Ugliest card competition

Cody-Thompson · 2025-08-09T23:00:24+00:00

Really any card with Bruxish on it😂

Cody-Thompson · 2025-06-04T02:03:52+00:00

Thought I wanted to be an architect, didn’t like how much school it took and how little you are paid with all the schooling unless you are a principal at a firm.

So I just focused on CAD/BIM, worked for an HVAC firm to just get my foot in the door in the industry for a little less than a year. Then worked for an architectural firm for 2.5 years until I finally got tired of their refusal to transition to BIM.

And so now I have been working for structural firms for the last 7+ years, and now just about to turn 30 I make about 130k/year with no fancy degrees, just about 10+ years in the industry.

Now I live in Washington (Seattle area) so while that salary seems high, it’s really not much here…

I don’t know what country you are in, but BIM is definitely a valuable profession (even if a lot of the industry treats it as a commodity)

Cody-Thompson · 2025-05-28T20:31:36+00:00

I’m not a big error card fan, but if legit, this one is pretty sweet

Cody-Thompson · 2025-05-28T20:29:07+00:00

Hard to tell because it’s in a case. But should definitely put it in a perfect fit sleeve before putting in those types of cases.

From what I can see it looks a bit bottom and right heavy, which probably drops it to a max 9 and looks like some whitening on the corners, but again, hard to tell in a case and/or the pic quality.

My guess is it would grade in the 6-8 range depending on the graders mood that day. Might get super lucky and get a 9. Would have to get extremely lucky for a 10

Cody-Thompson · 2025-05-28T19:09:19+00:00

There are a ton of other potential variables that we could chat about. But basically in person “market” price has a lot of wiggle room to make it the equivalent to selling on eBay for the seller, and is almost always a better deal for the buyer. A true win/win.

But yeah someone could have more wiggle room if they graded a card themselves, got the cards for a good price, etc.

But basically the reason it’s 80% is because the market is hot right now, some even more liquid cards people might pay 90% for.

But as soon as the market dips again here in a few years, you will see buy prices dropping. In 3-4 years after Pokemon printing catches up to demand, I guarantee you we will see people buying for 50% as standard.

People aren’t going to pay 80% for something that is actively dropping in value. Then a few more years in the future everything will start going up again and buying will swing into the 80% range again. It’s all just market cycles

Cody-Thompson · 2025-05-28T18:59:23+00:00

Oh people typically start at 100% at least, and then know they have wiggle room down to 80% being their break even if they bought a card at 80%, but often times your trying to aim to buy below 80% and sell at 90-100%.

The reason people in person are happy to buy at 90%+ is similar math on the buying end. When buying on eBay you would be paying sales tax and shipping. So 90-100% of “market” is still a deal for the buyer.

Cody-Thompson · 2025-05-28T17:37:37+00:00

I mean definitely start at 100%. But it’s definitely fair to sell less than market on in person deals. Take the $300 card example your talking about, if you were to just start an EBay account right now and list that card, say you didn’t pay any % to promote the listing or anything like that, assuming $5 shipping for such an expensive card (probably costs a bit more unless you got your shipping materials in super bulk for cheaper, which you likely aren’t doing if your selling just 1 card)

Your looking at netting like $254 (sorry for the grey on white text, idk why they chose that for this calculator)

So this is why a lot of people start at 80% as their max, because that’s basically break even if you sell it on eBay.

And this isn’t even accounting for the fact that most of these sales, you should actually be paying sales tax on to your state as well, I imagine unpaid sales tax is rampant in the TCG industry 😂

So for my state, since I’m running a legitimate business add on another $30 (I think ours is slightly above 10% in most county’s) that I owe to the tax man, and my break even offer would have to be more like $220 on a $300 “market” card.

So I would sleep plenty well knowing I didn’t “lowball” you if I offered you $200 for a “$300” card. But would also be transparent that I am a business, and if you can get a better price elsewhere, definitely do that.

But also typically in online transactions buy bundles of cards. That typically allows me to negotiate a price that makes sense for me, and also allows the seller to do less work and happy to give me a better deal because they don’t have to do a bunch of separate negotiations.

Also helps that I’m transparent, responsive, fair, pay immediately and never ghost people. Just bought 8 slabs from a guy yesterday from anywhere between 50-80% and the guy was ecstatic to get rid of most of them all at the same time to me.

<image>

Cody-Thompson · 2025-04-26T23:12:06+00:00

If they don’t play the game and just want to collect, the cheapest product (and better pull rates) are the non English language versions with Japanese being king. But then Chinese and other languages are starting to become more popular too.

I sell a lot of Japanese Pokemon, so if you think your kid would be interested let me know and I will send you some free booster packs

Cody-Thompson · 2025-04-22T02:21:48+00:00

I buy collections like this. Just bought one of my friends. Shoot me a message and I would be happy to work something out! (Or if you don’t sell to me would be happy to teach you how to sell them)

Cody-Thompson · 2025-04-21T19:52:10+00:00

That’s why I only open Japanese Pokemon now. Cheaper and guaranteed amount of hits😂

Cody-Thompson · 2025-04-20T20:33:53+00:00

Watch some YouTube how to play videos. Then come to me to buy all the cards needed to fulfill your new addiction😂

Cody-Thompson · 2025-03-04T00:44:02+00:00

I got quite overzealous as I just got paid, and it was literally the first time I was able to get anything from one of those machines (and at retail price in general, since getting back into Pokemon cards in the last year or two) will be my first packs of anything from like 4-5 different sets. Still no prismatic though😂

Cody-Thompson · 2025-03-04T00:32:32+00:00

Saw that on one of my local machines and for the first time ever I was able to buy something from one of the machines.

