There’s two different ways that I ship cards, and they cost two different amounts.

Types of Shipping

The first type of shipping I offer is the eBay Standard Envelope. This is sometimes referred to as a PWE in the hobby, which stands for Plain White Envelope. Ebay offers a limited tracking service, in partnership with the United States Postal Service (USPS) that currently costs $0.64 in postage to ship an envelope with a couple of cards anywhere in the United States. You can only use it for cards that were sold for less than $20. It’s honestly a great deal. But there are more costs than just the postage. Let’s look at how I pack an eBay Standard Envelope:

eBay Standard Envelope ($1.11)

In the image gallery above, you can see that there are lots of packing materials to make sure that the card arrives safely. Here’s a list (and the cost) of each of those items:

• Penny Sleeve ($0.006) – despite their name, I buy these in bulk, so I get them for about 1/2 a cent each.
• Toploader ($0.08 – $0.40) – these rigid card holders are great for keeping a card safe. The price varies by “thickness”, but I carry 35pt, 60pt, 100pt, 140pt, and 190pt, which covers almost every card I’ve encountered.
• Team Bag ($0.03) – These little bags are very versatile, and they hold 1-4 toploaded cards inside with an adhesive seal over the top.
• Envelopes ($0.09) – I use the ones with an adhesive seal so I don’t have to lick them, you can probably find envelopes for cheaper, but this is a good option.
• Shipping Label ($0.03) – I already have a thermal label printer (Brother QL-1100), and I’d been using Brother’s labels, which were over $0.10 each. These are an excellent alternative.
• Red Stamp ($0.0001) – One stamper will give you thousands of bright red stamps on your envelopes. It costs $10 total.
• Do Not Bend Stickers ($0.007) these cost less than a penny, and are a bold reminder to treat the envelope gently.

If we total that up, it costs me between $0.30 – $0.60 to package a baseball card for shipping in an envelope, in addition to the postage. Add in the $0.64 for postage, and you’re between $0.94 and $1.24 for your entire shipping costs.

So if I sell a card for $0.99, charge $1.11 for shipping, and it costs me $0.94, that means I make $1.16, right? 

  $0.99
+ $1.11
—————
  $2.10
-  $0.94
—————
  $1.16

WRONG.

We haven’t talked about eBay’s fees yet.

eBay takes a variable percentage of every sale depending on your “seller rating.” I am a Top Rated seller, so my fees are discounted by 10% over the standard fees. Let’s take a look at the fees I am charged for a $0.99 card sale. In the image below is eBay’s breakdown of the fees.

The first thing you should notice is that they take their 13.25% off of the total of sale price, shipping price, and sales tax. After my Top Rated discount, those fees are $0.26. But they also take an additional $0.30 as a Final Value Fee, which makes my total eBay fees on a $0.99 card add up to $0.56.

So while we thought we might make $1.16 on this sale, we actually only make $0.60.

I sell plenty of cards for $0.99. Sometimes an auction never goes anywhere (that’s my starting price), and sometimes I’ve got piles of base cards, and $0.99 is the lowest amount eBay will let you sell something for. It hurts to give eBay half of the money for the sale.

Let’s look at the other kind of shipping I offer: the bubble mailer.

Bubble Mailer with Tracking ($4.99)

Also referred to as BMWT, the bubble mailer is used for cards that cost more than $20, or that a buyer really wants to protect carefully during its postal voyage. I will also upgrade a buyer to this shipping level if they bought several cards from me at the same time, to combine shipping for them. This uses the standard USPS Ground Advantage rates, which for shipping from Ohio, range between $3.50 – $5.00. This shipping rate is variable depending on the location of the buyer, so you have to take the wins with the losses on this. 

The beginning of this packing process is the same, but for the extra money, we offer extra protection. I’ve been using the plastic Ding Defend cards, but two pieces of cardboard will also suffice here. Here’s the list of materials and costs used for this type of shipping:

• Penny Sleeve ($0.006) – despite their name, I buy these in bulk, so I get them for about 1/2 a cent each.
• Toploader ($0.08 – $0.40) – these rigid card holders are great for keeping a card safe. The price varies by “thickness”, but I carry 35pt, 60pt, 100pt, 140pt, and 190pt, which covers almost every card I’ve encountered.
• Team Bag ($0.03) – These little bags are very versatile, and they hold 1-4 toploaded cards inside with an adhesive seal over the top.
• Bubble Mailer Envelope ($0.23) – I like the black ones, but these come in lots of colors. I do wish they were cheaper, though.
• Rigid Card Protectors ($0.22) – these cost 11 cents each, but I use two of them. They make the presentation look very professional, and have resulted in many positive reviews.
• Shipping Label ($0.03) – I already have a thermal label printer (Brother QL-1100), and I’d been using Brother’s labels, which were over $0.10 each. These are an excellent alternative.
• Do Not Bend Stickers ($0.007) these cost less than a penny, and are a bold reminder to treat the envelope gently.

If we total that up, it costs me between $0.61 – $0.93 to package a baseball card for shipping in an bubble mailer, in addition to the postage. Add in the approximately $4 for postage, and you’re between $4.50 and $6 for your entire shipping costs.

So if I sell a card for $20, charge $4.99 for shipping, and the shipping costs me $4.61, that means I make $20.38, right? 

 $20.00
+ $4.99
—————
 $24.99
-  $4.61
—————
 $20.38

WRONG.

