My Yard Sale

[David W]

I'd try again.

An employee of mine's mother in law wanted me to buy several thousand beat up commons from the 70's to the early 90's for $75. The cards included some horribly cut Hostess, some Kellogg's all cracked, and dinged and creased 71 to 77 Topps. 3/4 were 87 and later. There were some stars and HOF'ers, mostly late 70's (Schmidt with creases, Ryan 90 Donruss bad corners, etc...)

I politely declined.

"But I have rookie cards, look here is Derek Liliquist and Sid Bream...."

She sold them for $150 to somebody. Maybe you should spike them with the above mentioned mix.

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by David W

I'd try again. . . . Maybe you should spike them with the above mentioned mix.

I got a number of people to view the "baseball card table" but not a single person was interested in thumbing through the boxes. My take is that I had set up somewhat professionally, with the good cards out, so everybody knew that I knew what was worth something and what was not. If I had just left boxes of cards mixed in with the baby strollers and old stereo equipment, I probably would have done better. People might have thought they could find a diamond in the rough.

[David W]

Originally Posted by T206Collector

I got a number of people to view the "baseball card table" but not a single person was interested in thumbing through the boxes. My take is that I had set up somewhat professionally, with the good cards out, so everybody knew that I knew what was worth something and what was not. If I had just left boxes of cards mixed in with the baby strollers and old stereo equipment, I probably would have done better. People might have thought they could find a diamond in the rough.

Yep. I've had the exact same experience selling my 80's junk. Look organized and it won't sell, just stick it under a table by the kids clothes and it sells.

[marvjung]

Interestingly enough, when I put on a garage sale at my community (I'm an Assisted Living Director), we put out all kinds of stuff. To save some space at my apartment, I showed up that morning with three boxes of baseball cards (blaster boxes from Target that I had saved) and stuffed all three boxes with commons and left overs - stuff that I really didn't care about.

It took about 2 hours, but somebody came up, looked once, offered $15 for the commons, and I got rid of them.

I got rid of them by simply just throwing them on the table with no order or organization - as if they were part of the sale. I even had one box of misc cards all over the place and those got picked up too in one whole lot. It was a breath of fresh air as I was able to dump my cards

[JamesGallo]

about 10-15 years ago I went to a garage sale with my dad and we stumbled across a bunch of 30-40s programs and score cards. Nice stuff in ok shape. I remmber my dad left me there to guard the pile while he went to get the cash. We paid ok mony for them so it wasn't a steal but still something I strongly remember.

James G