UPDATE: Selling my Star Basketball Sets

TonyC

I have two 1984-85 Star Basketball sets that I purchased back at their original release that I am thinking about selling. The primary thing that is holding me back is that I don't know how to sell them. I would imagine that, to maximize my money, I would need to authenticate the Jordan bags via BGS to prove their authenticity to buyers. I am very cautious about selling them on eBay, even if I got the important bags graded, because I fear a scammer trying to pull something on me.

Any advice anyone has would be appreciated.

Arsenal83

PM sent

MBMiller25

Talk to Lee ( CDsNuts). He is a board member and knows this stuff well. Good Luck

aro13

I do not think BGS will grade the bags. They only graded them for one person. They will grade single cards.

You might be better off to consign them with an auction house.

CDsNuts

Depending on condition it might be best if you got all the bags graded by BGS if they will let you. I know that seems expensive, but an overall BGS 9.0-9.5 set would bring big money most likely and well worth the couple hundred or whatever it would cost to get them slabbed. There aren't many fully bagged sets that have sold ever. I'd also use one of the big auction houses or pwcc as my seller since they have a lot of whales that watch their auctions.

I personally sold an unbagged set for just under $2500 and I think a fully bagged set would sell for at least double what mine did. A fully bagged set sold for $6000 earlier this year so that would be a good gauge. A fully bagged and graded set? Who knows, but I think it could hit the $7000-$7500 range, maybe more.

Also, I think this would be a situation where the sum of the parts is worth more than the breakup value, so definitely don't break up the sets.

wallst32

If the Jordan 101 is centered and high grade I would separate it from the lot and have it BGS graded as a single. Most of the 101's are O/C in either, or both directions. If that is the case with your cards, you're looking at a 7 on the centering grade with no hope of a high grade. For this card I would say high grade target would be 8/8.5 or higher.

Anyways it's no different than any other card. If it appears to be high grade and you want top dollar you have to grade it. Nobody is going to pay you a BGS 9 price for it unless it's actually a BGS 9.

If you don't want to go ebay I suppose an auction house would take it, but you're probably looking at paying higher fees.

Toro

Keep it sealed, good luck!

TonyC

Should I be concerned about a scammer on eBay, or is that being paranoid of me?

TonyC

If I were to go the auction house route, does anyone have suggestions as to which would be best for this item?

Statman

You are probably better off going the auction house route. For an item like that, you may be able to talk down the commission quite a bit (maybe even 0%). Even if not, between Ebay and Paypal, you are going to pay almost 10% on an item of that cost. It might just be easier for someone else to handle who might be able to give it bigger exposure (obviously more people might see it on Ebay, but you may have more serious buyers through an auction house).

And, you wouldn't have to worry about getting payment from the buyer and shipping, etc....

aro13

Try Sterlingsportsauctions.com.

smtjoy

Go with an auction house, I would not sell an item/set at that price level on ebay, plus the auction house can advise on grading or not.

wallst32

BGS 8.5 Jordan

Checkout what this 8.5 Jordan 101 went for. Definitely need to grade the Jordan if it's nice. The top to bottom centering saves this card as it's usually off in both directions. I'm not sure if I've ever seen the card not centered toward the left left-to-right. But you do see quite a bit of variance top to bottom.

TonyC

Update to this story:

I decided to investigate the auction house route. I send emails to all of the major auction houses describing what I have, and I was less than impressed with the responses. Quite a few never answered me, and most of the answers I received were off the mark; the consensus estimate for one 1984-85 set according to these auction houses was $1500-$2500. Further, many of the responses were unprofessional, containing spelling/grammatical errors and incomplete thoughts.

However, one auction house impressed me. Brian Drent from Mile High called me on the phone (the only person to do so) and spoke with me for 10-15 minutes about the sets. He seemed very knowledgeable about Star products, telling me how he worked with someone dealing the sets in the 1980s and 1990s, and gave me an estimate of $4500 to $6000 for the 1984-85 set. After offering me a very generous arrangement, I agreed to enter one of my 1984-85 sets and my 1985-86 set in the Mile High October auction, so if anyone wants them, that is where they will be.