How do you think about buying a big lot of cards?

[STL1944]

Hi... I am looking for some advice. I have the opportunity to purchase a collection of cards (~50-60k) that range from the 1950's to the 2000's. I am primarily interested in cards from the 50's and 60's but the owner wants to sell everything at once. Also, his collection is about 20% football and basketball (which I know almost nothing about).

How do you think about an opportunity like this?

Do you value what you know (i.e. baseball cards from the 50's and 60's) and offer based just on that?

If I do end up buying everything do I just sell all of the stuff I don't want all at once or card-by-card?

Any advice is appreciated.


Jim

[KCRfan1]

I think you need to give us more information. My questions are as follows: Are any of the cards graded? How many of the cards are 1960's and earlier ( anything 1976 to present does not carry much value )? There are exceptions to this ex: Jordan rookie card among others. What type of condition are the cards in ( are they beaten up or fresh from a pack )? Are there superstars in the lot, be it baseball football or basketball? What is the price of the lot for all of the cards? Keep in mind, if you sell the cards one by one, that is a lot of your time to list and mail cards if via ebay. You may sit on those cards for the rest of your life if you are trying to sell them. I would think your best bet is to sell the cards by lot as well. Book value does not equal what people are willing to pay sometimes. Do your homework, and know EXACTLY what the lot consists of. Then you can determine if the lot is worth it. Sometimes the best deals are the ones not made.....

[STL1944]

I have not seen the whole lot just a couple of pictures. I am supposed to look at things in person on Wednesday.

From what I can see, the cards look in raw, ungraded condition. However, from the photos that I have seen they appear to be in excellent shape (kind of difficult to tell from the photos).

I have no idea of the actual mix of 50's vs. 60's vs. 70's vs. 80's. From what I can tell from the pictures, the older cards look more to be semi-stars and commons. The ones from the 70's and 80's appear to be more stars and HOF's.

I know that is not enough information to figure out an actual price, but rather I am curious how others think through a situation like this. Your thoughts on selling things in lots is helpful. I agree in that I am not too excited about trying to sell cards one-by-one.

[Bestdj777]

It doesn't sound like a particularly appealing lot. The commons from the 50s-60s could be very hard to move, and, the newer stuff, even if it is stars, likely has little value. It sounds like the guy picked through everything good and is trying to push the rest of it off on you.

[KCRfan1]

I agree with Chris. This guy is unloading and has kept anything of value. If you are in the market to buy, take what you would spend on that lot, which does not sound appealing at all, and buy one very nice card. Based on your information, I would not even spend the time to go look at the lot.

[vintage954]

From my experiences, anyone who has a huge lot of cards and is trying to sell them has done their homework. When people say they don't know what they have or haven't even looked through them is flat out lying. I've looked at 5 huge lots in the last 5 months and every seller didn't know what was in the lot, but yet 3 were known collectors here in south Florida.

[Exhibitman]

I've bought several collections over the years, some from people with no hobby connection, most from collectors. A few things I've found helpful:

Decide why you are buying the lot. If for resale, you have to be utterly ruthless in assessing the lot. You can buy anything and make money--just about--if you get in on it at the right price point. If you miss your price point you will lose money.

Go through the material and cull all of the stars. Separate the really big ones--Mantle, Mays, Koufax, Aaron, and rookies of lesser HOFers--from the rest of the stars. Evaluate the big stars carefully for condition. Assume worst case scenario if you try to grade them; that 'tweener will be a 6 not a 7. Then figure value. If 'book' on a big name card in near mint is $100 and the card is vg, its wholesale price is $10-$15 because it will sell on eBay for $25 and you have to cover your fees and time and materials and still make a profit. I recently bought a presentable vg 1961 Koufax for $21 shipped. eBay prices are retail. Wholesale is a fraction of that. If the guy wants eBay prices let him waste his time selling the stuff.

Lesser HOFers and stars from the 1950s-1960s are worth $2-$5 a card, no more. You simply will not make any money on them otherwise.

1970s cards are worth a dollar each at best unless they are stellar condition. I live on the dollar boxes at the National and that is what they are filled with.

Commons are worth very little--a few cents each--unless they are from tougher series and in great shape. Retailing commons is a miserable experience, BTW. The work is difficult, the customers are bigger PITAs than guys who buy $10,000 cards, and you have to move volume to make a meager profit. Odds are you will end up accumulating the commons and consigning to an auction house for sale as shoebox lots or as partial sets, so you have to assume a very low value or you will lose money when the AH fees are factored into it.

Anything made after 1981 is worthless for acquisition purposes. I will repeat that: anything made after 1981 is worthless for acquisition purposes. The seller is lucky you are willing to haul them to the dump for him. The only exceptions are HOF rookies in slabs in 9 or better. Assume that any raw rookie you see will get an 8 and not even redeem your grading fees when you sell it off. Anything else you will end up selling off in 5000 count boxes for $20 a box at your garage sale. Been there, done that...

