Have You Ever Traded a Non-Sport Card/Memorabilia Item for a Collection/High Value Card? i.e. Car 4

Meatloaf

Just looking to gain some insight here on this topic.

I own 6.21 acres of nice land in SE North Carolina in the Smokey Mountains (no loan; own outright). The land is on the side of a mountain, has much privacy, and includes a nice branch (very small creek) in the middle of the property. It is also located 1 mile from a major lake with many recreational opportunities. Anyway, I was originally going to build a vacation cabin on the property, but never got around to it. I live too far away from the property now to do much with it. I am considering listing the property with a real estate agent (targeting a $60-70k sales price) as the market slowly comes back, but was wondering if it would be better to trade it for a nice/high value collection to resell over time or trade it for a small number of ultra high $$$ graded cards? Just curious if know if anyone on the boards has ever traded a high value $$$ non-sports collectible item (i.e. car, boat, land, etc.) in return for high value sports collectibles or a collection? Did the deal end up working out well for you? If you had to do it again, what would you have done differently.

In my context, I see the pros and cons of a potential trade like this as...

Pros:
-In the end, someone else enjoys the property more than me.
-I don't have to deal with real estate agents, sales commissions, etc.
-I potentially get nice value in return.
-I enjoy reselling cards and autos, so I would enjoy reselling what I traded for.

Cons:
-Small market for a trade like this.
-Potential market includes people who think their 100,000 1989 topps cards = a high value collection
-When all said and done, may be worth more to my time to list with agent and get the cash upon sale vice spending the time to list and sell high value cards.
-May take a long time to find the right trader; the property is not burning a hole in my pockets, but rather reinvest elsewhere sooner rather than later.
-If my plan is to resell everything I get in trade, I need to factor in fees, taxes, and other overhead, which may provide less long run value if the item(s) I get are simply at exact market price for the land....if that makes sense.

Thoughts?

Meatloaf

charrigan

I would recommend selling the land for cash, then buying a collection to resell for profit with that cash if you would enjoy it.

You can still do a for-sale-by-owner and minimize transaction costs.

Doing a direct trade will limit the value of the land because it narrows the potential buyer pool dramatically to only people who both have a high value sports collection AND are interested in owning acreage in NC instead. The buyer pool for that has to be tiny.

gregmo32

I would think the process of finding a trading partner with what you would consider a fair value in cards would be the hard part.
I would recommend selling it outright. If you then wanted to reinvest the cash, you could.

mtcards

I have actually had smaller experiences with this as I have a few customers that bring in coins/cards and trade for my regular merchandise. The problem that you would have is that you would have to negotiate what fair market value is, also find that rare person who has a collection of items worthy of making the trade and also have the items something you wouldnt mind having. If your land would sell for $60k, would you trade that for 60k in Mantles of the buyers choice or would you rather have the 60k in cash to buy the cards YOU want instead?

bigdcards

I don't think you will find a trade partner at all, but I don't understand why you wouldn't give it a try. We can theorize about what you will get or how someone else might respond, but we don't know. I wouldn't wait a year hunting someone down, but why not put out an ad and see if you get a response? Until you have an actual offer, I don't know how to recommend for or against it.

If there are major tax or logistic issues involved in such a trade, that would change my view.

70ToppsFanatic

It's funny that you ask this.

About 13-14 years ago I traded a 1971 Gibson SG custom electric guitar (cherry red) for a really nice collection
of 1960s and 1970s Topps BB cards (stars and high end commons).

The guitar was valued at $2800 at the time and the cards were proabably valued around $3800 (I asked for
the trade to be in my favor because grading each card is much riskier than getting an appraisal of a vintage
guitar).

The deal worked out great for both of us.

Thus, I guess its possible to trade (and also helps you avoid capital gains tax). However, finding a collector
who has something you really want that is interested in your land/property is probably going to be a real
long shot.

But good luck with the endeavor if you decide to pursue it.