General Forum

The Road Forward

Not sure what the next step is to grow my collection. Here is my situation. I had about 1,500 cards sitting in my closet in both a plastic tote and two binders for at least 20 years (most of my cards are from the mid-90s) and never really looked at them. I was going to sell them but thought I should organize them first to see what I had. Well, the card bug bit me during the sorting and I started collecting again. I decided to narrow my focus to collecting only Baltimore Orioles and Washington Capitals cards. I started buying team sets in bulk on eBay (when I could get the price to around $0.10 - $0.20 per card with the shipping) or at the local card shop digging through the bins.

I found TCDB and that really helped get my collection together and organized. Now that all of my collection is loaded into the TCDB, I'm not sure what the next step is. How do I grow my collection? I have around 1,000 cards up on my trade list. However, I notice that not many other members need those cards, especially the members that have TONS of the cards in my wantlist. In order to grow my Orioles and Capitals collection, do I continue to buy teams sets and other cards here and there or do I buy any and all other team cards in bulk and enter them up for trade to get the cards on my wantlist?

What is the strategy, or strategies, that you have used to grow your collections? Thank you!

HAPPY COLLECTING!

My status is a bit similar. I really only purchase singles as I usually feel like I got kicked in the junk opening packs, especially since I really only collect one team outside of very few sets. I've found it helpful that if I am going to buy packs (and if I can find them) it's somewhat advantageous to open Topps flagship and Heritage products right at release because trading is heavy on those and they show up on a lot of wantlists (and I otherwise don't have much for trade bait unless it's a fellow team collector swapping doubles). Much better trading opportunities IMO. Of course some of the members you mentioned might be open to selling too, doesn't hurt to ask. 

I am also a team collector and I took a hiatus for about 10 years.  I have traded over 13,000 cards coming in and out.  I think the best way is to purchase new boxes and list the cards you aren't interested in.  You'll find most people want inserts/parallels.  Have fun this is a great community.

Trade On!

By the way I just checked out your art.  Absolutely beautiful, what a talent.

If you aren't able to move many cards because people here do not need/want them you can always use https://www.sportlots.com/ to sell them or buy the cards you want. 

In my experiences as a newish member to the site. People will trade oldish stuff for new stuff and it has worked well for me up to this point. Im working on 85/84/83 topps sets and people will trade for new cards to help complete their new sets. I would recommend buying hanger packs of topps (series 1, 2, update) that give 6 to 10 inserts and use that to trade (this is in regard to baseball cards). Set builders also like putting together topps heritage and ive had a few raid my stadium club dups. I know that when I work my way down to older sets my method wont work but Im ok with that cuz the hunt in the wild will start. 

When I began collecting again, I was in much the same situation with limited options to trade for much of anything. It wasn't until I bought a box of about 4k commons from a card shop owner in NJ for $25.00. There were plenty of 1981, 1982, 1986, and 1987 to get going with trading. I continued doing that for about a year and built up my inventory that way. Right now I'm benefitting from my $10.00 purchase of 15k hockey cards from another NJ card shop as those have literally been flying off my shelf - and making their way into my collection as I've enjoyed branching out to a sport I am basically clueless about.

Occasionally I will trade for "traders" and send what others need as an economical way to increase inventory.

When I got back into collecting about a year ago, I began buying player and team lots off of Ebay to add to my collection. Some of those cards turned into doubles that I'd then try to trade. I then started looking for large team lot deals on Ebay for any team, such that I could then turn much of those into traders here.

Since there are Ebay sellers out there trying to ship off a lot of new cards they don't want from breaks and such, one will be able to find these large lots soon enough with some searching. Shipping costs are the big drawback to this approach, unfortunately, so make sure to look into combined shipping if you can get it.

Your strategy can and will change as your collection grows.   Over the years I have used every strategy I could think of.  Trading:  used over 30 sites (this is the best)   Buying: Boxes, packs, singles, collections, large and small lots of my players/team from many sites and other places.

My strategy now is using this site and buying from COMC as that appears to be the best I can do as of now.   Due to the fact my wants are harder to find and most places do not have them.  But ALWAYS keeping an eye out on all other areas.  Just in case

If cost is a big dea, l check out all the places you can find. Local and through the internet before buying.

If you see cards you want, I would suggest messaging the user who has them.  They may see things on your list that might not be on their want list that they would be open to for a fair trade.

Another option is to purchase cheaper large lots off craigslist or facebook marketplace.  Often you can get large unsorted collectons for cheap.  You may only want 10% of the cards in it but the rest make for great trade.  The more you list, the more chance you have to find matches.

And speaking of matching, are you using the trade matching report to find users with the largest number of matches to you?  If you click "Collection" in the top right menu, scroll down a little bit and you'll see the option to run the trade match report.  It's a game changer for finding people to trade with.

same predictament . So i found tons of cards on Facebook market local. Someone cleaning out, etc. Problem with that now is Trading Cards Peaked with Covid and everyone thinks their older cards are worthy of $$$$. Look for Goodwill on line. Thet sell lots also.  When buying cards  from garage sales, FB local, Make sure the cards are in great condition, corners, edges, etc. no rubber band creases..

Good Luck . Its been great entertainment since discovering TCDB..