[RobertGT]

I've bought several collections over the years, some from people with no hobby connection, most from collectors. A few things I've found helpful:

Decide why you are buying the lot. If for resale, you have to be utterly ruthless in assessing the lot. You can buy anything and make money--just about--if you get in on it at the right price point. If you miss your price point you will lose money.

Go through the material and cull all of the stars. Separate the really big ones--Mantle, Mays, Koufax, Aaron, and rookies of lesser HOFers--from the rest of the stars. Evaluate the big stars carefully for condition. Assume worst case scenario if you try to grade them; that 'tweener will be a 6 not a 7. Then figure value. If 'book' on a big name card in near mint is $100 and the card is vg, its wholesale price is $10-$15 because it will sell on eBay for $25 and you have to cover your fees and time and materials and still make a profit. I recently bought a presentable vg 1961 Koufax for $21 shipped. eBay prices are retail. Wholesale is a fraction of that. If the guy wants eBay prices let him waste his time selling the stuff.

Lesser HOFers and stars from the 1950s-1960s are worth $2-$5 a card, no more. You simply will not make any money on them otherwise.

1970s cards are worth a dollar each at best unless they are stellar condition. I live on the dollar boxes at the National and that is what they are filled with.

Commons are worth very little--a few cents each--unless they are from tougher series and in great shape. Retailing commons is a miserable experience, BTW. The work is difficult, the customers are bigger PITAs than guys who buy $10,000 cards, and you have to move volume to make a meager profit. Odds are you will end up accumulating the commons and consigning to an auction house for sale as shoebox lots or as partial sets, so you have to assume a very low value or you will lose money when the AH fees are factored into it.

Anything made after 1981 is worthless for acquisition purposes. I will repeat that: anything made after 1981 is worthless for acquisition purposes. The seller is lucky you are willing to haul them to the dump for him. The only exceptions are HOF rookies in slabs in 9 or better. Assume that any raw rookie you see will get an 8 and not even redeem your grading fees when you sell it off. Anything else you will end up selling off in 5000 count boxes for $20 a box at your garage sale. Been there, done that...

This is perfect advice, for the most part. The key to making a deal with any quantity is in the BUYING, not the selling. You better be low or be prepared to be creamed by someone who has cherry-picked the collection.

The only thing that I would disagree with is the final paragraph. You can still make money off of post-1981 cards if bought cheaply enough and you know where to move them. You can do very well on 1980s unopened material too - that stuff is hot.

[stlcardsfan]

Agreed. I am going to save Adam's post when I am considering a large purchase. Very good advice.

[Zach Wheat]

Agree with Adam. I have made a number of large lot acquisitions. I typically value cards prior to 1985 + sets and then count everything else as no value. I also separate the star cards or mid-star cards prior to 1985 and get some estimate of value for these...giving little to no value to commons unless they are from the '50's, '60's or graded cards. That comes close to my price.

It is a real pain trying to get rid of commons. Good luck.

[mintacular]

Be careful, don't get overwhelmed with the quantity offered, chances are 90% of these cards are little to no value and this guy (especially after fees/shipping) and this could put you on the hook for trying to dump them by adding a few decent cards in the lot

[m.wright58926]

I've bought several collections over the last 2 years, including tons of commons. The "Sold" filter feature on eBay is your best friend. Others have pointed out that the older cards may be commons, but that actually might be of interest to you if you're a set builder. My strategy is to see what lots of commons have sold for on eBay recently, and have a written price for what you'll pay each year. When you are looking at the cards, the height of a card, when measured against a stack = about 200 cards.

So you can quickly estimate how many commons, and multiply them by your buy price you developed ahead of time. I'll agree with the others, once you get to 1980 and later, hard to turn them for a profit. But many sellers want to sell everything, so you may have to tough it out. I've found the best way to sell them is to have a starter set, of X # different. Price examples- just sold lot of 575 different 1982T BB commons with some HOFers for $4...1980 lot of about 500 different commons for $14. It sucks and is a lot of work, but sometimes makes sense if you complete a purchase to get other things you want.

For any major cards, I usually offer about 1/3 off similar recent completed ebay auctions. Any more than that, and you can argue that you'd just buy exactly what you want on ebay, instead of buying someone's collection. For miscellaneous things, I don't put any, or minimal value on it.

Finally, after all this calculating, I normally take about another 10-15% off my first offer to allow a little negotiating...then try not to give it all back to account for time, gas, calculation errors, condition misjudgement, etc.

For me, it's a fun process, never know what you might find...but it's also why I've had to get up an extra hour early the last 2 days to ship cards from my ebay "yard sale" with tons of $1 items that I've accumulated...:(

[mattsedate]

I would probably buy the entire collection, then have some remorse, then get happy if I find something really good.