[glchen]

Phil, I'm definitely very sorry to hear about your health situation and wish the best for you on that front.

Financially for your questions, I think a lot of the posters have already given their advice. From my side, the first thing I thought of, was first to make sure that you maximized your tax benefits through all of this, if it were relevant. It may not have much of an impact if you don't have much of an income these days. However, if you did have capital gains that you needed to offset with capital losses, make sure to take those things into account.

The next thing was imagining what I would do in your situation. First, this could happen to anybody, so I wouldn't beat yourself up too much on this. In hindsight, everything is 20/20, so obviously now, everyone can say that you should have just invested all of that money that you made from selling your Negro league cards and bought Tesla or Nvidia stock. Back then, no one had a clue, and lingering too long on it will only hurt your mental health. Just accept the situation and move on.

As others have said, I'd first take stock of what your expense are each month, which you said in a later post are around $1500. First sell a little more than that, so that you are comfortable and not stressed out about the situation too much. When we are under too much stress or mental pressure, that will usually be when we make mistakes with your investments and financial decisions. So first sell enough so that you are not under this pressure.

For what to sell first, I would use your hobby knowledge. I only collect Ruth/Gehrig cards, so I know all of those cards very well, and am not close to being any kind of expert at HOF Rookies. But with your knowledge and expertise, I would first sell those cards that you think would be least likely to go up in the next couple of years, that is, you would expect those cards to have the worst ROI from their current market levels (not from the price you purchased them at). Even though what you said was that you mainly focused on the major HOFers and stars and not the minor ones, my guess would be to sell the least well known or in demand cards first. For example, keep the Mantles and Jackie Robinson's and sell the Karl Malone's and Tim Duncan's. Some cards for a player may be more likely to go up than another for the same player. For example, Goudey Ruth's are usually more in demand than Ruth's strip cards even if some of the strip cards may be much rarer. The cards with better eye appeal are usually more well liked and in demand by collectors, so even in the strip cards, the W516's are much more in demand than the ugly W512 strip cards for Ruth. Again, these are just examples, and I'm deferring to your expertise here.

Next, once you have a basic nest egg where you're not too worried about paying your rent and your bills for the next few months, put together a longer term plan. For example, for your health, determine what your reasonable capabilities are? Can you spend 7-8 hours per day, scanning through ebay, looking for deals where you can make certain profits, re-listing and flipping cards or other things? In order to do these things, you need to have a spending budget and a plan. I usually make a profit, selling cards on ebay, but for me, it's like a secondary hobby to support my card collecting. It's not something where I feel the pressure to make money to support my livelihood. For myself, if I don't make any money or even lose money, it's really not a big deal, but it's not the same situation as you.

For example, the normal thing to do, would be to put most of your cards on ebay with a high BIN price, perhaps even about your purchase price, and then see if anyone bites. You never know. But that way, you will get the price you want. However, with that approach, you may not get any sales for months, and that won't put food on the table. So you would need to put together a strategy that works for your situation.

Finally, for your last question, I think the 1985 Star Michael Jordans can easily shoot up in the future. I'd personally try to hold onto them, but again, you know your situation the best, so you'll have to make that decision as part of your overall strategy.

Good luck, Phil, and definitely wish the best for you.