selling bulk autographed cards

[theshleps]

I will probably be unsuccessful but will try to get my son to sell 30,000 signed cards he got IP or through the mail or trades. Cards run 1980-2013. Most will be commons. No duplicates. No HOFers. Some may be guys that were up for a cup of coffee and then disappeared back to Central America or the Caribbean and may thus be tough. May include a few guys like Brian Cole. many minor league team set issues.
Assuming he doesn't want to spend the rest of his life listing them on ebay what would be a way to get a reasonable price for them. Any auction house that may want to sell by years? or ebay by years or one bulk lot. The high end auction houses won't be interested but any that would be that would be good to deal with.
I am housing them now and we may move again and I don't want to haul them again.
Advice??

[whitey19thcentury]

I have purchased a few collections like yours through the years. I paid about 10-30 cents on average per card.

Believe me, selling cards by singles or in smaller lots on eBay takes years. A few months ago, I came across 3 monster boxes full of signed cards from a spring training in-person collection I bought about 5 or 6 years ago. I literally forgot about those remaining cards. I sold the better ones as singles and am selling them in smaller lots, getting about 30 cents a card as I am down to the commons.

My advice to you, if you have the time and don't want to sell them all as one lot is to pull the better singles. Also, some of the guys you think won't sell individually, will sell. Do a quick eBay search for sold prices to see. Also, you may want to sell cards from certain sets individually, even if they are commons. Sets from the 80s are popular among signed set builders, especially 1987 Topps.

You can also try to sell team lots or, again, if you have the time, sell lots by sets, if you have enough cards from that particular set to do so.

There are a FEW auction houses out there who may be willing to sell your collection. However, be prepared that you may get cents on the dollar per card.

Hope I helped. If you have any further questions, please ask.

[swarmee]

Agreed; if I had a collection like that I wanted to sell, I would group them by set and then sell them on eBay as lots. I saw that someone on blowoutcards forums was working on a 1990 Topps set completely signed and I remembered getting Tim Crews at Spring Training a couple of years before his boating accident/death. Since someone wanted to put together that set and that card would be near impossible to get, I listed it for him to find on eBay. I think that's a good solution to selling a card; seeing it go to someone who will treasure it as the rarity it is.

[mrmopar]

Similar sets and years work well and Team lots always work great too. I love to find Dodger lots, so I can get a good variety and hopefully a good deal in bulk as well, since I will take just about any Dodger card signed I don't already have and sometimes dupes.

[peterose4hof]

I have a large collection that I am going to need to unload some day; lots of HOF'ers as well as commons.

Most of the cards are from the 80's with a handful of 60's, 70's & 90's.

Question: Is there a big difference in value/desirability if they are signed in ballpoint pen vs sharpie?

[MacDice]

Question: Is there a big difference in value/desirability if they are signed in ballpoint pen vs sharpie?

Personally as long as the signature is authentic and bold it doesn't matter to me. I do know that some collectors prefer ballpoint especially if it is a vintage signature