Need some advise from bigger vintage buyers

easydoesit

I am a relative small timer. I do sell on ebay and occassionally a local show, but I am now faced with perhaps a once in a lifetime opportunity. I ll save you the details of how but I recently met a local guy who claims to have some amazing stuff. He grew up in NYC and has pics of himself, brothers, father, with Mantle and other yankees. Apparenlty they were on a first name basis yada yada yada... Anyway he has a complete 52 topps set with extras inlcuding 4 mantles. He has tobaccos, he has three stooges cards, he has bats, balls, gloves, many of which are signed. He got a lot of this through his friend Ken Keiser and through his father who got lots of it straight from the players. He now wants to sell, he is not interested in it anymore, he feels the market has gone soft and has moved on to buying horses now. I dont know if I can afford to buy it all even with a small loan. He claims to have unopened stuff back to 1959... I havent seen it yet, but the other stuff he said he had, he really does have. Just today I saw him randomly today and he a Mantle Model bat in the truck as well as a pair of Marsiano (spelling) boxing gloves. He has an original oil painting in his house that once hung in Mantle's restaurant. He has the letter, picture, etc to prove it. He even has other ephemra like a rare rare original photo of Hitler and Mousillini together. I mean this guy spent some money 20 years ago buying all of this during the peak of the card craze. He estimates he has spent over 100K just in cards. He has offered to let me sell on commission or buy it outright. I don't know what to do this is BIG.

1) would you want to do commission? Or buy it outright even though the price will be hefty?

2) if the stuff he claims to have is as good as it sounds, do I use ebay, southabys, or some other venue to maximize money?

3) how the heck do I get an idea of how much I should pay on this stuff? I don't usually see a box of 59 topps sell or a case of 76 topps

I am not really interested in getting a third party involved basically because I don't trust too many bigger dealers given my experience with a couple of them.

What would you do? Anyone ever had this opportunity? ONe thing for sure... I am going to do everything I can one way or another to get this stuff.

Chris

CDsNuts

Your best bet is a big name auction house, although I wouldn't go with Mastro right now (FBI investigation). Just the stuff you listed is worth at least $250,000. What you could do is pick out some stuff you really like and offer to sell everything for him and your fee would be the stuff you picked out. Or you could sell it on just straight commission, but either way, I'd send it through one of the big name auction houses. Stuff like this is too good for ebay.

lee

easydoesit

Thats what I was kind of thinking. I am not sure EBAY could do it justice. Thanks

Chris

Boopotts

I would call Greg from Legacy Sports and have him come take it all. He'll give you a decent finders fee, and the seller will get a decent price for his stuff.

CDsNuts

Give Lee from Baltimore a call. He'll empty out all his bank accounts, sell everything he owns, and still not even come close to making a fair offer.

Lee

stown

Talk with BBCExchange about the unopened product. He can give a credible opinion as to it being authentic and the value.

Stingray

<< <i>Give Lee from Baltimore a call. He'll empty out all his bank accounts, sell everything he owns, and still not even come close to making a fair offer.

Lee >>

MooseDog

Unless you have the financial resources and/or the time and patience to buy outright or sell yourself, I'd really recommend you consider the Finder's Fee route, especially since you say you are a small timer. Usual finders fee is 4-10% of the final negotiated price with no financial risk. Make sure you negotiate the % up front and draw up a contract. No handshake agreements!

In a case like this you should be able to net $20-30K just for putting the buyer and a seller together with minimal work other than phone calls.

Be sure to work with a reputable buyer though. I used to do this kind of thing in the electronics field and got burned more than once on Finder's Fees that never found their way to me but that is a real jungle in that industry. You also might want to do a thorough inventory and have a good idea of the "retail value" of the lot. You need to protect the seller from lowballing offers. If the lot is as you describe an honest buyer is going to pay well for it as it will turn over very quickly.

From what you say, the guy has a good idea of what his stuff is worth. If he'll take 50% then run to the bank, mortgage the house and finish the deal quickly. I would expect he wouldn't take less than 20-30% from "retail" and you can figure you can also net this kind of profit by selling it on consignment as well without the huge financial outlay.

My experience with selling rare stuff outright to dealers is that they are looking to pay 10-20% of retail if they can get away with it, all the while complaining about condition, saying that these things "just aren't selling now", or how much work it will take to sell. All standard "stories". Oh yeah, then there is the "well, not really interested but if you just want to sell it all I'll give you $...)

bifff257

<< <i>Anyway he has a complete 52 topps set with extras inlcuding 4 mantles >>



I would think that getting some of this stuff authenticated and graded will help you make a determination as to the value.

