Question regarding selling my collection

JIMfromDC

Hello All,

I am currency guy who collected baseball cards growing up, unfortunatly I believe I picked the wrong time to collect with it being the steroid era and all. I probably have about 10,000 to 15,000 cards in numerous boxes, albums and holders from '86 to about '93 - I guess the majority of them are Topps/Upper Deck/Donruss (sp?) if I remember corectly.

Anyway, my point is how would I go about selling them? Could someone give me an estimated value? Or should I just keep them for another 20 years

I appreciate any input

Jim

storm888

"...Or should I just keep them for another 20 years?'

///////////////////////////


Sadly, most will likely need to be kept for another 200 years.


List some of your "better" stuff, and folks can give you some guidance.
(Scans are good, too.)

You can prolly sell some of it on the BST board, but I would not count
on any big money.

Bottom9th

Hi Jim,
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but there's a good chance most of your cards aren't worth a heck of a lot. You may have some decent cards but 86-93 cards were mostly overproduced. Good luck with whatever you do.

Mintacular

Not to repeat, but 99.9% of these cards likely hold no market value. If you have even the slightest sentimental value towards them just keep them and show them to your kids.

I saw a guy on Craigslist that will pay 1/10 of a penny (.01) for cards in this year which would mean your collection theoretically could be sold to him for $100-$150. It is also possible that you could do some research and pull out the cards with a tiny bit of value, put them together in a lot, and get $50-$100 (max) on eBay. Good luck.

rbdjr1

sell them by the pound!


If you were selling thousands of coins (even pennies!), would you not know what you are selling?

My point is, you will need to have some sort of breakdown (i.e., years, star cards, hall of fame players, rookie cards, etc.)

as well as other criteria (i.e., scarcity, condition, etc.)

in order to produce any meaningful monetary results!

Otherwise you will be forced into selling them for chump change

by the pound!

rd

edit: you can do themes, like 500 yankee cards for $ 25.00, 500 mets cards for $ 25.00, 100 hall of fame players for $ 15.00, 100 rookies for $ 10.00 etc., etc., etc.

NickM

Your time has value. Unless you need to get rid of them, just pack them back away.

Nick

1989FleerBillRipkencollector

By chance you have any 1989 Fleer Bill Ripken versions ? Post or email me (info@billripken.com) what you have, if any. Some are rare and valuable, to some.

I'd grab a price guide and start sorting. Most from that era are mass produced but some rare errors have value, ie '90 Topps No Name on Front Thomas, '90 Upper Deck Mike Witt etc.

Boopotts

<< <i>Not to repeat, but 99.9% of these cards likely hold no market value. If you have even the slightest sentimental value towards them just keep them and show them to your kids.

I saw a guy on Craigslist that will pay 1/10 of a penny (.01) for cards in this year which would mean your collection theoretically could be sold to him for $100-$150. It is also possible that you could do some research and pull out the cards with a tiny bit of value, put them together in a lot, and get $50-$100 (max) on eBay. Good luck. >>



That would be $10-$15, not $100-$150.

Bosox1976

You will do FAR better by donating them and taking a tax writeoff than selling them. Unopened boxes and cases from those years can generally be had cheaper now then they were in that era. SAdly, most aren't worth shipping cost. Strongly consider donating to a place who will give you a receipt written to maximize your deduction.

stevek

Just kidding but you could list it on ebay like the other ebay weasel sellers who list it as "huge collection 1960's thru 1990's baseball cards" and they have only one or two near worthless 1960's VG commons in the lot just so people click on their auction thinking there might be some valuable 60's cards in there.

BTW: 1/10th of a penny is .001 not .01 meaning he'll "in theory" pay $10 - $15 for the lot which sorry to say is about what it's worth.

Mintacular

Doggone it, my math sux. Still interested in the Mike Witt '90 Upper Deck comment. Anyone want to tell me about that? '90 Upper Deck was the big black hole that I spent hundreds of dollars on during my childhood. Literally had dozens of Ben McDonalds, Kevin Maas', Juan Gone, Greg Vaughn, et al.

My siblings biggest prank on me involved this set. They wrapped an empty score box with a brick, and on X-Mas Eve, when we got to pick one present to open, I chose what I thought would be a '90 UD box. It was the brick. I cried myself to bed that night. The next morning, my siblings rolled out an actual '90 UD box that I ripped with joy on X-mas day.

Tissue anyone?

Back to the original point, it amazes me that the '90 UD actually has a card worth something, tell me more...

rbdjr1

Lots of great players ('86 to '93)

Pete Rose
Nolan Ryan
Roger Clemens
Tony Gwynn
Eddie Murray
Tony Perez
Steve Carlton
Don Mattingly
Rollie Fingers
Mike Schmidt
Phil Niekro
George Brett
Jim Rice
Kirby Puckett
Cal Ripken, Jr.
Tom Seaver
Willie Mays
Frank Robinson
Roger Maris
Rickey Henderson
Ron Guidry
Ryne Sandberg
Reggie Jackson
Gary Carter
Ozzie Smith
Phil Niekro
Barry Bonds
Jose Canseco
Will Clark
Bo Jackson

...and more

These are just some from the 1986 Topps Series & from the 1986 Topps Traded series!

rd

1989FleerBillRipkencollector

<< <i> Still interested in the Mike Witt '90 Upper Deck comment. Anyone want to tell me about that? >>




Basically....Upper Deck decided to take Witt out of their set and replace it with a Rookie Trio card called Rookie Threats. Upper Deck placed a large Black Box (his is bigger than Bill Ripkens !) on the back of the Witt card to most likely, make it easily identifiable and then remove it before packout after the sheet was cut. A few of the Mike Witt card leaked into the early production run. I’ve seen two. Both sold for over $500.

summerof68

Unfortunately every baseball card shop owner will tell you that there tired of people coming in with a box full of late 80's to early 90's baseball cards thinking they have something special and valuable. These were the years that the card hobby was in its hey day with card shops everwhere and card shows every weekend. Everyone was collecting cards and the card companies couldn't keep up with demand. Production runs were astronomical. Now it cost more to ship cards from that era than they are worth. Cherry pick the valuable rookie cards and burn the other 99%.

mtcards

I agree with the other posts. Take out the star cards and sell them as lots. 50 Cal Ripkens, Nolan Ryans, and other stars of the time may fetch from $5-$10 per lot on ebay, the rest, well......I buy a lot of collections that are littered with this stuff around some decent stuff and I sell them in LLLLAAARRRRGGGGEEEE boxes which will hold 20-30 thousand of these cards for $25 a piece and thats getting a lot for it.

JIMfromDC

thanks for the great responses guys.. I appreciate all the input... looks like they will sit in their boxes for another 20 years!

take care guys

Jim