13 Rules for Dealing Cards in 2024
Summary
After a turbulent 2023, the rules for 2024 will have some changes! T206, vintage vs. modern, scarcity, grails, set building, and even the size of items. It all matters!
As each year winds down, it’s worthwhile to evaluate what did and did not work in that given year. And just like the stock market, every year has different nuances and different trends that dominated. I have come up with 13 rules to live by as a card dealer in 2024. This will impact the business operations as a card dealer of Ogg’s Cards LLC because some of these efforts and rules are certainly different than what has been seen in 2023 and as a private collector, seller and investor in prior years. While I have personally been buying and selling cards over the last decade, I have also owned some great cards for 15 to 20 years. I was also a teenage card dealer back in the 1980s and even as a young adult in the early 1990s during the Junk Wax era. 2023 was the first formal year of operations for Ogg’s Cards LLC.
This doesn’t even make for my full year of shows, but this is a list of card shows attended and/or set up in a booth in 2023 — Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Conroe, Sugarland, Chicago, White Plains (NY), Burbank, Strongsvillle and a few others.
The economy is in a different place heading into 2024 versus a year and two years earlier. The modern market is weak, and much of the vintage market has been softer than earlier in the year. Higher interest rates, consumer liquidity, a flood of new cards to chase, the aftermath of inflation, the ongoing geopolitical risks, and less robust jobs market all play a role.
Here are 13 rules for card shows and for dealing cards that I am living by in 2024!
1) More Targeted Card Shows in Texas
There are too many card shows and conventions competing for the same local money. Ogg’s Cards will still set up shows with an average of one to two shows a month. There are just too many shows competing for the same money in and around Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and other nearby locales. Some are great for vintage but others are not. Do fewer regional shows.
2) More Out-of-State Card Shows
Ogg’s Cards is already committed to the 2024 National in Cleveland, but other shows are already in the process of being booked. Most likely it will be four or five shows where setting up a booth will be a focus.
3) Moving Beyond the T206 Card Chase!
It’s time to give up on the endless quest for T206 cards that are still raw and able to be graded. This was easy money before 2022 and the supply seemed endless. That supply of raw T206 cards has finally started to dry up. Unfortunately, the same is true for all tobacco era cards. The supply of old raw cards isn’t gone but it’s much more limited than it used to be. Look at this T206 HOF image below. This was my inventory earlier this year and every one of these were sent in for grading but now only about 5 remain in inventory.
4) No More Complete Sets!
The chase to build, complete and deal with complete sets has been very fun. And, to be quite frank, set builders are the backbone of vintage collectors in the sports collectibles hobby. The reality is that sets just take up too much room. Within six-weeks I received two 1971 Topps baseball sets. One was in a binder. One was in top-loaders and will take an estimated 15 hours of work to move into a binder. Sets take up too much space in a closet and on a card show table. Many set builders do not want to carry around a 10-pound set of cards in a binder at a show either. And set-building inventory isn’t an efficient use of capital when it comes to inventory turns.
5) Inventory Management
Perhaps the hardest aspect of card shows is dealing with inventory on a live basis. What comes in, what price, and the source should be easy to handle. It’s not when there are multiple buyers and sellers at your table. Any cards under $250 will not just be considered bulk inventory. While I will always strive to have great high-end vintage cards in a showcase, more room will be given to value boxes under the $100 price point in 2024. It’s just a sign of the times in the economy.
6) Always Having Grails
This may be part of inventory management on the surface, but so-called “Grail” cards always attract eyeballs. Rookie cards and early career cards of Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Clemente, Koufax, Robinson all attract eyeballs — and cards of legendary greats like Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, Gehrig, Johnson, Mathewson and others. Unfortunately, these are expensive and keeping the right inventory mix is a challenge.
7) Keeping Some Modern Era Grails
While Ogg’s Cards is predominantly focused on vintage sports (and non-sports), there are just certain modern cards that are worth keeping in the mix. These also keep younger buyers around. The trick — not getting caught in a bad month or when the players aren’t as popular.
8) Being a More Aggressive Buyer
It is easy to pass on many lots that come up for sale. They can end up being too much work for the price. But when a lot ot a collection (or even a grail) comes up to the table for sale, it’s time to use the dealer network in place to move more lots of cards.
9) More Personal Contacts Ahead of and After Card Shows
Having been a stock and bond broker as a young adult, keeping sales books is easy enough. Now it’s all about emails, calls and texts about new purchases and what I am taking to a card show. If you are on my list of contacts, you will have more contact from me ahead of card shows and when grails are acquired.
10) Size Matters!
For better or worse, large format items are simply harder to deal with. Similar to the issues of how large and heavy a complete set of cards can be, the same can be true for framed photos, jerseys, helmets, bats, and even baseballs and larger format cabinet-size cards. These will not be ignored, but they will not be a focal part of the showcases in 2024. They just take up too much space no matter how beautiful they are. The fight for cubic feet is a fight long before and long after a card show. They have to be kept somewhere.
11) Taking Time Off (and Other Business!)
It is easy to spend countless hours looking through social media, eBay and emails looking for new card offerings that have come up for sale. Ditto for endless reviews of auction catalogs and online auction sites. That can lead to “where did my day go?” far too many times a month. There are too many weekly, monthly and spot auctions from too many auction houses. And as there are too many shows to deal with, there are just too many sales events to deal with on a basis that allows for sanity and organization. Some opportunities will just have to be missed.
12) Better Social Media Focus
While card shows are a main focus, there is too much buying and selling that takes place on social media to ignore. And it is too easy and too important to not be posting about inventory ahead of card shows. Too many instances where repeat buyers and online followers said “I saw your announcement and wanted to come by!” have been noticed.
13) Less is More, But More Frequently
Posting news and making public announcements in the “News” section is important. As a financial publisher for about 20 years, it’s easy to go on and on. There will be more news announcements from Ogg’s Cards in 2024, but they will be short and to the point. This will include industry announcements AND inventory announcements.
In Conclusion…
So this is me trying to keep it real and trying to keep the business and collection efforts more focused in 2024. Even though the collectibles and sports cards business is the most fun business I could imagine being in, this is still a business and has to be run as such. And there are other things that have to be done over the course of a year and a life as well. Thanks for helping Ogg’s Cards LLC in its debut year in 2023 and here is to a great 2024 and beyond.
