Sell or Consign
 

I am pondering the idea of either selling or consigning most of my collection and would appreciate some opinions as to what has worked for you in the past. I have always been a buyer and never a seller and am entering some uncharted waters. I really am not interested in going through ebay and am not sure if I would be better suited selling to a dealer or go through an auction. Also, would you suggest selling the collection as a whole or separate it into individual pieces. Any suggestions would be much appreciated...Thank You

Sell everything separately if you want to maximize the $$ you get back.

You can consign to an auction house, or even if you don't want to deal with ebay yourself you could consign to PWCC or somebody like that, you don't pay that much in fees and don't have to worry about anything. It's worked well for me in the past.

Couldn't go wrong with Love of the Game Auctions or Brockelman & Luckey.

Just don't send them your brown Old Mills. ;)

Depends on what you have. all places are not "one size fits all" and they all have their specialties. can you give an idea of the general categories of the items you have?

Today I made my first serious consignment to an auction house. I went with Brockelman & Luckey. No fees, low Buyer's Premium, wide distribution, high visibility, collaborative and regular communication, expectation of a quick turnaround on payment, all seem great to me so far....

If my items don't sell then I'll come back and edit all the nice talk! :D

+1

I agree with this here. It really depends on what your collection consists of.

Agree also. It really depends on what you have. Some auction houses are better for pre-war cards, some better for memorabilia, some better for autographs, etc,... If you have a variety of stuff (cards & memorabilia), then you should split up your consignment to different AHs.

The bidders are generally the same, but collectors focus more on the AH that have the material they collect.

Good luck !!!

Consign with Probstein his fee model nets as much as id sols yourself minus the headache

I'll second this.

It's pretty easy with most of the major auction houses to see what their specialties are by checking the history of their sales online. If you're selling a particular niche of collectible, do a search and see how many times the AH has handled that type of collectible.

One piece of advice I would give is, if time allows, wait until the auction house has an auction. Then, send an email with a few questions about one or two items. Maybe request a larger scan. Call to see how easy it is to reach a live person during the weeks before an auction's end date. Leave a voicemail and see how long it takes for someone to get back to you.

Every auction house will have a great sales pitch ready to give a consignor. What you want to see first-hand is how they treat potential bidders. Because if your calls or emails aren't returned when you make these inquiries, why would you think it will be different when it's your items that are for sale? When an AH takes a week to return a call or email and tries to explain it away by saying that, "It's just been crazy around here," that's a red flag for me. That's when I want them working their hardest and to be at their best -- when it's my items that are on the block.

I have used Probstein before & never had any problems. Fees range from about 15 to 10% depending on the $ amount. If you sold your cards on ebay they would charge you about 10% & paypal about 3%. Plus you would have to take pictures, send them in the mail & deal with customers. I have also heard good things about PWCC. I'm not sure if there are any other major ebayers that you could use. If your cards are nice enough you could consign them to a major auction house (REA, SCP, etc) & they could yield a higher price if you are ok with a longer time frame on getting your money.

If you have enough value in your collection the auction house might wave any consignment fee. I have had good experiences in consigning items with both Sterling and B-L.

I have been very pleased with Love of the Game!

Sell or Consign
 

After consideration I decided to consign with Love Of The Game Auctions. After hearing from numerous Net54 members and also talking with Al I decided that my cards would be in good hands. To answer an earlier question from this post..my collection consists of 19th century(Old Judge, Kalamazoo Bats, Allen and Ginter) to Mickey Mantle cards (51 Bowman, 52 topps, 53 Topps). I became convinced that LOTG had enough variety and traffic that I would get a good response.

Thank you to all the members that gave me such valuable information.

Mike