@staz
Singles on EBay.
Although my actual advice would be to run far, far away from anything currently occurring in the “hobby”.
I’ve collected/sold cards for the majority of my life and nothing that’s happened the last year is logical. Crap I had sitting online for years at dollars was now selling for hundreds seemingly overnight. The same products that were a gamble and sat until discounted by major retailers are now coming out at like x3-4 retail. Fueled by speculators reading articles about cards like the 1/1 Trout and Lebron Exquisite.
It seems that card investing has met at the cross section of nostalgia and hope and provided comfort for a lot of people during uncertain times.
If there seems to be a million different Bowman variants is because Topps, and especially Panini are currently milking the market for every cent they can get.
i can go on and on, but I’ll keep this from turning into a dissertation.
The advice I’d give anyone at this point is a reminder that no one referred to it as the “junk wax” age as it was occurring. At that time people were purchasing cards thinking they’d put their children through college.
The one exception and where there is actual “value” is retail. But like everything else in the hobby, that’s currently a shit show as well. It’s likely there are people in your area that stalk distributors and buy the entire supply as soon as it hits shelves, but if you can find retail cards purchase it. Sadly, that’s really the only cards I get to open at this point, because I can’t justify the insane prices. A lot of these products you can hit a top auto and still have it not be worth the box. I guess collecting favorite players/teams is never an awful idea either, but most stuff right now is at a premium.
Sorry if I’m a buzzkill, but I don’t see how you can’t be skeptical of how things got to where they currently are. If someone’s going to jump in I think you’ve got to treat it like the stock market, really become extremely knowledgeable and make investments meant to cash in as soon as possible, before the bubble bursts.