What's your prospecting philosophy?

For flipping purposes, what do you like to buy into?

In the past year or so, I have become a hoarder of Blue Refractors of most of my players.

I find that blue refractors can bring the most returns, especially graded, when the player gets hot/called-up.

Upon release, some of the players can be had for around $5-15 per, and then spike to $50-75+ per at some points.

Case in point... I had 7 Daniel Murphy blue refs (1 BGS 10, 7 BGS 9.5) and I was into them for $100 w/ grading fees. I just recently sold them all for $650 DLVD.

NECpilgrims8 said:

In the past year or so, I have become a hoarder of Blue Refractors of most of my players.

I find that blue refractors can bring the most returns, especially graded, when the player gets hot/called-up.

Upon release, some of the players can be had for around $5-15 per, and then spike to $50-75+ per at some points.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. I find this kind of stuff extremely interesting.

Learn the market range of a player,

wait for player to dip to low point of his value,

keep eye on anyone selling low,

notice hot streak of performance for said player,

gobble gobble gobble

I really like the low end base chromes, refractors, xfractors. I spend a lot at card shows. I buy whatever cards the dealer is low on and flip those right away. Most of the time when spending a lot of money with a dealer they will give me the low end chrome and refractors for free.
I also love to buy base chrome up in bulk. We have a bunch of case rippers here who only want to keep the high end cards they pull. So they sell me their chrome rookies for a dime a piece and throw in the bowman base for free.

bdal23 said:

I really like the low end base chromes, refractors, xfractors. I spend a lot at card shows. I buy whatever cards the dealer is low on and flip those right away. Most of the time when spending a lot of money with a dealer they will give me the low end chrome and refractors for free.
I also love to buy base chrome up in bulk. We have a bunch of case rippers here who only want to keep the high end cards they pull. So they sell me their chrome rookies for a dime a piece and throw in the bowman base for free.

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Yeah I'm a fan of chrome base too. Not to mention, buying this way is much less risky as you won't usually lose too much money with chrome base if your guy turns out to be worthless, while the reward for him performing well is just as good (and usually better) than any parallel percentage-wise.

gobble gobble gobble

ALL_THE_HYPE said:

bdal23 said:

I really like the low end base chromes, refractors, xfractors. I spend a lot at card shows. I buy whatever cards the dealer is low on and flip those right away. Most of the time when spending a lot of money with a dealer they will give me the low end chrome and refractors for free.
I also love to buy base chrome up in bulk. We have a bunch of case rippers here who only want to keep the high end cards they pull. So they sell me their chrome rookies for a dime a piece and throw in the bowman base for free.

Click to expand...

Yeah I'm a fan of chrome base too. Not to mention, buying this way is much less risky as you won't usually lose too much money with chrome base if your guy turns out to be worthless, while the reward for him performing well is just as good (and usually better) than any parallel percentage-wise.

gobble gobble gobble

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Case in point Dan Murphy. Last month I bought $500 in cards off one dealer at a local show. Thats a lot of money for one of the guys here. well he gave me a stack of 60 or chromes for free. Turns out one there were two dan murphy xfractors in that lot I bought.
Just yesterday I picked up a dan murphy refractor for 50 cents.
I like the low end ones because I can buy them very low to start. Many times I can flip right away for profit. That is the real key. I do find myself falling in love with my collection at times and forget to sell.

I usually bought the lower end stuff like refractors and base chromes when I didn't have as much money, but now that I do I like buying into the higher end stuff, like blues and so on.

I tend to go with lots of low end stuff. With one player in particular, I have a bunch of X's.

The topic is somewhat complicated. Obviously the goal is to maximize returns with a minimal amount of risk and investment, so it is different depending on the player/type of player.

Usually (especially when a player makes it big) base Chrome's provide the best return percentage-wise, and because they can be sold in large lots (I've actually found that lots on 50 often sell even better than lots of 10-20) they are not that difficult to move. That said, grading becomes far more expensive and possibly less profitable (depends what you are paying for grading.)

