Why I'm Selling My Best Sports Cards (And I'm Happy About It) - Ep. 3.30

For years we've been told that the goal is to keep upgrading your sports card collections. Bigger cards, higher grades, more expensive slabs. But lately I realized that's not the kind of collection that I actually want. So I'm doing something that sounds completely backwards. I'm downgrading my collection foreign. I'm David Ganes. Build a better sports card collection with a real world budget. That's what we do in this channel. That's what we do in this podcast, the Happy Hobby Sports Cars newsletter, all of it at David Goness YouTube channel, we're all about improving your collection without a ton of money. Speaking of yu-gi-oh selling my PSA 51958 Topps Hank Aaron card so that I can eventually buy a 1957 Tops. Hank Aaron SGC 3. You lost two grades and you jumped over to a different slab service altogether. But I'm gaining my favorite Hank Aaron card. That's how I look at it. The the reverse negative pose. His first Topps color photograph and one of the most beautiful pink Aaron cards that Topps has ever produced. That's what I'm getting. It's a downgrade on the label, but it's a huge upgrade in my collection. See, I've actually been doing this for a little bit now. I've been selling my best cards over the past couple months and doing different things with the money. Some of it's going back in the card, some of it's going back in Beckett some of it's going back in the bank. All that. I guess Beckett and bank is the same thing, right? My 1992 top Stadium Club, Dream Team, Michael Jordan Beam Team, I should say gone. My Shohei rookie card, PSA 10 rookie gone. My tri trio, the Fleer trio, 2003 LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony gone. I've sold all three of those. That was a PSA 10. Those three cards were some of my favorites only because they were in price, extra valuable. But now I can sell those and and reap the benefits by getting other cards that I actually also want and still enjoy just as much. So we're going to talk about the seven nice benefits I get from downgrading my collection, why I'm selling my best sports cards and I'm happy about it. That's what we're going to talk about. So the first thing is you can cash in now while prices are still strong. Now, some of you that are new to the hobby might not remember this. Some of you combat collectors most likely remember this. There's actually two different points. When cards all of a sudden just busted in the early 90s, the junk wax era, all of a sudden just right down into the toilet. Card prices, card values once again. When the, the COVID everyone was stuck at home and the COVID pandemic had the card explosion that it had. Hobby explosion, same thing. After a few years, it kind of, it kind of got. It popped. Basically that balloon popped and prices plummeted again. Look at the pricing on card ladder. Look at the card sales volume on card ladder. This is throughout the history of card ladder. Several years dating through Covid. This is a ridiculous spike up. Can it, can it continue? Can it sustain this rise? I don't know. I don't think it's gonna. I did a video last year talking about how 2026 was going to be a hobby explosion. I called it a year ago. Starting to get a little skeptical about 2027 because cards are selling for way, way, way more than anyone was expecting. And you'd have to think that that means it's going to start coming down. So not that I'm saying sell your whole collection, but you can sell some of the cards now and get a nice price for them. A price you're going to be happy with now. Maybe it continues to go up, but this is a price you're happy with now. And you could take that money and do something with it. Buy other cards that you've been wanting to get. You basically could trade it for other cards. So that's what we're going to talk about here. Again, nobody knows what tomorrow's market's going to look like. If collectors are willing to pay strong prices today, why not let the market help finance the next stage of your collection? Think you're not leaving the hobby. You're simply moving money away from cards you like into cards you love. That's pretty good. The second thing, second benefit, you own more cards that you can actually enjoy. So a collection isn't like a stock portfolio. It's something you can actually look at when you buy cards. You actually have a thing, a tangible thing in your hand. If you'd rather own five vintage hall of Famers, cards of five different vintage hall of Famers rather than one expensive slab that's sitting in a safe somewhere, that's a perfectly valid collecting philosophy. Now, I'm not saying that the people that do collect and keep their cards in a, in a safety deposit box somewhere, I'm not saying they're wrong. That's how they like to collect. But I am saying if you're someone who has a card that's so expensive that you're like, well, you know, maybe I can turn this one into other ones, that's a good thing. One thing I love about this approach, it gives collectors permission to stop chasing someone else's definition of the right card. Maybe you'll Never own a 1952 Topps Willie Mays card. That's okay. If a 1961 Topps Willie Mays is the card that speaks to you, then let that be your Willie Mays representative. You also don't have to feel like every card has to be a PSA 10, a well loved PSA 3, or an SGC 4, or even a nice raw copy of a card that could tell just as meaningful of a story for your collection as any other card, you're not collecting for the registry or the resale value you're collecting for what makes you happy. Think about it that way. The third benefit, less financial stress. This is a point I think many comeback collectors can relate to. There's a certain dollar amount when a card stops being fun. Instead of thinking I can't wait to show this card, you're thinking I hope nothing ever happens to this card. And that's not how you want your hobby to feel. For instance, for myself, I no longer I'm getting rid of, I got rid of all cards over a thousand dollars. No longer I'm selling, I've got rid of them. Now I'm downgrading maybe into a lot more smaller cards. That's a good thing because number four, number four benefit you get better security and better peace of mind. So going along with the previous point, the more valuable your collection becomes, the more you worry, the more you worry about insurance, the more you worry about home security, more you worry about travel, about the mail, about keeping cards in storage. Sometimes selling one $2000 card and owning four $500 cards simply lets you sleep better. If you lost one of those $500 cards, that's not going to affect you like losing that $2,000 card. Also for me here, you're going to see soon see I've started putting some placeholder cards up in here. You're soon going to see my displays up here change. I'm just going to have one display, one display with my best