Obviously, If you have (4) PSA 7 Mantles the value is much great than say (4) PSA 2 Mantles...

With that being said, if all you are looking to do is turn this stuff for profit your safer avenue would be to work off commission.. much less risk of lossing your



I agree with the others use a major auction house for most this stuff.

cardbender

If you have a good feedback profile yourself on ebay, why not get the cards graded and sell them yourself with nice large scans? Why let another seller into the picture? Why pay an auction house to sell cards when you can do it yourself.

I know nothing about memorabilia so that stuff I would go to another seller to have them liquidate. Making sure you get a fair, fixed rate of consignment, like 10% off the top, then the seller can make money off the total amount with the added vig.

preownedautos

Maybe it's me, but something there just doesn't add up. Have you actually seen this stuff or is he just telling you that he has it? By his own admission, he claims to have spent $100K just on the cards, so obviously he knows the value. Like Lee pointed out, that is probably in the ballpark of $250K in today's market. I guess what I am trying to say is why would he pay someone else to sell the stuff when he could do it himself and save $20K? After all, he can pick up the phone and call one of the big auction houses just as easy as you can and save himself some money.

If he has what he says he has, then that means he's pretty well connected. After all, you couldn't walk into a baseball card shop 20 years ago and just buy a 1952 Topps set. I was collecting twenty years ago and I wouldn't even have known where to start shopping for a 1952 Topps set. I would guess that he would have to have contacted somebody like Mr. Mint, because at that time there were no big auction houses like there are today making stuff like that much more difficult to obtain unless you knew people. Again, if he is connected, why doesn't he use his connections to move the stuff?

If he didn't know the value that would be one thing, but it sounds like he does. You said you just met this local guy, I would be careful!

easydoesit

Preownedautos, thanks for the great points you bring out. I have not yet seen all of the stuff no, I have seen a few items and thus far everything he claimed to be, has been true and without exaggeration. I was like you at first... yeah yeah whatever as he listed a plethora of items, but low and behold he has produced some of them. I am still a little skeptical myself, but boy its hard to doubt when everything has panned out so far.

I have know him for about 4 months. He actually is a local contractor who just put about 30K worth of work into my house. Siding, windows, entry way etc. He lives about 5 mintures from me. As far as why he does not do it: He is mega old school. He does not even have an email, nor does he want one. The money is not really an issue for him either. His house he just built is an easy 1M house plus. I believe him when he says he really stopped buying about 15 years ago and lost interest. The only reason this even came up between us was because as I hand him a check for part of the work he did, I said it was all money from baseball cards I had sold in the last couple years. He responded with I have lots of old cards myself that I have no interest in anymore. I think he only knows the value to a point. He knows about mantle and mays, but I doubt very seriously he could tell you who card #1 is in the 52 set. Today he was lamenting why he didnt sell his stack of 75 Yount rookies when they were $150 a piece. He claims to have at least a 100ct box of these. Who knows... All I know so far is everything he has claimed as a contractor or collector has proven true. We are going to meet in earnest on the cards early next month, so thats why I am looking build my plan now, plus I am gone on vacaction the next two weeks myself.

easydoesit

Thanks to all the replies, is there anyway I can save this thread to my files so I can reference latter next month when this deal is all supposed to come together?

Chris

easydoesit

CardBender great thought. I do have over 1000 ebay feedback all pos. I don't want to risk the authentication of the memoribilia nor do I want to spend the money to authenicate with PSA. I do want to sell the cards and reap the greatest reward. I like this thought of splitting it.

mkg809

I would be making a trip to his house tonight.

MooseDog

<< <i>Making sure you get a fair, fixed rate of consignment, like 10% off the top, then the seller can make money off the total amount with the added vig. >>



10% would not be worth the effort doing this yourself. Trust me, I've done some consignments like this and ended up having to put in much more work than anticipated.

gemmintrarities

I would sell it yourself......if it was legit, I would even bankroll it to be a partner in the deal. Words of wisdom though, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

Allen

Sounds like the find of the decade. Does he have a 1930 Babe Ruth contract too?

easydoesit

I really didnt post this here for people to take shots, I just wanted some advice. Thank you to those who gave constructed thoughts. This board has many members with far more knowledge than I and I wanted to tap into that. Thanks also to the PMs that were recieved with names and phone numbers.