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Junk Era Large Lots (value)

I remember years ago a guy at the flea market paid one-tenth of a penny (1,000 cards = $1, one 3 row monster box about $3) for baseball, and less for bask/fb. He didn't care if the stars were pulled. Any cards from late 80s-mid 90s kinda thing. Does anyone think that price is about right still, is it reasonable to think someone would pay more/less for a VERY large collection of cards like this for that price? Thanks.

Comments

  • NGS428NGS428 Posts: 2,255 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited December 22, 2019 3:05PM

    For that price I would just donate them.

    For a very large collection of junk era commons.. tough to unload. I anyone is willing to buy them that is a win, but again, just donate them if you can.

  • JoeBanzaiJoeBanzai Posts: 11,171 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Depends on the years of the cards, your plan on reselling and also how you value your time. A good friend of mine is buying cards this way right now. He is very knowledgeable on the new stuff and all the variations.

    The issue I see is that, for a lot (all?) of these cards, you will only get a good return on them if they can get a 10 grade. This means you will be spending at least $8 per card for grading fees. I went through all my cards, (about 10-15,000) picked out the Rookies, HOFers and major stars, gave him my commons, and have not been able to sell many of my star cards raw on ebay._ Everybody already has them._ Now if I send them in and get a 10 on them, they are worth $30, a 9 isn't worth the grading fees and raw they don't sell.

    I would stick to baseball, the other sports are just not collected as much, with a few exceptions.

    He has found some pretty valuable cards out of the lots he buys. Most of the stuff he has gotten was "cherry picked" but there's still value there. He has sent me a few scans of some potentially valuable cards, but a lot of them are not "mint", so the demand/value drops significantly.

    Sorting thousands of cards to find a $10-50 card takes a lot of time. If you are retired or have a lot of spare time (and patience) it might be an enjoyable way to spend your time.

    2013,14 and 15 Certificate Award Winner Harmon Killebrew Master Set and Master Topps Set
  • PatsGuy5000PatsGuy5000 Posts: 671 ✭✭✭

    @JoeBanzai said:

    Now if I send them in and get a 10 on them, they are worth $30, a 9 isn't worth the grading fees and raw they don't sell.

    Learned this the hard way, wish I was better at grading new cards prior to submitting.

  • mrmoparmrmopar Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭✭

    The local shop I frequent will load up a table with 4/$1 cards in super shoe boxes. There are some good deals, probably a fair number that are "worth" $0.25 and plenty that are overpriced even at a quarter. After a certain amount of time of selling singles, he will offer the group of boxes as a large lot. If I recall, they typically start around $15-20/box when you bought the entire lot, which is almost always somewhere in the $500-1000. If no takers after a while, he drops the price a bit until they sell. if you figure you are buying quarter cards, $15 a box is a steal, but as I said, most of the cards would not sell for a quarter anytime soon.

    I always figure the box itself, if clean and reusable, is a $4-5 item itself. Unless it looked promising for some decent cards and a nice amount of fun sorting, I am not sure I'd be willing to pay much more than $5-10 per box that size. I got about 30 boxes in my bedroom from the time I bought one of his lots. I had a lot of fun over the course of several weeks going through and then sorting them. I mined about 6-7 boxes worth of cards i wanted to pull/keep out of about 45. Pulled out the junk commons and after removing damaged card, old sleeves and consolidating, I have the 30 or so left that are either newer cards or semi/stars. I am just running out of room to store them!

    I collect Steve Garvey, Dodgers and signed cards. Collector since 1978.
  • mrmoparmrmopar Posts: 1,030 ✭✭✭✭

    Something else to consider, most of these boxes might be "cherry picked", but if there are any newer cards included, there is always a chance a few players/cards will blossom after the initial picking. In the example above, I just went through the "left over" stars to separate HOFers from semis/stars and came across a couple Tatis & Vlad Jr Bowmans, an Alonso Elite and a Yelich Topps Update RC. This was after I did my initial plucking and I am not really up on current sets. There could still be gold in there later with the newer Topps and bowman cards of players I have never heard of now.

    I collect Steve Garvey, Dodgers and signed cards. Collector since 1978.
  • pab1969pab1969 Posts: 1,071 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I would send them all to the board member here (sorry I forgot your name) who makes the beautiful pieces of artwork out of cutting them up.

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