Are Pokémon Cards a Good Investment? An Honest Look
The mechanics left out of the cards-went-up-10x stories: survivorship bias, the spread, eBay's 13.25% fee, grading costs and holding a thing that pays nothing.
Tag
Fees
Local card shop or eBay: what each route actually nets
A mid-size collection worth $2,400 on eBay nets about $1,640 after fees, postage and supplies, across roughly 37 hours of work. Here is the full arithmetic.
How to Sell a Pokémon Collection Without Losing Money
eBay and TCGplayer take almost the same cut. The real cost of selling a collection yourself is the transaction count — here is the arithmetic.