Thinking about bulk purchasing HOF collection

Willymac

Question - what’s a fair price to purchase a lot, I mean a lot, of cards (several thousands) - yes a lot of 80’s 90’s 2000’s and other years mixed in - but here’s the catch - it’s ONLY hall of famers, in binders top loaders etc - all sports…lots of inserts, typically anywhere from a few to a few dozen rc’s of each (for the sake of this let’s dismiss those rookies and just say non rookie cards but all HOF’s)….very well organized and very well cared for - like a lifetime of work type thing

Many gradable cards (lots of base but lots of inserts/parallels - no pmg’s etc type)

Thoughts?

I know we can get weedy here, just assume I have been collecting for 30 years and this was very impressive despite being “junk wax era” - like instant collection for nearly every hall of famer (baseball basketball football - from that era with rookies in 80’s and 90’s early 2000’s i would say….

What are folks thinking per card is a fair/smart purchase price?

Willymac

If folks say commons are .05 or .1 each - what would HOFers be?

JoeBanzai

From the little information you are providing......... I would pass.
Very few people are collecting non rookie cards of HOFers from this period, especially raw cards.
I have thousands of HOFer cards from this era that I saved. People don't pay much for most players unless graded a 10, so unless your willing to gamble on getting a 10, you are going to be spending a lot of money on grading fees. Anything that comes back an 8 or lower is worthless, some 9's you might break even on (but not many) and SOME of the more popular players in a 10 will be money makers.
You will be lucky to get a 10 on 5% of the cards you submit, you will get lots of 9's IF the cards were saved perfectly.
Now, I have absolutely no idea what cards you are talking about, so I might be wrong.
Take a look at some completed auctions on eBay.

Willymac

Thanks - I am def NOT talking about 50 copies of 1988 topps Barry bonds….more like base across the board from rookie year to retirement from regular to high end sets on a player like bonds or Ripken or Garnett or Shaq or Duncan up to ichiro or pujols etc and then a swath of inserts and parallels

82FootballWaxMemorys

@JoeBanzai said:
You will be lucky to get a 10 on 5% of the cards you submit

Under 1% for the cards in binders.

Willymac

I know…I have a pretty good eye - just trying to find a fair per card price - .10 or .25 or .50 per kind of thing….

dontippet

Just search "baseball HOF lot" on ebay. Here's the first large lot I found. Sold for less than 8 cents per card. Then you have to ship it and pay 13% to ebay. So, after all the work, the seller may have netted 5 cents per card. If you are doing this to turn a profit, I would think you would want to purchase for much, much less than a nickel each. Like others have said, I would pass. But, we don't know exactly what is here. If you have seen this collection and there is a lot of higher end cards, then it may be worth it. But, if you are just going off of the owner's description, I would stay away since I would be expecting a lot of similar cards to the below lot.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/334666930297?hash=item4debb41879:g:w3gAAOSwJCpjmzWV&amdata=enc:AQAHAAAAoMXrq4Ua+HxF5VdFnXAePE05KRrIMM+Hc9ISo+GUpNGFF18X16iKdxkHDP4qlVGXwzxiUaAyo4JEf8LTxsRgJEJI/AHO6Ge9kYtrtAZU5n6SHFoZtIoOOrCmsZqfbhv5hNIgZseuxsoy32PbxbaMwSQdG5e6Oh47bPNRVJF8dDCPLnhLcr65o28ODWkGGmqYLE9ypRW8stKSldGnSOuLbmA=|tkp:Bk9SR77u2q-mYQ

dallasactuary

I think @dontippet's position is valid, but the specific lot in that auction is about as poor a HOF lot as a person could assemble. I think there's fewer than 10 different players in it and the great majority of it is Tier 10 HOFers like Jack Morris and Lee Smith, and the legitimate HOFers in it are, for the most part, not the most collectible stars. In other words, not all HOFers are equal.

If the lot you're looking at is loaded with Nolan Ryan, Rickey Henderson, Pete Rose, and other top stars, I think it would sell for considerably more than 5 cents per card (but still cents per card, not dollars per card). I'd look for lots on ebay for each player in the large lot you're looking at and see what they sold for, and, assuming you're looking to flip it at some point, plan on selling them the same way, as separate lots for each player (and use any Jack Morris or Harold Baines cards as packing material).

daltex

@Willymac said:
If folks say commons are .05 or .1 each - what would HOFers be?

I don't know the answer to your question, but I suspect you'd have an extremely hard time selling bulk commons for 5 or 10¢ each.

