“But what cards should I invest in?”

It’s the most common question I get… and it’s the right one to ask.

Even if you’re absolutely sold on Justin Herbert, which of his 100,000+ unique cards should you buy?

Multiply that by every player out there, and the options are astonishingly vast.

So let me help you break it down.

FOMO is real.

You might be a basketball nerd (guilty!), but then you see IG videos of someone making a fortune on an Ohtani card so you start looking up his card market.

Resist!

You could honestly pick ONE card brand from ONE sport and turn it into a good side income.

Trying to stay on top of too much at a time is tough.

Narrow your focus and master one sport first.

If the player isn't already a star — or doesn't have a clear path to becoming one — look elsewhere.

That's the cruel nature of the hobby.

Mid-tier players who are well into their careers just don’t have any hype. A good example is someone like OG Anunoby. It took a Finals run to bump value, but even then, the hobby is more focused on Brunson and Towns.

Go after the stars, or the young guys flashing top-tier potential. Everyone else is basically DOA.

At any given time, only a handful of players suck up the real attention on a team or in a league.

Take the Dodgers. Incredible roster top to bottom. But Ohtani absorbs almost all of the hobby's attention.

Then there's Andy Pages, who’s quietly on pace for 35 home runs, 144 RBIs, and nearly 11 WAR. That's an MVP-caliber season. And almost nobody in the hobby cares, because he's probably the 7th- or 8th-most popular player on his team.

Before you buy, ask yourself: is there actual room for this player in the hobby right now? Great stats aren't enough if the spotlight is pointed somewhere else.

(Stephon Castle is another good example - I bet his hobby love gets mostly left behind once Dylan Harper becomes the best guard on the team)

When I’m looking to invest in rookies, I almost always start with the “flagship” brands.

Starting this year, baseball, football, and basketball are all Topps Chrome. In previous years, look at Prizm for football and basketball.

In these sets, even base rookies carry value (PSA 10 Topps Chrome Shohei Ohtanis are nearing $1k).

And if you're working with a smaller budget, a PSA 9 or even a raw copy of a flagship rookie is still a smarter buy than a cheaper set that doesn’t carry value.

Go where the demand already exists.

I learned this one the hard way.

I used to buy cheap inserts thinking I could flip them for $3–$5. Those cards sit. They pile up in your eBay store and in your physical inventory, and eventually, you're just annoyed at yourself.

You don't have to spend hundreds on a Downtown. But there are desirable cards in the $30–$50 range that move quickly and consistently. The sweet spot is finding cards that feel attainable to buyers but aren't so cheap that everyone and their brother has one listed.

A great place to start is to look at case hits from the more popular sets.

Autos are always a good play, as they appeal to just about everyone.

You know the player has held the card (unless it’s a sticker!) and there’s a built-in scarcity because players can only sign so many.

Here are a few things that lower the value of an auto:

Parallels are a great way to find a more valuable version of a card without jumping to a completely different price tier.

Say you're looking at a Topps Chrome rookie, but the base PSA 10 isn't worth flipping at current prices. No problem — there are multiple refractors at different price points, and they carry more demand than the base.

One caution: if the base is $2 and the parallel is $3, you still have a cheap card. Being a parallel doesn't give it any magic juice. You want parallels that carry real value on their own, not just a marginal bump over something nobody wanted in the first place.

"Base is dead" gets thrown around a lot in the hobby.

And for most players, I don’t mess with base.

But for genuinely generational talents, like Ohtani, Mahomes, LeBron, and SGA, base cards just keep climbing. Even ones with massive pop counts. The international appeal, the constant media attention, the highlight-reel plays — it all translates into sustained demand that doesn't behave like a normal card market.

I recently picked up a Wemby PSA 10 Prizm base for around $280. Three weeks later, that card is sitting at $400.

Would I buy him right now with hype at its peak? Probably not. But I also wouldn't be shocked if prices never come back down. That's what generational looks like.