I remember it like it was yesterday. March 12, 2015. One of my best friends sent me a message telling me that the Topps trading card company had just released a new app on iOS and that app was a Star Wars collectible card trading game. At that time, a mere nine months before we were about to finally have a new trilogy of Star Wars films, the two words that meant the most to me were “Star Wars” – with “collectible” being a close third. I immediately downloaded the app to see what it was all about and within minutes I had created my account and picked the username Lihp (not realizing that this is the name I would go on to be known for over the course of the next couple of years) and I proceeded to dive into the app. The basis seemed simple – get free daily credits, open packs and complete sets for award cards. I had missed the first day on the app and didn’t realize how crucial this would be at first because, had I only been a member one day earlier, I could have been even better off than I ended up being in the long run.
With my fresh daily credits ready to be spent I started ripping open some digital packs. With the 25,000 daily credit allotment I started by opening packs that cost me 1,000 credits each. I pulled my packs and then put the app away until the credits refreshed the next day. I found out in due time that I had pulled a week one insert in my first day of pack pulling, one that would go on to be known as Sith Connection. The card had pictures of Darth Maul and Darth Sidious featured on a blue background. Week one cards would turn out to be highly sought after and highly valuable for years to come and had, I been on the app day one as I mentioned, I could have had a shot at the very first insert ever – the Holy Grail of Star Wars Card Trader; Vintage Han.
Week one cards would go on to be worth hundreds of dollars and though in time I had my hands on all of them, they were never more valuable than they were in the beginning.
This brings me to how I went on to make so much money selling digital cards that I was able to pay for a trip to Aruba among many other things. The main reason that week one inserts were so valuable was due to the fact you needed them to complete the ten-week set (and ultimately the thirty-week) marathon sets to receive the award. The kicker was that as the weeks went on there were more and more users on the app and so Topps would up the card counts for each drop. This made earlier ones in the set more valuable and harder to come by thanks to their lower card count. By week three I was hoarding credits for big drops and collecting as many in the sets as I could in hopes of trading for the coveted Vintage Han.
While I was never able to trade for the card myself, my friend was and that was when we began to work together to achieve sets to snag the award cards. We came so close to putting together the first ten-week Vintage set, but due to a technical malfunction caused by too many new users for the servers to handle, we ended up coming short. However, we had Han, and this was something. We then found out that people were buying digital cards on eBay to complete their sets. This made us realize one of two things.
- We could buy the cards we needed to complete the set or…
- We could sell what we had to suckers looking to complete theirs
We went with option 2 and never looked back!
I wish I could remember specifics, but I think we sold our first seven digital cards for nearly $300. It was absurd. How could people be spending money like this on digital cards that you technically have no ownership of? At any time, Topps could shut down the app and everything you have is gone. For this reason, spending money on the app seemed silly and selling as much as I could began to consume my life. This was the only “video game” I played for quite a while.
The deeper into the world of Star Wars Card Trader that I went the more I would learn. I joined a group of friends that I met on the app and we called ourselves Team Steve. We called ourselves this because Steve was the first name of the guy that Topps originally had running the app. Though in retrospect I’m not sure that anyone could have done a better job, we were fairly brutal towards him and the bad decisions they made on the app. From members of the group I would learn how to get so many free credits that I would always have something to sell. By downloading other apps and completing free trials you could stockpile credits on multiple phones. When a new card or set would drop I would use all the credits on the phone, transfer the cards to my main account and then wipe the phone back to factory settings and start all over again. At the height of this I was carrying up to seven phones with me everywhere that I went.
Eventually Topps began to wise up to this and started making the better cards available behind a pay wall. In the early stages you could still make money by buying and selling cards, because at the end of the day it’s a gamble. You pay for a pack and hope you get a good pull that someone will want to pay you even more for. My friend Dustin and I decided to split a pack and sell whatever we pulled. We paid $100 for that pack and pulled a Obi Wan Kenobi card that we ended up selling for nearly triple that. Of course, there will always be eBay and PayPal fees, but we made a nice profit nontheless.
At times we would use this power for good. Team Steve worked together in order to receive a monument card awarded to the top hoarders of the card. This card was put to good use – we sold it on eBay and all of the profits went to a charity for breast cancer research. Again, the details of the dollar amount are hazy, but we were able to make hundreds of dollars to donate. The winner of the auction even ended up joining our group and a new friend was made.
For another year or so my life’s work became pulling digital cards and selling them on eBay. Since it was such a time suck, I wanted to make sure my wife reaped some of the benefits as well. I opened a separate bank account and decided that everyday the first $10 that I made in profit was going into this account. When we had enough I was going to take her to Aruba. Less than one year later I made good on that promise and we went to Aruba for her birthday using only the first $10 a day of the profits.
Over the last year or so Topps has figured out ways to pretty much make selling a hobby at best, and now I make a few dollars here and there. Instead of $10 a day I’m lucky to make $10 a week. At one point I was even buying other accounts in bulk and piecing them off making tons of money. Now I’m looking to sell my account instead. One last score before I say goodbye to the app for good. Though the money has stopped coming in, the friendships still remain. It’s kind of sad to think that it’s just about over, but the money I made during that time was real and, though it feels like it was a fairy tale, the experience was very real. Maybe someday selling digital cards individually will become lucrative again, but until that day comes does anyone want to buy an account? I’ll make sure you get a good deal!
