[jek187]

Grading is a bit of a gamble. The thicker the card, the harder it is to get a good grade. Typically, anything under a 9 will hurt the value. (Over-generalizing, but you get the idea.) In addition, grading can be expensive for lots of cards. Most of the high end sets are also thicker, so many of the higher end cards will get tougher grades. Personally, I prefer cards that are not graded. I won't pay the premium for the grades because I just don't care if they're graded or not.

Like someone said above, Five Star is awesome. It is my favorite every year, and I always end up buying a few of those. National Treasures is my other favorite. Upper Deck's ultra high end is called Exquisite, but I don't buy those because Upper Deck is not licensed. As a result, it is all college uniforms. At the lower end of things, the most popular are probably Contenders, Topps Chrome, a few others.

I would recommend going to Youtube. There is a shop called "The Hobby Box" that does a TON of live breaks, probably a dozen or more a day. User ID is chri5784. I think that is the best way to get a sense for what you want to buy because you can see what a random box will yield.

Final piece of advice: with all this talk of selling and liquidity- if you have even the slightest inkling of turning this hobby into a money making venture.... you are kidding yourself. If you buy boxes, you WILL end up in the red. It's basically the same as scratch off lotto tickets. Do some people end up hitting big and making a profit on them? Yes. Will you? No. The odds are so low, that it's a virtual guarantee that it will not happen.

Also- low #'ed refers to the total print run. IE /25, /100, etc.

Interesting stuff on the grading, but it makes perfect sense and matches up well with what I'm seeing in my perusal online. Just watched a few Topps Five Star box breaks on Youtube, very interesting...you weren't kidding when you said those cards were thick. I'll take a look into National Treasures as well, thanks for the tip there.

As far as making money goes, I definitely recognize buying boxes is a -EV (expected value) gamble. If it wasn't, everyone would be doing it. I am hoping that when I'm fully acclimated to the hobby, that I'll be able to do some calculations to see just how much vig people pay to have the excitement of opening the packs/boxes. However, I really like trading players in my dynasty leagues, and have a pretty good track record. The hope is that I can buy guys early enough before they appreciate so that whenever I move onto my next infatuation, I can at least cover the overhead. Even better if I could make a few bucks to buy the wife something nice for her indulgence. Even better than that would be to become a trading mogul and use the money made as a seed for world domination. I'll just hope to buy a few dinners out.

Thanks again for the great info Joe.

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If I am correct, I believe you are looking for a product with high value in selling and trading, but not too hard to come by because the print run isn't ridiculously low. Going forward assuming I am right, I can suggest a few products that fit this criteria. As mentioned above, Contenders and topps chrome are very popular because the box itself isn't too expensive (relative to higher-end stuff) but the rookie autographs are excellent. If you hit a star player (that's the trick though, isn't it) then autographs from these tend to be pretty valuable and retain their value well, but also are not too hard to find because they don't have really low print run. Another good one is SP authentic, because again, the box itself isn't too expensive but the rookie patch autographs are very nice. So it all depends on what you want to collect... if you want to collect strictly high end stuff (high end base, autos, memorabilia, inserts, everything being low numbered) then I would say go for the boxes of the big stuff like National Treasures, Five Star, etc. But if you want to collect singles that are easily found, go for the SP authentic patch auto's or topps chrome. Hope this made sense... and welcome back to collecting!

On a personal note, Topps Chrome is my favorite brand. Love the look of the base and the rookie autographs. But im one of those guys who likes getting a shoebox full of base when I bust a box

You've got it exactly right. Appreciate the suggestions, will give them an in-depth look.

[dmasci]

Another option while not available in packs really is the older cards 50s, 60s, and even 70s cards that are graded with a good grade sell easily especially if a popular card like Peyton RC. For the new stuff I kind of like the SP Authentic...pretty high end but they too are thick because of the jersey....but the stars come with both jersey and on card autograph.