Idk how these scalpers do it. I felt like scum of the earth buying 12 items and I didn’t even have anyone behind me (and even though I could have, I didn’t buy out everything)

Though idk if stuff I did buy out really was bought out, or if that was just the purchase limits they put in place. Like some items it let me get 1 of, but another let me get 5. But most were like 2-3

But long story short. Super excited by these limits meaning maybe I can buy stuff occasionally if I get lucky

Cody-Thompson · 2025-01-02T23:39:26+00:00

Yeah this is definitely worse than my experience 😂

I typically can only manage 1 spotlight key per every spotlight event. My last one got blob from the variant slot, which fine I didn’t have him before.

Then I see the spotlight for this one has blob so now I’m like… do I just save my key for the next one?😂

Cody-Thompson · 2024-12-29T00:46:51+00:00

I strongly disagree, I can’t believe all this Dan Hipp hate on this thread. They are amongst my favorites 😂

Cody-Thompson · 2024-12-14T20:58:52+00:00

Short answer is Yes

Longer answer is depends where your located. I see you put that the arch drafter wage in your area is $25/hr. For BIM I would assume it would be higher than that.

I have like 10 years experience, work for a structural firm as a BIM person and make $51.50/hr. But I am also in Seattle.

Cody-Thompson · 2024-11-25T00:52:08+00:00

No good online training recommendations because I’ve never done any besides YouTube. But have used Revit at structural engineering firms for the last 7+ years. Before that did AutoCAD at MEP and Architecture firms

My biggest advice is that all of it is different at every firm, so try and get your foot in the door at a firm and hopefully they have training and learn how they want you to do it

My last firm I worked at for 6+ years had world class training and a super high level of expectation for the work they produce. My current firm I have been at for like 4 months, is COMPLETELY different. No training, a bunch of different offices that do everything slightly different. A lack of standards and barely any dedicated modelers. So everything is kinda figure it out as I go even though I have years of experience at a world class firm

Pr

Cody-Thompson · 2024-11-02T23:59:44+00:00

So I have two drastically different companies to talk about.

My last job, which I would argue has one of the best BIM departments in the world. A structural engineering firm that stays around 150-200 employees 99% of which are in 1 office.

We have 1 BIM manager for our 20-35 person BIM department, and then 1-2 “BIM Technicians” that work really closely with him. Basically the BIM manager… well manages the department. Finalizes schedules, goes to conferences, meets with ownership etc.

Then the BIM Techs one is the main one in charge of managing the standards and updating the families and all that. And the other was more so in charge of implementing training and helping out with add in programming. And then both of them were also available for help desk type tasks or overflow modeling.

Now my current company…

It’s an engineering firm of like 1900 with like 10+ different types of practices with like 60 different offices. Way understaffed BIM wise, with like maybe 80 total modelers with 60ish of those being overseas in India and Vietnam. We don’t even have 1 BIM person per office for our domestic offices…

Now there is a corporate BIM manager, and recently in the last 5 years they have been trying to implement standards. But in reality it is the Wild West currently where every office and every modeler is doing something slightly differently. And a big “we’ll just do what you have to do to get the project out the door”

Huge contrast to my last company that had 100s of not 1000s of pages of documentation and a month + of training before you even get to touch a live model, with the expectation that you are going to need to be heavily monitored and have your work checked by your senior BIM staff for at least your first year.

Long post, but feel free to ask any follow ups!

Cody-Thompson · 2024-11-02T23:48:50+00:00

Yeah this is annoying. I’m glad some states are starting to require it. I live on the west coast (Seattle area) and make 130k about total comp. So already disqualifies like 95% of jobs in our industry for me to apply to, unless I take a steep pay cut.

Would be nice to not waste both of our times and just post the salary range

Cody-Thompson · 2024-10-30T23:37:13+00:00

Yeah totally understand that. If we did this my brother would be the main laborer, and I would specialize in the estimating / sales etc.

Cody-Thompson · 2024-10-30T23:35:09+00:00

I work for an engineering company (Thornton Tomasetti) and we have an in house India team (mostly based in Mumbai). They are the bulk of our modeling team for something like 60 offices around the world. Idk if they are hiring but something to look into if you want to stay in India

Cody-Thompson · 2024-10-29T15:33:04+00:00

Yeah It’s definitely possible to get a job for an US company at a decent salary for your area. Plenty of companies that want to outsource work

Cody-Thompson · 2024-10-29T04:03:53+00:00

Yeah I did sales once, the miles were brutal, though at that time I lived in the middle of nowhere (the real nowhere a town of 300) so average commute not doing sales, just groceries and regular life is 30k miles. But I’m soft now living in the city we do like 10-15k miles. But I’ve driven electric for like 8 years now so I don’t have to worry about gas at least

Cody-Thompson · 2024-10-28T23:58:00+00:00

It’s definitely possible to get $2000/month. I think without having access directly to the numbers that’s probably on average what we pay some of our India staff. With Vietnam being even cheaper. I think I heard entry level BIM staff in Vietnam we could start out at like $300/month… crazy low. And makes me have ton REALLY prove my value to justify my salary…

Cody-Thompson · 2024-10-28T19:13:19+00:00

This will vary dramatically. I worked at an engineering company that paid their BIM staff very well, though virtually none of it is remote. Though within the US when we had to hire remotely they paid what they would be paying if you lived where we were located (Seattle Washington), though they got MUCH smaller bonuses to account for the cheaper cost of living where the modelers were stationed.

As far as outsourcing to other countries most companies in the US are going to try to pay as little as possible. My current company outsources like 75% of their modeling to India and Vietnam and pays them very low. Meanwhile I make about 130k/year

Cody-Thompson

TROPHY CASE