cards. I'm excited about that. Part of the reason for that is I'm on YouTube. I don't I no longer enjoy having money shown on the screen for people to see and and ne' er do Wellers see So I've gotten rid of those cards. I'm gonna go down to one display. I've got some other stuff I want to put up, some other fun memorabilia type stuff. That's all I want. I just one-of-one We're gonna talk about cards. It doesn't have to be a. A thing where it's a show off thing. I don't want to show off. I'm done. I'm done showing off. It's not about showing off. It's about having a fun card collection. Hey, I thought I'd jump in here real quick. I wanted to remind you. Make sure you go download your free Happy Hobby Collection checklist, which you can find@ghana substack.com it's the happy Hobby Sports Card Collection Checklist. What is that you say? Well, this is the ultimate tool for sports car collectors and you get it free when you subscribe to the Happy Hobby Sports Card Newsletter. By the way, it's a free newsletter. You can subscribe for free. Are you ready to take control of your collection? Elevate it to that next level? Don't miss your chance on getting this exclusive checklist, a powerful digital spreadsheet designed by collectors for collectors. Claim yours instantly. Whenever you sign up for the Happy Happy Sports Card newsletter, you could easily track your sports cards on the go with our user friendly Google Sheet. Your entire collection is always at your fingertips. Whether you're at a local card shop, trade night, major card show. You can organize your best cards with the have tab. Like got it, have it, need it, all that stuff. This is your have tab. This is where you put all your best cards. Cards, the grades, all that good stuff. Any notes. You can build your dream want list here. What cards are you wanting? Put them in here. Stop wondering, do I already own this card? What do I look for at the next show? What do I want to get? So make sure you check it out. Go to ghanis substack.com and subscribe and you'll get an email where you can download the free Happy Hobby Collection checklist. The number five thing, you can chase more cool card stories. This is where you're, you know, if you're a type collector like myself, this is where my personality really gets into. I really get. Dig in. I love this part. Now if you're someone who I want 40 Shohei Otani rookie cards, all this number 700 from 2018, top series two. I want 40 of those cards. Yu-Gi-Oh I guess that's cool. I mean that's cool from a standpoint of you could afford to get all those cards or whatever, but it's still the same card 40 different times. I'm not like that. I don't get into it like that even since I was a kid. When I was a kid, I had several Ricky Henderson rookie cards, Several Cal Ripken Jr. Rookie cards. I took them all to, I saved one, took them all to the card shop and I traded them in for basically set fillers cards to fill my 1978 top set. Why 78? I don't know. But it's a set that spoke to me. So I had filled it in with that. Looking back, I'm like, man, that was a lot of Ricky Henderson cards I got rid of. There's a lot of Cal Ripken jars cards I could have used. Yu-Gi-Oh very true. But I also very much enjoyed putting that set together. That was a lot of fun. And as a kid, a dopey 11 year old, that was a way that I could turn cards into money into cards. Understand what I'm saying? So you can chase more stories. Instead of one expensive centerpiece, you can collect one favorite card from every flagship set, one favorite card from every hall of Famer, one representative card from each top set from each year, one favorite card from your favorite team's hall of Famers. Whether it's the baseball hall of Famers or maybe even just their own hall of Fame, the, you know, like the Tampa Bay Rays, retired card, retired players. Every purchase becomes another story. I think too many collectors spend time regretting the cards that they'll never own. Most likely I want to spend my time appreciating the cards that I do own. Instead of wishing for a six figure Willie Mays rookie, rather celebrate owning a beautiful Willie Mays card from later in his career. Fits my budget. Makes me feel happy every time I see it. So the same goes for condition. I don't need every card to be a PSA 10 to make my collection complete, I just need the card that feels like the right representative for me. Number six. Your collection becomes more personal. What I mean by that is instead of buying the best investment, you're buying your favorite photo, your favorite image, your favorite card design. Maybe it's your favorite photo within a favorite card design. Maybe it's your favorite memory about what happened with that card or about what happened with what was going on when that card came out, what was happening in your life when those cards came out, when your dad brought home some packs that you opened, what was going on? That's what you do. That's what you're collecting, Nobody else gets to decide what makes a card important to you. That's one of the best parts of collecting. The goal isn't to own the best card. The goal is to own your best card. What's the card that feels best to you? Finally, number seven. Let's do this. Number seven. It reminds you why you started collecting. When we came back to the hobby, most of us weren't dreaming about PSA registries. We remembered opening packs, looking through binders, trading cards with friends, finding a cool card we had never seen before. Maybe you're walking through a card show and you see a card, you're like, this card exists. This card is only eight bucks. I'm getting it. That's mine. 20 years later, you still remember how that made you feel when you saw it at a card show. For years, I collected cards. Now I feel like I'm building a collection. There's a big difference between those two. Instead of owning fewer and fewer cards that cost more and more, you end up owning more cards that tell more stories. Over the past few months, I've realized I don't need the most expensive card from every year. I just need the card that best represents that year for me. So I've been building what I'm calling my sports cards House of Representatives. That's got a nice ring to it, right? One card from every year over the past 75 years. We're talking baseball. One baseball card from every year over the past 75 years, going from 1951 through 20, 26, 75 years. Every card earned its place on this list. Every card tells a story. So I'm going to do several episodes on this topic over the next few weeks, and I'm going to do several episodes on each decade, basically one episode per decade over the past 75 years, sharing what cards made it in, which cards are on deck, and which cards didn't quite make the cut. Next week, I'll open the doors for my sports cards House of Representatives and show you who has been elected. So come back then and make sure you have a happy hobby.