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February 3, 2025 
Quite a stat line there. Come with me for a look behind the curtain at Monster Cards. This quick post contains a little insight on how I spend my time, money, etc. Talk about growth! I still remember a time not all that long ago when spending over $30,000 on cards would have driven me to a nervous fit wondering how I would have paid the invoice. However, when this auction ended, I was pissed hadn't hit my goal of $100k in winnings. It would probably help y'all if I introduced this auction. For those of you not familiar with the look/format of the snapshot above, it is from Heritage. They just had a massive run of high-grade T206s end on Jan 31st. Tons of PSA 7s, a bunch of PSA 8s, and a handful of PSA 6s. Totally my jam, and I estimated that I spent over 30 hours bidding in that auction...12 alone on Friday the 31st. I'm used to winning a low percentage of what I bid on. That's just a part of how this all works. I'm not paying collector prices. I can't. How would I resell anything? No, if I want to bring out reasonably-priced cards to eBay and shows, I need to have a bit of a margin. I learned early in my days as a dealer that "you make money when you buy." It's a mantra constantly kicking around my head. In the seller's market that has grasped this hobby over the past few years, it seems everyone has that 'I don't care if I sell' attitude. But that 'make money when you buy' true-ism will serve you well through any market ups and downs. I have to say, that $1.75+M in bids is seriously eye-popping. That's a high for me by a long shot. Ten days before the end of the auction, I posted on my Facebook page that I was still high bidder on over $1 million in cards, counting my max bids and the juice (22% for Heritage...) that would be tagged on. Every big show and big auction feel like a report card for the hobby to me. It's a nice little check-in to see how healthy the hobby/biz is. Suffice it to say I won't divulge everything I learned, but the main takeaway is that the card market is healthy. Vintage, anyway. I could give a fuck about the new card market. This offering was so large and unique, I found myself ignoring much of the VCP when I was bidding. Instead, I focused on the population report and felt much more confident in my estimated values than that of existing market data, which I'll admit is a very weird thing to say. The longer I'm in this business, the more I trust my gut. I even made an auxiliary pop report for myself. That's how into this auction I was. When it came time for extended bidding, I actually stuck around to get in some late bids. Another rarity for me. Usually, I put my bids in days before auction end and then forget about them, much like Ron Popeil's rotisserie ovens. But this time I entered the ring in what felt like a bare knuckle brawl. As soon as extended bidding started, the total amount of my high bids was cut in half, and from there they dwindled quicker than oxygen from Apollo 11. Likewise, I got the wind knocked out of me. I waged my own blows/bids, absorbed punches in the form out outbid notices, volleyed back on select cards, swore at my unknown combantants, had Mick cut me, ran up a couple cards higher than I wanted just to drain competitors' funds... It was a wild, adrenaline-fueled and insanity-riddled ride. Here's another tale of the tape: 
You'll see that I placed bids on 771 cards and won a mere 22. I was really cheesed off that these cards got away: Donlin (Fielding) 8.5...Evers (Cubs) 7...O'Hara (St Louis/Polar Bear) 4.5... and a Cobb (Bat Off) Old Mill 7. Those would have been eye-catchers for sure. But I'm happy to add these: M Brown (Cubs) 7, Chase (White Cap) 7, and two American Beauty back 7s (Downey/Batting and Jordan/Batting) to the family. The adventure continues... Have fun! -T |
Inside My Brain