Selling advice needed

walker68

All,

I have been charged with selling an extensive collection of baseball cards (late 1800 - present) and memorabilia (bats, balls, etc.). It's taken me months to catalog it all (which I'm still not sure I've done a great job at). Anyway... I'm looking for advice on the best most efficient way to sell everything. Obviously I'd like to get the best price for everything... but I'd like to avoid having the work of selling take ALL my free time.

Any opinions on eBay selling... taking to a dealer... whatever would be appreciated. More detailed advice/opinions the better.

Thank you in advance.

Walker

Bosox1976

Check out prewarcardcollector on ebay - he has a strong following of buyers and is easy to work with with fair prices for his services .... His loyal following bids strong and will offset the fees. You will seriously have a strong likelihood of achieving the same $ with no work as you would doing it all yourself.

cefy1

Interesting... I'll bite.

Why don't you start by sharing a few more details about exactly what is included (some scans) or a link to the catalog. I think knowing the quality of the merchandise will lead to better direction on how best to sell this type of collection and what might be appropriate.

Chris

itzagoner

it would help to know what some of these key items are, and as always, a few quality scans of said items would help too....if you have high-profile items which you expect to generate a heavy return based on your own research, then a major auction house or an eBay dealer like prewarcardcollector might be the way to go......provide some more details and i'm certain you will be provided with good advice.......on the memorabilia, provide as much info as you can regarding signatures, provenance, etc..... and consider having authentications done if you haven't done so already.

the more details you provide here, the more you will get back......there are some incredibly wise and helpful folks here, listen to them. Good Luck.

Orioles

It really depends on what you have. If you have cataloged the collection, it may be helpful to post the list here because depending on what you have there are different routes to go. You will also get feedback on how you described the item, which might be helpful as you go to sell it. The description in your pose could mean almost anything, in terms of value.

You also should figure out how long you want to take to sell it. If you have the patience and time, selling individual pieces (or in lots that make sense) may generate the most money. If you just want to get it over with, larger lots are the way to go (by team or year or cards in one lot, autos in another). It really depends on just how extensive the collection is. If you decide to make up lots, try to have them make some type of sense when you put them together.

There are plenty of sellers on ebay that will sell them for you. I used an ebay seller prewarcardcollector. I thought he did a real nice job when I wanted to sell a 1958 set. Nice pictures, fair price, pretty good following. There are plenty out there. If you go the cosignor route through ebay, I'd think of the items that would sell for more than $500 each (whether it was an individual card, autograph or set). I'm not sure if you get the value compared to what would happen if you sold on your own for <$500. The fees would be more than if you sold them, but if you don't have solid enough feedback, you might end up selling them for less on your own.

If you have material that you would think would sell for several thousand dollars maybe look at an auction house. People here will give you their opinion on which are best. I've never used one to know.

Selling on a board like this is also an option. It cuts out the ebay fees or cosignor fees. People here have very diverse collecting habits.

Good luck whichever way you decide. Again, post a list and you'll get much more specific feedback.

Jim

walker68

Thanks for all the advice. I'll have to look into prewarcardcollector (as 3 of you mentioned him directly).

Also... I'll briefly try to explain the collection (without posting a 40 page list of the exact cards/items).

Probably have 150 PSA graded cards... and 100 SGC cards (mostly HOF and key card type stuff... from T205 on up). A few of the best cards have already been sold. Huge number of ungraded cards from all sets (T205... T3... 52 Topps... etc. etc.) - I spent some time looking through most of these cards... and selected some to send into PSA for grading (with very mixed results). Probably ~50 autographed baseballs (Ruth, Mantle, Williams, etc. etc.)... and ~20 autographed bats (Dimaggio, Williams, McGwire (ugg), etc. Some Jerseys (but nothing spectacular except for a Cooperstown Collection Mantle signed jersey). Various collectable trinkets (for lack of a better term)... i.e. Ted Williams fishing reel, HOF busts, Willie Mays toy figurine (old), etc., Large number of unopened complete sets (mostly recent stuff). Large number of chase sets (again... mostly recent). Oh... and at least 20-30 very nice trimmed cards (important cards... like Cobb Green T205... CSA 8 - that would be worth thousands... but has probably been trimmed). Really... too much stuff to get my brain around.

Hope that helps. Again... continued advice welcome.

Walker

walker68

Oh... and signed paintings... photos. Lots of "exhibbit cards?"

If I was really dedicated to selling these... I could almost open my own baseball card shop!

metsfan

Sounds like a lot of nice stuff. An auction house may be the best place to go. The "trinkets" and the art sound like the items that may get the most notice, since their different.

divecchia

For the graded stuff, I would definitely go with prewarcardcollector on ebay. The real expensive rare items maybe an auction house.

Donato