For card flippers, the most stable investment across the board are typically packs and boxes of cards! While an individual player can have massive ups and downs, boxes and packs typically fluctuate much more slowly and with less variance.
The best card packs to flip are typically the ones with the most value potential, such as packs from hobby boxes or from the year of a generational player’s rookie card. Those are often the best ones to hold long-term. For short-term flips, finding packs at retail prices is often the best way to go for quick (yet usually smaller) profits.
Let’s dig into more specifics, including some real examples I’m seeing right now!
Why Do Packs and Boxes Have the Best ROI?
One of the reasons it’s typically a better ROI investment over the long haul is that opening boxes rarely results in big hits. But, if you can buy a pack of cards, hold it, and sell it a year later for $20 profit…and then do that with a hundreds of packs, you’ve made a GREAT investment.
Of course, there’s a downside to it as well. If you’re a sports fan, it almost doesn’t matter at this point—you might as well be collecting stamps or antiques. There just isn’t a lot of joy garnered from staring at unopened boxes on your shelf.
You’re also missing out on the potential for BIG hits. Let’s say you’ve got a nice hobby box of 2021 NBA Prizm on your shelf…is there a LaMelo silver in there? A numbered auto? If so, not only is it really fun to pull those, you’ve made back way more money than you would’ve just waiting for the price of the box to increase.
If you’re purely in it for max ROI, let’s dig in a bit more into what I’ve researched as well as learned from talking to other hobby pros. I’ll even share with you how I find retail consistently.
What Are the Best Card Packs to Flip?
So, I mentioned in the beginning that you’re going to see the best ROI from hobby boxes. There’s certainly profit to be made with retail boxes, but let’s talk about hobby for a minute.
In case you’re unfamiliar, hobby boxes are typically sold at hobby stores or direct from the manufacturer’s website, such as Topps or Panini. Retail boxes are sold at…retail stores!
Retail boxes are meant to be cheaper. They’re meant to grab the attention of people just passing by…although now they’re in such high demand they’re sold off immediately to hardcore collectors anyway. But, the origins were that the store would open the boxes, and you would just grab a pack while doing your grocery shopping.
Hobby boxes typically have much bigger hits.
For example, here’s a retail box (often called blasters)
Then take a look at a hobby box from the same year:
This is a single hobby box that sold for 27 times as much as the blaster box. So what gives?
That hobby box has more cards, 2 guaranteed autos, and 22 prizms (the colored parallels that carry huge value)!
Then what about if we go a little further back? Do the boxes continue to increase in value?
Why does it go up like this? It’s because we know that Anthony Edwards is a star, LaMelo has balled out when healthy, Haliburton is a potential all-NBA guy, and Maxey is an all-star.
Everyone wants those guys. They want those Silver Prizms and autos. Grab one of those…get it graded…and you might have $2k+ on your hands.
Go back further, and you’ll see even more increases (especially Luka’s year – those sell for $4k+)
This is a perfect example of a high value brand increasing over time, both because it’s a hobby box and it’s the year of superstar rookies.
Want to read more about retail vs hobby? Check out What is the Difference Between hobby and Retail Sports Cards Boxes?
Flipping Retail is a Losing Proposition
The days are long gone where you could scoop up pretty much anything retail and resell it for a profit. I remember getting boxes of Prizm and reselling them for 3x – 4x what I paid for them! Easy money.
Maybe you remember Target shutting down all card sales, or Walmart implementing a “one per person rule” while keeping the product behind the cash register.
However, the market has corrected on retail product. With Prizm blasters selling for $25 instead of $90, there’s just not any room for that immediate ROI.
How to Flip Boxes for Profit
At this point, you really only have a few options:
- Purchase the best retail brands right when they come out for a small profit
- Buy and hold hobby (or retail)
So, if you’re able to get retail Prizm or Topps Chrome in the first few days that it comes out, you can likely do a quick flip on eBay and make some money… but it’s a grind for not a lot of reward.
That leaves buy and hold.
Like I showed you above, prices for sealed hobby boxes can go up (and sometimes BIG). Sure, blasters go up in value as well if there’s a nice rookie class, but usually the people paying a premium for older wax want to chase autos or valuable parallels. Those are much more prevalent in hobby boxes.
Conclusion
Anyway, so here’s my point. Retail is often the best for quick flips, but really, only if you can find the top brands right after they’re released.
And one last point…
I’ve heard people say “why would I buy a Ja Morant rookie when the price of a box will go up if his values go up?” That’s absolutely true, and that line of thinking makes a lot of sense. The better the rookie class, the more the boxes go up in value!
It’s just like I said above…if you’re not into collecting singles and are just looking for a way to make an ROI, then that route makes sense for a lot of people!
Hope that helps! Anything you’d add? Let me know!