Is the Estate/Craigs List/Garage Sale dream find a myth?

Ichiro51fan

Just wondering what your experiences have been with these types of potential finds. I've only been looking at it for a while, but a lot of them are not what they appear to be. I've even seen local dealers trying to unload their junk on CL... making it appear as though they are clueless about the "potential" value of the cards.

On the other hand, there are probably some decent deals/finds out there if you look long and hard enough. What cracks me up is people who post on CL etc expecting a large chunk of cash for their collection, but have no list and are not willing to spend time letting you look through it. A sure sign that they're trying to unload crap for big $$$ I suppose

Anyway, would be interested in hearing some stories... good or bad.

TNTonPMS

The one you're going to hit the home run on is the one where the little old lady is moving out . .

She's all alone , kids are either far away or never had any or deceased .

And she's got everything in the house for sale and just wants to get out , she knows nothing about the value of the cardboard with the boys playing games on them .

You will have to be the first person or so to visit the house , or else someone else beat you to it .

Good luck . . . this stuff does happen .

MooseDog

I troll CL quite a bit and have found a few gems but you have to realize those will be few and far between. It helps if you know how to use the RSS feeds. For example I use the Thuderbird email program and have the CL Collectibles category feed me new postings every 15 minutes. I have an automatic search looking for certain words and so all those postings get saved to a folder. Even with that I have missed out on some nice stuff. If cards are what you are looking for 99 times out of 100 (no exaggeration) if you go look at a collection it is either going to be:

- Older card in very poor condition.
- 1980s-1990s crap
- Grossly over valued

You have to be very patient and persistent. I have a friend who has been picking up decent stuff but he is very active. I usually try to explain what I think their stuff is worth whether or not I am interested and leave those I have a slight interest in with an "I don't want them, but if you get to the point that you just want to get rid of them I'll pay $XXX amount". I'd say about 2% call back.

I have basically stopped doing this as the time involved just wasn't worth it. I'm on the West Coast and there just isn't that much older stuff around here. I would imagine that you'd have better luck in the Midwest and East Coast.

I have had zero luck with garage sales.

I have had zero luck with estate sales but have found some nice stuff in Estate AUCTIONS.

TNTonPMS

I have better luck going to the bingo games talkin to granma and grampa .

MooseDog

I should add that when I had a brick and mortar store (1990-94) and a display ad in the Yellow Pages I got more action (walk-ins) than from any other source. Still, no one ever walked in with a '52 Mantle or 1927 Yankees signed ball.

basestealer

There's still quite a few people that don't realize their 80's junk is worthless (or next to worthless) in any quantity. They collected 20-25 years ago and assume that by now everything surely has appreciated nicely. They may have 100,000 cards stored from that era, and they'll get a price guide and value each card individually at high book. What they don't know is that those common card high book values for the mass produced late 80's cards are only fetched when someone needs one card to complete a set, and is willing to fork over 5-10 cents for it. Otherwise, nobody is going to buy a long box of that stuff for any price--the price guides should note this. Maybe a new price called "charity" should be used for everything 86 through 94.

The clueless dealer routine is a classic. They may be clueless but if you read their ads they certainly know the buzzwords to generate interest among the naive. You'd probably have more luck finding a gold mine going to door to door in a rural community and approaching residents in their 80's and 90's and ask them if their sons collected baseball cards and do they happen to be stored in the attic, forgotten about?

CDsNuts

I've given some thought that if I ever decided to go into the card business as a career, it would be worthwhile to put "Buying all sports cards and memorabilia" flyers door-to-door on every house in the state and see what happens. Obviously this would be a costly venture (bulk printing, paying kids to distribute the flyers, taking the time to deal with people and their 80s crap, etc...), but I'll bet a few gems would eventually come out of the woodwork. Seems like it could be a fun experiment.

Lee

basestealer

<< <i>I've given some thought that if I ever decided to go into the card business as a career, it would be worthwhile to put "Buying all sports cards and memorabilia" flyers door-to-door on every house in the state and see what happens. Obviously this would be a costly venture (bulk printing, paying kids to distribute the flyers, taking the time to deal with people and their 80s crap, etc...), but I'll bet a few gems would eventually come out of the woodwork. Seems like it could be a fun experiment.

Lee >>


Be prepared to get 100 fold more offers than you can bankroll. I did this once. The problem is people don't want you to cherrypick their entire collection to buy just a few cards. They want an offer for the whole deal (especially people who bring in 100K commons). Even if you make them a token offer so as not to hurt their feelings or miss out on a few gems they do have, you'll quickly run out of space and money for the next deal that comes along. You could refuse the vast majority of collections that come your way but if word gets out that you do this the business might stop altogether. And what we're all hoping for, the unopened '52 wax or whatever, I'm not sure I could have afforded it even if it did present itself. So I changed my ad to be more specific (looking for 50's and 60's cards) and things got a little better. Very few people wanted to sell me their stuff for anything less than high book value. The only memorable thing I can recall buying was a big collection of Play Ball cards, which I got for about $2 apiece. And about a million 80's cards that I'm still funneling to charity whenever the opportunity strikes.

