will just continue to increase and you will make your money on appreciation.

I think the modern card market might be easier to break into, but it is a completely different business model. You need to be like a day trader, buying and selling modern players based on hype and/or daily performances. There are alot of folks doing this, and most are not successful. It also feels like the business of buying and selling modern sportscards is not really consistent with the romantic idea of running a card business where you are buying and selling cards of all time greats.

Otherwise, I guess you could try and develop a social media personality and build a base of subscribers that want to do box breaks or other types of gambling online. The one niche I do think would be interesting, given the hunger for gambling on sportscards and card breaks, would be to find good deals on graded cards from a "Top 50" type list in each sport. Once you have procured cards of all 50 on the list, offer up a "set break" and sell spots for your cost + whatever you feel is a reasonable markup. In the case of baseball, this means somebody is getting a PSA Babe Ruth or Mickey Mantle, and somebody else is overpaying for an 87 Donruss Greg Maddux or 82 Topps Cal Ripken. But, it would be pretty fun for the participants involved, and everybody has something of value to show for it.

I actually think basketball would be particularly interesting for this type of break, as so many of the Top 50 would be from the past 40 years, so the prices of guys like Iverson, Ray Allen, McHale, Malone, etc. would be pretty modest, yet you could have a PSA 8 Jordan Rookie, a couple nice 61 cards like Wilt and West, and a 57 Bill Russell to draw alot of interest.

I think it would be tough to break into the auction house or consignor space, as there are already so many of those out there, it would be hard to distinguish yourself.

A lot of what might matter is more related to you than the hobby.
Strengths, weaknesses, where your knowledge is, how you work, age, ability/interest in relocating. All that should got into it.

I gave things a low risk try with general collectibles a few years ago, and learned a few things.

I'm pretty good at buying, not so good at selling.
A lot of that was not being organized and efficient. If I hit 20-25 items a week on Ebay I started messing up in small ways. Not really a big problem at the time, but stuff like getting into packing and forgetting to reply to an email, or having a bunch of stuff scanned and not listing it.

I also found out I was not really into taking risks past a certain dollar amount.
I was pretty good at buying something for $5 and selling it for 10-15. Or a lot of stuff for 50 and making 10 individual lots that were 10-15. But I rarely took the chance on more expensive things I wasn't sure of. Long term, it's great to double your money, but doubling $10 still only gets you $10 profit.

Neither of those things was really entirely supportable. If My wife didn't work in the computer industry it wouldn't have worked at all.

This basketball collector changed careers to work in the sports card business and spoke about it in his last two podcasts

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...t/id1084965169

Modern cards come in and out of favor. I have a card store in town in relatively pricey real estate and I have no idea how this dude stays in business. Must be independently wealthy. I've walked in a few times and usually there is one other customer milling about. Anyone with half a brain realizes they can buy boxes from Panini direct at a much lower rate than what these guys charge. And the single cards are never competitive with ebay or auctions.

That's a tough racket right now.

We're hiring.

Get yourself a starter store on eBay ($4.95/mo.). Use the tools they have to develop some templates and mechanisms for selling and give it a try. That will tell you pretty quickly whether you like it enough to try and make a real go of it.

Great way to start. Given the pendulum swings in value for many items, its tough to start though without having some serious inventory already.

I heard a story of a collector with comparatively few items to sell make a success of selling simply because he purchased a large collection at a reasonable price. Took him two years to part it out, but made his money back quickly and then some. Then started to reinvest in more product. FYI he put this $50K collection on credit to get started. Made about $205K in return. had to spend some on grading so that added to the base cost.

If you can find a collection with some room if purchased right, that might be one opportunity. Always risk in doing this of course.

Running a card business yourself is a ton of time for low margins and a very low chance of success or supporting yourself and your family.

A job in the industry at the big boys would be more dependent on one’s particular experience, skill set, resume, and social connections.

A job elsewhere in the hobby would probably not pay much money and not be a career type job to support oneself, but would probably be a lot more fun than other starter jobs. I wish I had got to sort cards at a shop instead of anything I worked

When you dive into trying to work for the federal government one of the important questions they want answered is: 'What are your SKA's?' It means skills, knowledge and abilities. I believe the same would apply here. What do you bring to the table? Are you just a collector or have you spent time studying any one of the various collectible categories? Breadth and depth of knowledge can be quite positive if you wish to offer your services to others. What are your strengths; pre-war cards, post war cards, equipment, publications, autographs?

There have been some good questions and suggestions posted by others if you want to be a dealer. Can you afford to do without the income until you have established yourself? What is your comfort level if you struggle as you start out? Ignore the person who tried to whine about the $600 reporting ceiling. First and foremost that is the law. If you are going to sell on your own learn about income reporting and deductions. What you need to report and what you can deduct whether you are selling on ebay or travelling to shows. The more you learn, the better off you will be.

No matter what you decide, good luck. A life's path is not printed in a book you buy at the store. It is something that is constantly being rewritten and changed.

If you can, find a niche. For instance, if you make a study of GU jerseys, you can do well buying and selling, maybe eventually authenticating, and maybe even restoring, if you're good at working with materials. Or use that basic principle in another area, like specializing in certain sets, postcards, yearbooks/programs, and so on.

Personally, I would avoid autographs because I think, to be acceptably good at recognizing fakes from authentic, the learning curve would take years, and even then, autographs make me nervous. But that's just me.

By finding a specialty, you can gain an advantage through studying and understanding that market better than the average collector. I think that's one of the secrets to success - find a way to be well above average in your area of expertise.

As a person who works *IN* the hobby you have to consider the world of the hobby and not just buying/selling cards.

Card companies, licensors, licensees, dealers, auction houses, consultants, "influencers", etc etc. Don't lock yourself into only looking for one type of work

Rich

God, the frickin' "influencers." What a joke. I used to love hitting Youtube to watch a video or two, to check out things that are interesting to me...but now it's nothing but screennames giving shout outs to other screennames while endlessly talking about themselves as if everyone is glued to the screen waiting to hear their thoughts. Jesus, get over yourselves!!!

Rant over.