I was a curious kid.

As long as I can remember, I’ve always had a desire to learn things I didn’t know.  Trying new things was exciting.  As I look back, that’s probably why I enjoyed school so much, why I have a wide range of interests, and even why I love all sorts of foods.

That sense of wonder also motivated me to find more efficient ways to work.  As a 7th grader, I can remember testing different mowing paths around the yard to see which would let me get done quicker.  I’d test which sorting method would let me get through that 1991 Hoops box the quickest?  No matter the chore, I was looking for was to do it smarter.

At the same time, that curiosity didn’t mean I was a risk taker.  I was still pretty reserved, and I didn’t like to speak up unless I was very confident that I knew what I was talking about.  There was a delicate balance between the internal drive to step out to try something new, and the fear of failure.

Thirty years later, that’s a balance that continues to be challenging, but I’m becoming more comfortable in finding it.  Keeping a proper perspective and leveraging what I do know to make educated guesses have allowed me to continue to grow and develop new skills.  

A few weeks ago I was considering making a big Soccer card purchase.  I don’t know anything about Soccer, can only name about 5 players, and have little to no understanding of the different leagues.  I had a lack of confidence in my ability to potentially profit due to being so uneducated on the sport.  I ultimately decided to go for it, and I want to share what my thought process was as I made that decision.

You can check out the audio version of this post HERE

Ok, here’s what I bought.

I picked up three retail hanger cases of 2017-18 Select Soccer($107 each), one case of 2018-19 Donruss Soccer retail jumbo packs ($260), and one case of 2018-19 Donruss Blaster boxes($150).  That’s about $730 on cards from a sport I know nothing about.  What was I thinking?

Well, as I considered the purchase, I realized direct knowledge about the players, teams, leagues etc, was only one factor which would contribute to the potential profit I could get from selling the cards.  There were several other aspects which I had much more confidence in which should theoretically contribute even more to my success.

Never Stop Listening

Last summer Gary Vee started talking about how he thought soccer long term card potential due to huge international fan base.  I started hearing podcasts randomly discussing the World Cup sticker and card sets.  A few podcasters who were fairly new to cards were talking about buying soccer cards, and it even came up in the podcast Dr. Beckett recorded at his annual dinner a couple months ago.  There was a buzz beginning to grow and I was listening.  I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but seeds were being planted.

Determine If Your Prior Experience Is Transferrable

One of my local collecting friends is a master of clearance retail.  He has had years of success buying closeout boxes from DA and Blowout for the non-mainstream sports like Racing, WWE, and Olympics.  After hearing him discuss some of his results, I have gradually found some small scale success with Racing and WWE.  Well, last year he started talking about Soccer.  He had found success with the products he bought.  Not only was he able to sell the cards, but the case and box prices of the products he bought were also starting to rise.  As I started looking, some of the products he had told me about had gotten more expensive, but others were still pretty much still sitting at the same clearance prices.  This motivated me to take the next step which is……

Research

I asked him which players he was finding success with.  I went back and took notes from the podcasts I had heard on soccer to see who they were talking about.  I went through Ebay and COMC listings to see who was moving.  Then I started pulling up the reviews and checklists from the products which were still dirt cheap to see if any of these players were in there.  I looked up complete set sales histories.  I researched which retail specific parallels I’d get and what those were selling for.  I looked up the Sportlots listings to determine what kind of competition I’d have for my listings.  

The Select Soccer had a few things going for it.  First, Kylian Mbappe has been a big seller and he has both an insert and a base card in this set.  Plus his base card is in the more limited “Field Level” tier. So eventually people will realize that this will be one of his earliest and hardest to find cards. It turns out that there are about as many Field Level cards in each hanger box as there are in a hobby box.  That’s value.  In addition, there are exclusive parallels and virtually no competition for Sportlots listings.

The Donruss was a similar story.  Exclusive parallels, Optic inserts, and several key players were all found inside.  Other products with a similar player mix had already started to rise, but these Donruss cases were still sitting there for less than $8 a blaster and about $22 per jumbo box.  Again, there was very little COMC or Sportlots competition for the base and inserts.

So there I was trying to make a decision.  I had started with very little direct knowledge about the players or the sport, but I didn’t need that knowledge to research who others were talking about.  I didn’t need that knowledge to know the success I’ve had selling cards on COMC and Sportlots when there was little to no competition.  I didn’t need that knowledge to know that other Soccer products had already risen from similar prices over the last year, but these had not yet moved.  Was it going to be a guaranteed win? Not at all.  But did I feel I had learned enough to take an educated shot?  Especially when my initial purchase would be paid for with profits?  

You bet I did.

So I placed my orders.

You may be wondering what my results have been?  

Over the last month, I’ve been in the midst of sorting and listing a 10-15K card collection.  Because my free time has been consumed with that project, I haven’t had a chance to even crack the cases.  In a real life example of “Well, that escalated quickly”, over the last month the prices of the Select cases have risen from $100 to about $160 each.  The Donruss blaster cases have risen from $150 to about $300, and the Donruss Jumbo went from $260 to $580.  At this point I may be better off just selling them sealed!

Based on some of the other products, I thought there would be a chance for the sealed prices to appreciate, but didn’t expect it to happen near this fast.  I thought his would be a good long term “grind out a profit” type project.  At this point I’m leaning towards opening one of the Select cases since they haven’t quite risen as much yet, and one single Donruss blaster box that was one of the “Free Gifts” from DA Card World.  I am going to keep holding the other sealed cases to sell at some point in the future.

At the end of the day, this situation is going to work out positively for me.  But more importantly, I wanted to share the thought process I used to make the decision.  I think there are all kinds of situations like this that we find ourselves in.  We have the opportunity to make a decision, take a chance, or try something new, but we have to start with incomplete information.

If you take a second to think about what you’ve been learning and what else you’ve done that may be comparable, you can start to fill in some gaps.  By putting in some work to research different scenarios, you can fill even more.  Maybe just maybe, you can gain enough confidence to take a chance, to gain even more experience, and to have some fun learning along the way.

Don’t let the fear of the unknown keep you from growing and trying new things.  

Have you found yourself in similar situations?

Also, if you haven’t heard, I started a new Podcast called the WaxPackHero Sports Card Minute!  It’s available here directly on the site at the Podcast link at the top of the page, or on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, and TuneIn!  Check it out, let me know what you think, and tell your friends!