Financial Advantage of Set Breaking?

lahmejoon

Hi All,

I'm slowly building the 1970-1972 & 1975 baseball sets and have been picking up a few commons here and there on ebay to fill my lists. I frequent the larger volume dealers who do auction format set breaks and it got me wondering if the effort is worth what is realized by breaking the sets. My general observations are:

1. For sets with multiple series, the seller is probably able to maximize its take on the high series singles.
2. The seller is able to realize a decent sales price on stars.
3. For lower series commons (or in the case of 1975, where it's one series), $0.99 listings by-in-large do not sell

In the case of a 1975 set, let's say you don't get any bites on 400 of the 660 cards. Wouldn't the time and administrative hassle of listing those 400 cards that did not sell greatly diminish your return?

I've never done this, nor would I have the patience to do this. I can see set breaks working with older sets, but once you start in the 70's and the set makeups switch to single series, it would seem it wouldn't be as profitable, considering half of the individual cards wouldn't sell at a $0.99 minimum.

Is there anyone on the board who has done this? I would be interested in hearing examples of returns, when you factor the time element, as compared to just listing the complete sets.

Thanks! Happy New Year's Eve-Eve!

Bosox1976

Greg Morris has a different cost structure for sets with a lower average price per card (i.e. he charges the consignor more for 70's). Plus he still makes a little on shipping. He gets his either way... I don't blame him.

I think it is wiser for those 70's sets to do stars, high numbers where applicable, low-pops and toughies separately and do the other 400 (or so cards) in one or two lots - ideally by condition. That said, it is no slam dunk that the break up value is higher than the set - given the extra work and fees.

Older, and PSA registry sets make it a little easier, but IMHO sometimes a nice set can do better on it's own - esp. sets valued under $1,500 (@ 660 cards).

Good question -- and Happy New Year!

KbKards

I assume you're talking about un-graded, but assembling sets from those years a card at a time will easily cost you twice as much. You won't get the money invested back selling it as a set or selling a card at a time using Ebay. The sets you list should be bought as sets, or at least started from a heavily discounted nearly complete starter set. Using your 1975 set as an example, you comment about not getting hits at 99 cents on 400 of the 660 cards. You really shouldn't get hits because that would be getting almost $400 just for commons from a set that can easily be bought complete in nice shape for $400. If you're looking at the book price of all cards individually, or at Ebay 99 cent starting prices, then busting sets may look very lucrative but it's not that easy. Based on the way you're assembling the sets the only way to recoup a portion of what you've invested is to sell them complete or near complete all by YOURSELF on Ebay.

lahmejoon

Hi Mike,

The one piece I was missing in this whole thing is that most of these guys are consignees. If you were someone who actually paid to acquire sets and then broke them up yourself, you may not have a guarantee to recoup, given that most of your commons will not sell individually. So, I wonder, what do the Greg Morris' of the world do with all of the commons that do not sell? Do they just give it back to the consignor? Rarely do I see lots of commons being offered by these vendors.

Kb, yes, I'm only talking about raw. I'm basically sniping commons. Occasionally, I get lucky and pick a few up in EXMT or NM at under low book. It's a slow process, but I'm enjoying it.

Thanks!