First Quarter 2026 Business Review
Breaking down our most profitable 3-months ever.
Q1 was our best quarter ever, with net margins of 28.7% compared to our average which is closer to 20%.
While we'd love to take full credit, the rising card market played a big role — Pokémon, Ohtani, and Wembanyama all rose in value during this period. That said, our grading results were very strong and we have continued to improve in targeting cards in the $1,000 + range, which really moves the needle.
Here's the full breakdown.
Average Sale Price Trends
Our average sale price was over $400 as we continue to be more aggressive buying and selling more expensive cards. Looking at April, our average purchase price for new inventory hit an all time high, so it seems like this trend is here to stay.
At the same time, we take what the market gives us. In other words, if we’re seeing tons of cards that are profitable for $75 a piece, we will buy these aggressively. Still, we are generally more comfortable than ever buying single cards for as much as $5k to grade and sell.
Most Bought & Most Sold Players
Most Bought: Shohei Ohtani
We bought 53 Ohtani cards, ranging from $70 to $1,500. Most of these will be sold in Q2, as our turnaround time from purchase date to sell date is about 3 months on average.
Specifically, we bought a lot of Topps paper rookie cards. The Expected Value math suggested that these were highly profitable, but that was assuming that we achieve a 40% average gem rate. Honestly, the condition on the ones we bought was generally not great, and we haven’t gotten any grading results back yet. I’m curious and a little anxious to see how these do.
Most Sold: Drake Maye
We bought so many Drake Maye cards during his breakout campaign and subsequent playoff run. His market fell quickly after he lost in the Super Bowl, but we’ve still done very well on his cards overall.
In total, we sold 17 Drake Maye cards from anywhere between $70 and $1,100. As alluded to above, these are mostly cards that were bought in winter 2025. The most sold card was his 2024 Prizm Silver rookie card, which we were buying seemingly on a daily basis late last year.
Grading Results
In total, 68.4% of cards graded as 10s. In our pregrade, we projected about a 48% Gem Rate. This implies that PSA gave generous grades, but we generally do outperform our pregrade estimates. We’re actually making specific efforts to increase our projected Gem Rate to make it more in line with our actual results.
Worst card to grade PSA 10: Shohei Ohtani Bowman Chrome
Main Defect:
Notes:
We actually have a full post about our decision making when we decided to submit this card. We thought it had just a 20% chance of grading as a PSA 10 given these scratches (or indents?) on the back. At the end of the day, we decided to submit it, and we were rewarded with one of our largest profits of the year so far.
Best card to not grade PSA 10: Mewtwo VSTAR
Notes:
Why did this grade as a PSA 9? Beats me. The only defect we noted was that the front centering wasn’t perfect, but at the same time, it was well within PSA’s guided range of 55/45. Grading is subjective, but these kinds of things usually balance out over time.
Biggest Gain & Loss
Biggest Gain: 2024 Topps Gilded Yamamoto Auto
Profitability:
Net Sale Price | $4,650
Purchase Price | $1,300
Grading Cost | $300
Net Profit | $3,050
Notes:
We actually bought this in November after the Dodgers had already won the World Series, but Yamamoto still got a nice bump in price during the offseason. This was a risky purchase — we bought this for over $1,000 without seeing pictures of the card outside of the top loader, which is not something we usually do. In this case, I’m glad we made an exception.
Biggest Loss: 2024 Downtown Duos Jayden Daniels / Terry McLaurin
Profitability:
Net Sale Price | $630
Purchase Price | $1,000
Grading Cost | $70
Net Loss | $440
Notes:
The Jayden Daniels market really tanked last year and early this year, as he dealt with an injury plagued season (but also wasn’t great even when healthy). We sold this card in January, but Daniels’s market actually has been rising lately as collectors look ahead to the 2026 season.
Takeaways:
In April, we continued buying a lot of Shohei Ohtani, but Pokémon Ascended Heroes has really emerged as our top grading target. As I write this in May, we don’t have one amazing target based on Expected Value that’s leading to a lot of purchases, but that’s sure to change as the month goes on.
The biggest question mark to repeating this result is whether or not the card market can continue increasing in value. I’m not counting on it. Our goal is to approach this business like the market is going to be neutral, meaning that it will stay steady. This means that when the market rises, we make unusually high profit, but when it falls, we make less than usual.
While I hope cards can just keep increasing in value, my best guess is that Q2 won’t quite be on the same level as Q1. With that said, it’s looking like a lot of our results will hinge on the strength of the Pokémon market, and of course on our PSA grading results.
Top Auctions Ending Today
This is a short compiled list of auctions that could be profitable to buy, grade and resell.
2023 Shohei Ohtani All Aces #AA-11
2023 Shohei Ohtani All Aces #AA-11
2023 Prizm Stephon Castle Red Sparkle #234
2023 Topps Midnight Victor Wembanyama Auto
We may receive commission for any completed purchases, at no cost to you. Thanks for supporting BCG Cards!