Pinoy NBA Cards Investor 101
So you want to be an NBA sports card investor? Maybe you’ve heard the story of how a rare Giannis Antetokounmpo signed rookie card sold for $1.812 million or you’ve heard one of the biggest influencers in the world, Gary Vaynerchuk, talk about how he is investing millions of dollars in sports card or even saw your favorite DJ, Steve Aoki, posted that he opened a card shop in LA with his buddies on his Instagram. Maybe you’re a basketball card collector that wants to flip some cards to fund your personal collection.
Regardless of how you stumbled upon the idea of “investing” in the NBA sports card market, you need to think twice before clicking that shiny “buy it now” button to purchase your first-ever “investment”.
Here are some of my tips regarding NBA cards investments
- You have to set-up a budget and prepare to lose that money.
First off, you have to set-up a budget. Think about how much extra money you have right now in your bank account are you willing and prepared to lose? Yes, you have to think about losing that money. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get that money back once you’ve bought your first cards. If you’re not prepared to lose that money, then stop right now.
2. Choose the players to invest on.
Now that you’ve set your budget, it’s time to get into the action. You now have to choose the players you’ll invest in. Given our limited budget, you have to think of really do your research on this and differentiate the players you took interest in to different risk categories. In my opinion, these are the risk categories:
a.) Low-Risk Players
These are the players that have cemented their names in the Mt. Rushmore of basketball. The majority of the sports card investors and collectors will agree that these are the type of players whose cards’ prices won’t ever crash unless the whole market came crashing down. At the moment, the players in this category are the following in my opinion: Lebron James, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan.
b.) Medium-risk players
These are the players that have shown potential or players that have made several achievements in their careers. These are future HOF and some players that are looking to be the “next big thing” and have shown potentials of it. The likes of these players are in this category: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry, Luka Doncic, Jayson Tatum.
c.) High-risk players
These are the players that have shown flashes of brilliance and are generally hyped about. These players don’t usually have achievements under their belt or some might have one or two (Mostly Rookie of the year). These players have a very little history on the game and their prices are usually just based on the hype surrounding them. The likes of these players are in this category: Zion Williamson, Ja Morant, Michael Porter Jr., Coby White, Bol Bol
Now that we’ve categorized them it’s time to divide our budget based on the risk factors. My personal formula for this is:
30%- Low Risk Players
60% Medium-Risk Players
10% High-Risk Players
3.) What type of card to buy?
There are literally hundreds of variations of cards that Panini launches every year but one variation stood on top of the must-buys. It’s the Panini Prizm card.
The Panini Prizm Rookie Card of your chosen player is the first-ever investment you should buy into. On my previous blog, it’s one of the biggest mistakes I made as this card variant is one of the first, if not the first, card variant to blow up in price once your selected player achieved something.
NOTE: Panini only acquired the NBA license back in 2009 so players before the 09–10 season doesn’t have a Panini Prizm Rookie card. Try to get a Topps Base of that player.
4.) Where to buy cards?
Now, this is the trickiest part. Living in the Philippines has a very huge downside when it comes to NBA sports card investment. We’re so far from the epicenter of the hobby. The USA is still the hotbed of the hobby and us being on the other side of the world means additional costs.
You can go online and buy from eBay or Amazon or other online card dealers like COMC but you have to make sure you’ll be buying “bigger” cards. Buying cards that’s worth PHP 200 to PHP 500 won’t make sense since the added costs such as transaction fees and shipping fees will likely be more expensive than the card itself.
Local card shows also doesn’t exists in our country. We don’t have “Nationals” or huge events where card show owners or card collectors and investors bring their stocks to sell or trade. Although we have local meetups before in Galleria every Saturday, we still don’t have the selection that our western counterparts have. Your best bet is to go to local Facebook groups and look for the cards you’re looking for. Here are some of the Facebook groups you can look into:
- NBA Cards Filipino BST
- The Cardboard Corner
- Pang-Masa NBA Cards Collectors
- El Puchuneros NBA Card Collectors
You can also go to international Facebook groups such as NBA Hotspot to deal with international sellers but of course, you have to be ready to pay additional costs, and although the majority of these sellers ships worldwide, some don’t so prepare a US address. If you don’t have a US address you can avail some of the services available for that such as ShipMyCards or approach some of the known local collectors such as Sir Brei Salonga as they offer services to fellow collectors to get those cards from international sellers delivered to your doorsteps for a small fee. What these services do is they will use their US address so your seller can ship your cards there and they will facilitate the shipping of your cards from the US going here in our country.
5.) Where to check for card prices?
Now that you know where to buy, you have to know how much you should buy these cards.
For the price value, you can just go to eBay.com and set your settings to show the last sold items of the same card.
Or you can go to 130point.com go to Search eBay Sales and type in the card you’re looking for.
For me, my go-to card basis is the price of the last sold piece of the same item on eBay then add 15%. That’s my go-to price formula whenever I buy. I go a bit higher but I’m not comfortable paying more.
Just be prepared because that’s not how most of the local sellers set their prices.
Price, in my opinion, is the biggest elephant in the room in the local NBA card markets. As a Magic: The Gathering player, there’s an unwritten rule in the local MTG market that prices according to TCGPlayer.com is the basis for local prices. The seller will just set the multiplier (which ranges from x30 to x45) and that’s it. In local NBA card markets, it’s very different. The rule “Your card, your price” is the most followed and it’s really hard to determine how much a card will go for.
The best example I can give is Luka Samanic’s base card. After the Spur’s last game, his base Prizm card is selling for $2 (PHP100) — $3 (PHP150) a piece on eBay but in the local market, his card is selling for PHP 500 ($10~)
At the end of the day, it’s really up to you if you’ll take the deal or not. My best tip is if you’re not comfortable with the amount, try to talk with the seller and if you’re really far from each other and you think it’s not worth it, then just pass up.
I hope these tips will give you enough tools to have your jumpstart in the hobby. Good luck and have fun out there!
Disclaimer:
All information provided is for educational purposes only. My goal isn’t to tell you how to spend your money but to simply show you my own personal perspective of the hobby.
You are responsible for your own investment decisions. I am not, in any way, an investment professional. I’m just a normal human like you that walked the path you’re about to walk.