We haven’t talked about eBay’s fees yet. As you saw in the previous example, I pay 13.25% of each purchase (sale price + shipping price + sales tax), minus 10% of that total, plus a final value fee of $0.30. That comes out to $2.69 in fees, for a total take-home profit of $17.69. While this is a much better final percentage of my sale price, it’s still a ton of money to give eBay for every transaction.

There HAS to be a better way, right?

How do you ship cards? How do you like to receive your cards when they are shipped to you? I’ve seen every possible variation, and it’s humorous how much (and how little) thought some people give when protecting your precious little cardboard rectangle.

I’ve gotten into the habit of buying a single case of hobby boxes for the Topps baseball cards that I want to collect. It’s a fun way to build a set, find some interesting cards, and track just how profitable (or unprofitable) it was.

This time, I ripped a case of 2023 Topps Update Jumbo Hobby Boxes. There are 6 boxes in the case. Each box contains a guaranteed autograph card, as well as 2 relic cards, which are generally cards that contain a piece of a player’s uniform or bat, or a manufactured patch celebrating an achievement, like an MVP award or World Series win. There’s also all sorts of insert cards for different miniature sets. I’ll cover those a little later.

What did I get?

The first thing to note is that when you rip multiple boxes like this, you’re going to end up with a TON of base cards. On average, I have approximately 8.5 of each of the 330 base cards. (Some were as few as 7, others were as many as 10). I created 6 complete sets from these cards, and I’ll sell the rest as singles on eBay. Don’t get excited, these complete sets sold for about $35 each before fees, shipping, and materials.

Beyond that, I unpacked lots of unique cards from these packs. Foil parallels, autographs, inserts, and relic cards. For my own personal collection (PC), I’m pretty selective. I’ll take any cool Cleveland Guardians cards, but I’ve really made the decision that unless it’s a mega-star or the hottest rookie, I’m probably better off selling it while the hype is hot.

The Best of the Best

Here’s a look at the best cards I decided to keep. This is in addition to one entire complete set of the base cards and inserts.
I also collect the entire set of Silver Pack Chrome cards from each set.

MLMA-CC – Corbin Carroll – Arizona Diamondbacks – 2023 Topps Update Major League Material Autographs /50

AA-53 – Roger Clemens – Boston Red Sox 2023 – Topps Update All Aces Autographs /10

Juan Soto – San Diego Padres – 2023 Topps Update Sketch Card 1/1

88US-36 – Aaron Judge – New York Yankees – 2023 Topps Update ’88 Topps Gold /50

HL-42 – Chipper Jones – Atlanta Braves – 2023 Topps Heavy Lumber

BIG-4 – Adley Rutschman – Baltimore Orioles – 2023 Topps Update Oversized Topps Big Gold /50

The Stuff I Sold

Overall, I sold 123 individual cards, and 5 base sets for $631.78. You can see the entire list here. Keep in mind that the “profit” column is the actual money I received for each sale, after shipping materials, postage, and eBay fees. On average, I keep about 78% of what the cards sell for.

This is the first time I’ve written a post like this, and I’m curious about what you’d like to know in future posts. Leave your question in the comments, and I’ll be sure to answer them. I’m in the process of going through a case of 2023 Topps Archives currently, and I’m looking forward to 2023 Topps Chrome Update, and 2023 Topps Stadium Club in its delayed form in January 2024.

Draft Kings

If you want to follow along with my bets each day, create an account on Draft Kings. I’m @jeffblankenburg.

Results

Team Summary

Draft Kings

If you want to follow along with my bets each day, create an account on Draft Kings. I’m @jeffblankenburg.

Results

Team Summary

Also, for whatever reason, I bet on the Dodgers again. Even though they won this time, I need to stick to my “don’t bet on the bottom 5” rule.

Draft Kings

If you want to follow along with my bets each day, create an account on Draft Kings. I’m @jeffblankenburg.

Results

Team Summary

Draft Kings

If you want to follow along with my bets each day, create an account on Draft Kings. I’m @jeffblankenburg.

Results

Team Summary

One of my rules is that I won’t bet on a team that is in my bottom 5 of profitability. As of today, I’ve lost the most money on some obvious teams: the Royals, Nationals, and Athletics. But there are two more that are surprising: the Dodgers and the Angels. They won’t see another bet until someone else replaces them.

Draft Kings

If you want to follow along with my bets each day, create an account on Draft Kings. I’m @jeffblankenburg.

Results

Team Summary

We are creeping up on 50%, thanks in no small part to the Pittsburgh Pirates winning ways! (Not something I thought I’d be saying this season.)

Another thing I’ve been thinking about is adding a parlay of all of the games every day, again for only $1. This is the second time I’ve come very close to getting all of the games right, and the odds for something like this are pretty huge. I just quickly ran through the games for April 17, and picked the favorite most of the time. (There are 17 games tonight.). If I get them all correct (which is highly unlikely), a $1 bet would win $21,539. For $1 a day, this seems like I might hit it once during the season. Do you think it’s worth it?

Draft Kings

If you want to follow along with my bets each day, create an account on Draft Kings. I’m @jeffblankenburg.

Results

Team Summary

We did get half the games right, but the profit just wasn’t there. There were lots of pitching aces on the mound, so I took lots of the favorites. We can do better today.

Draft Kings

If you want to follow along with my bets each day, create an account on Draft Kings. I’m @jeffblankenburg.

Results

Team Summary

One thing I haven’t figured out yet is how to remember to come back and wager on games that weren’t available first thing in the morning. The SF vs. DET game was skipped today for that reason.

Draft Kings

If you want to follow along with my bets each day, create an account on Draft Kings. I’m @jeffblankenburg.

Results

Team Summary