Question: Selling Vintage PSA HOF Baseball Card Lots

ricardouno

I have a large collection of PSA certified baseball cards.

I am preparing them for auction with a major auction firm.

Virtually all of the cards are from 1964 or prior, are either Topps or Bowman and are of prominent HOF members.

The vast majority grade PSA 5 or 6. The SMR price for the individual cards is about $85 to $200 each.

My question is this. I would like to group them in lots of cards to be substantial offerings in the auction.

Would it be better to group them by player ( i. e. a lot of Mays, a lot of Aaron, etc.) or by date/series ( group of 1956 Topps, group of 1959 Topps, etc.).

I have many Mantle cards and know there are some avid fans for that player, so I am resigned to make a neat lot of his cards. However, how would you otherwise group the cards.

Of course, the auction company ( I'd rather not disclose which one ) has volunteered to group them for me but I still would like the input from experienced dealers/collectors on this board.

Thanks so much, in advance, for any help!

Ricardo

toppsgun

Maximize your sales by listing one card per auction with a starting bid of roughly 20% of the SMR, rounded down to the next price point (e.g., $9.99, $24.99, $49.99, etc).

Griffins

In my opinion, for mid grade HOFer's from the 50's and 60's, you'd do much better on ebay, especially if the auction house is charging you a commission as well as the buyer. Throw them on the vintage board first, then ebay, and see where you are when the smoke clears. Most of the big auction houses (those that would even take them, I'm guessing Mastro and RE would pass) cater to larger dollar lots and high end buyers, and at best they'd put them in one group. The smaller auction houses wouldn't bring enough money to justify the fees. Additionally, on ebay you have much more control of the reserve, and you get paid quicker.