Willymac

Ok thanks everyone

GreenSneakers

Don’t mean to be trite, but:

• if looking for resale, I’d pass unless there are specific few rookies you know will grade well and could flip profitably, making the rest of the purchase a throw in

• if looking to keep, then pay whatever it’s worth for you to have fun with it.

swish54

I have sold quite a few low end HOF lots from those years. Let me just say it takes a very long time to sell if you are doing bin/bo to maximize value. If doing an auction, I would expect to get around .15/card. You could sit on them for 2-3 years without getting a single offer. For example, someone like Cal Ripken who crosses the junk era to present day and is a very popular pc guy, I would expect to get around .20 per card. I had a 60 card lot of his from '84-'16 with base and low end inserts and took down the listing after literally 2 years without even getting a single offer.

1948_Swell_Robinson

@JoeBanzai said:
From the little information you are providing......... I would pass.
Very few people are collecting non rookie cards of HOFers from this period, especially raw cards.
I have thousands of HOFer cards from this era that I saved. People don't pay much for most players unless graded a 10, so unless your willing to gamble on getting a 10, you are going to be spending a lot of money on grading fees. Anything that comes back an 8 or lower is worthless, some 9's you might break even on (but not many) and SOME of the more popular players in a 10 will be money makers.
You will be lucky to get a 10 on 5% of the cards you submit, you will get lots of 9's IF the cards were saved perfectly.
Now, I have absolutely no idea what cards you are talking about, so I might be wrong.
Take a look at some completed auctions on eBay.

There you have it. Great advice.

Hard cards to sell. I just spent the last eight months clearing out closets selling cards like that. Just wanted to get rid of them. I could have taken more time and piece meal'd them, but damn, it would be time consuming.

One advice is that Flat Rate priority boxes are your best friend if you are selling large bulks of cards, especially when it is going across the country. You can fit a lot of cards in the Medium Flat Rate Box. It is around $15 now and includes $100 insurance.

I shipped three solid shot cannon balls in the large flat rate box one time. I loved the expression of the clerk when I handed him the box.

dontippet

How many cards are we talking about? Do you have any pictures?

1948_Swell_Robinson

Here is what I found selling those cards and looking to sell the singles from that era of late 80's to early 2000's(mostly 1990's)....

Aside from any true valuable inserts or a Lebron RC;

Basketball. The only non-rookie cards that sold were Jordan. Not even Kobe non-Rookie cards. Even HOF rookies like Garnett go for peanuts. Iverson rookies are in the toilet. Shaq fourth year cards? Peanut crumbs. Obviously Kobe RC's sell...but I'm sure you would mention those if they were in there.

Baseball. Jeter Rookies sell, but not for a lot except the SP. Throw everything else in a box and sell in bulk unless it is a true tough insert. Even those coveted leaf gold Pedro Martinez rookies from back in the day are peanuts. You might get .25 cents for any other Pedro card sitting in a .25 box at a card show for a few months.

If there are some '93 Finest refractors in there...then those are of superb value for the era.

Football. None of them sell from that era. I was surprised that Manning rookies are even of small value. Manning non-roookies, nothing. Brady RC of course will sell. I had some beautiful Marshall Faulk rookies I pulled and was excited since I hadn't followed them since they came out....and they were nothing.

You will get a lot of results like this second year Kobe below that graded a PSA 9. Like @JoeBanzai said, it will lose money after cost of grading.

I would be cautious how much you offer. If buying for your own collection, that is a different story. Buy it if you want to keep it.

olb31

@JoeBanzai said:
From the little information you are providing......... I would pass.
Very few people are collecting non rookie cards of HOFers from this period, especially raw cards.
I have thousands of HOFer cards from this era that I saved. People don't pay much for most players unless graded a 10, so unless your willing to gamble on getting a 10, you are going to be spending a lot of money on grading fees. Anything that comes back an 8 or lower is worthless, some 9's you might break even on (but not many) and SOME of the more popular players in a 10 will be money makers.
You will be lucky to get a 10 on 5% of the cards you submit, you will get lots of 9's IF the cards were saved perfectly.
Now, I have absolutely no idea what cards you are talking about, so I might be wrong.
Take a look at some completed auctions on eBay.

I agree with Joe. It would have to be really cheap to waste your time on or cheap and the cards are mint ++ condition.

1959

"Bout a hundred dollars"'. Someone is selling the cards. They don't want them and probably have done research on their worth. I would offer a very small amount.