Also, when you have a lesser player who you may not be sold on as a future MLB star but think he's cheap, there's often not enough interest garnered to really trickle down to the base chrome's so in those cases the gold ref's and the like are the best as they are the first to receive a spike, and often there is a lot of money to be made that way (example is a lesser known guy who has a few good weeks. He shows up on the BA hotlist and people see his name and head to eBay. They aren't going to really start prospecting him but figure that picking up a gold/orange/(possibly) blue ref. for cheap is worth the risk since they aren't expensive anyway (though they could already be numerous times more than what a prospector has snagged them for early.

These are just a couple of thoughts and there are other factors (what other cards the player, the anticipated window of sale etc.) Also, if you are going all in it makes sense to buy all different types to you can sell many at the same time without flooding the market.

Yeah we have seen a number of guys this year who perfectly show why chrome base are such good investments...jay bruce being the biggest example as chromes were selling as high as $25 a pop, brandon jones, and now daniel murphy to name a few. And that doesn't even touch on the guys who have chromes that get up to 3-5 dollars each before they even make it to the majors (laporta, price, heyward).

Just think if you bought 100 chromes for $1 each of a guy...if he got to Jay Bruce status, not that this happens often, but you could make a couple thousand dollars on a $100 investment.

NECpilgrims8 said:

In the past year or so, I have become a hoarder of Blue Refractors of most of my players.

I find that blue refractors can bring the most returns, especially graded, when the player gets hot/called-up.

Upon release, some of the players can be had for around $5-15 per, and then spike to $50-75+ per at some points.

Case in point... I had 7 Daniel Murphy blue refs (1 BGS 10, 7 BGS 9.5) and I was into them for $100 w/ grading fees. I just recently sold them all for $650 DLVD.

Click to expand...

To continue on Murphy, I bought 67 chromes for $15 dlvd, a xfractor for $5, and a gold for $42. I also got a blue in a lot a while back for $12(I bought it for a Henry Sosa chrome).

I have never spent more then $42 on one single card. I pretty much just buy mid to low-end stuff. And good deals too.

For me low end as in like
20-30 chrome
5 ref
2-3 x-ref
maybe a blue

I usually buy only low end.

The reason:I am really cheap.

Its easy..

Step 1: Pick any player and buy lots of his chrome.
Step 2: Make a post about this player.
Step 3: Send Jaypers $100 to respond to the post in a positive way.
Step 4: sell, sell, sell...

ryanhoward06 said:

NECpilgrims8 said:

In the past year or so, I have become a hoarder of Blue Refractors of most of my players.

I find that blue refractors can bring the most returns, especially graded, when the player gets hot/called-up.

Upon release, some of the players can be had for around $5-15 per, and then spike to $50-75+ per at some points.

Case in point... I had 7 Daniel Murphy blue refs (1 BGS 10, 7 BGS 9.5) and I was into them for $100 w/ grading fees. I just recently sold them all for $650 DLVD.

Click to expand...

To continue on Murphy, I bought 67 chromes for $15 dlvd, a xfractor for $5, and a gold for $42. I also got a blue in a lot a while back for $12(I bought it for a Henry Sosa chrome).

I have never spent more then $42 on one single card. I pretty much just buy mid to low-end stuff. And good deals too.

Click to expand...

Honestly, you need to sell those ASAP.

The prices they are bringing are WAY over your buy prices. Don't get too attached to them.

I think that the base chromes are the less risky of the choices. 67 chrome of a sleeper for $15 is great and if he doesn't pan out, that's less then a 6 packs of chrome. When you get into the blue range, you have to be a little more picky about who you are going to prospect. I have chosen to go that route with Wes Hodges. Much more risky, but the reward can be amazing. Pick up a Blue for $60, he remains on pace to be the #2 prospect and then has a big couple of weeks/months and that could be flipped for $250-300 easily when he is on a hot streak. A $600 investment could easily become $2500-3000 and then having 2 Gem Mint BGS 9.5 in that investment could push that higher. I have an X-Game mentality "Go big or go home."

my philosophy is if you double dees you can double DEEZ

bumpp

I like to buy a little bit of at least everything but I never go after the Golds or oranges. Freddie Freeman for instance, I bought like a total of 60 Freddie Freeman BCDP ALL CHROMES lot like at $1 a piece, two blue refractors, and four refractors. I should have bought some x's but I didnt since the x lines. HERE'S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING NOW! Buy low and sell high.