Leiascards

I have never found a real hit on sportscards, but other items I hit reguraly at garage sales and Estate sales.

Bought 20 non-working Zippos a few months back for 5.00. I put them in one big lot sold them with 125.00 BIN and sold it within an hour of listing. I thought the BIN was too high actually I was figuring 40 to 50 actual for the lot. The guy repaired them and one sold for 225.00 about a month ago.

Went to an Estate sale in April and found 3 boxes of 1980s GI Joe planes and other accessories for 5.00. In another GI JOE find I found about 80 figures and 40 vehicles for 50.00 a few years back. Made well over 500 on them.

I bought a rare 12" IG-88 figure from Star Wars for 2.00 sold it for 190.00.

I hit 15 to 20 sales a weekend and may once a month hit a good find, but it is not uncommon for me to make 80 to 100 a day at these sales.

Someone beat me to it last night I drove by a sale that was setting up and saw some stuff in the trash that looked like old Transformers stuff. When I came back an hour later the whole box was gone..

skilow

skilow

You should have sent the Zippos back to the factory in Bradford,PA for a free repair since all Zippo's are guaranteed for life.

Leiascards

I could have, which is what he may have done, but I try not to keep anything I buy at yard sales for more than 2 weeks. I would rather take the money and turn it into something else.

TNTonPMS

<< <i>I've given some thought that if I ever decided to go into the card business as a career, it would be worthwhile to put "Buying all sports cards and memorabilia" flyers door-to-door on every house in the state and see what happens. Obviously this would be a costly venture (bulk printing, paying kids to distribute the flyers, taking the time to deal with people and their 80s crap, etc...), but I'll bet a few gems would eventually come out of the woodwork. Seems like it could be a fun experiment.

Lee >>


______________________________________________________

I'll bet you're right . . .
You'll probably have to be prepared to take a loss , Not that you definitley will take a loss , butr it might take a little time before those gems finally surface .

Also many gems get stepped right on top of because they do not shine . . . . Sometimes it takes a little polishing and some hard work to bring that beauty to the surface .

Often times we're looking right at the gems but through cloudy lenses .

Oh yes . . . .the thrill of the hunt , I suppose it wouldn't be too much fun if it were easy .


Good luck out there Children and may the picture card Gods smile upon you all . . . . .

And meeeee tooooo

packman

I wouldn't hold my breath with an estate sale. There are good stories out there (e.g., the 1964 Topps Stand Up box). However, the good items are usually sold off prior to the sale. You should try to get your name known to the estate planning attorneys in your area. In my area, the estate planning attorney is often the family advisor and coordinates the marshalling of estate assets. Let them know that you are a buyer of baseball cards, autographs, etc. I have many clients with significant collections (art, cards, coins, etc.). I keep a rolodex of various individuals who have expressed an interest in buying items. I have a brief description of the type of collections they want and the general value they are looking to buy. Although you will not be getting a steal on the value, you will get a nice discount. For example, I have one client that wanted to liquidate a significant collection of unopened packs/boxes/cases. We had the items appraised and I looked at my contact list of buyers. For this particular collection (due to the size/value), I contacted Steve Hart. He bought it for a significant discount because he was ready to close on the sale immediately. Another example is a client died around 4 years ago. He had a baseball card collection that included a run of all of the major sets from the 1930s through the 1970s. They were in NM or better condition. The family needed cash fast because of liquidity issues. As a result they were not willing to wait for an auction. I ended up selling them for approximately 60% of what they could have achieved through an auction.

In my limited exposure, there are some very significant card collections that are in raw form and been out of the public eye for many years. Seeing these collections first hand with the knowledge that the family has no interest in maintaining the collection in the future, leads me to believe that there are significant deals out there. However, if you wait for them to show up at general sales to the public, you will have little luck. Try to go as close to the source as possible. If you are lucky enough to have the opportunity to purchase a collection, then you better be ready to come up the funds fast.

xbaggypants

Hey ,

I just had a recent find at an antique store, read here for more:

Find

summerof68

Great finds are still out there. I live in Los Angeles and in 1998 I visited my ailing grandmother in Shawnee, Oklahoma. While there I visited a small, run-down auction house in the old downtown area. I met the owner and saw a large back room full of stacked boxes covered by bed sheets. He said he routinely purchased the entire contents of deceased people's homes who had no heirs and then would auction the items separately at his dumpy little auction house. I asked him if he ever encountered any old baseball cards and he said about ten years earlier he came across a large box of old cards. He says he remembered looking at the backs of the cards and seeing the dates in the 30's & 40's. He said during the mid-80's he didn't know baseball cards had value but he of course knew that now. He added that he didn't have an auction house in the mid-80's and at that time he took his items to the swap meet. He said he distinctly remembers taking the box of cards to the swap meet and almost immediately that morning a person asked what he wanted for the box and the owner replied $10. He said the man's hand was trembling as he handed over a $10 dollar bill and then he picked up the box and walked off very quickly...gee, I wonder why....