Selling or buying sets

[Archive]

Posted By: Dave F

Whats the best way to go about either acquiring or selling off a set? I guess it all depends on what kind of set...so lets say a complete set of E94's, E97's, or E98's...

I would think that its probably better when selling to try unloading them individually. It seems anyway you would recoup the most money this way..so I'm not sure why more of the guys that have sets to sell don't do this? I see an awful lot of complete or near complete sets in the different auction houses...and it just seems they aren't making the most bang for the buck off what they are selling in that manner.

I think logically speaking if your trying to complete a set your always doing well if you can pick up an entire set (maybe overall costs are down), or a large number of cards in one whack...

Just curious as to opinions. If you had any of the sets above...would you be selling them one by one, or all at once? Big auction house? eBay?

[Archive]

Posted By: Eric

Selling off sets one card at a time is just very time consuming and cumbersome.

Running all those auctions and dealing with waiting for payments for each card along with shipping each card... its a lot to deal with!

[Archive]

Posted By: Dave F

True Eric, but even in a set like E94's or E98's where there is only 30 or so cards...couldn't the difference in prices realized be into the thousands your losing if trying to sell as a complete set?

I guess there are many especially on this board that would rather just get a good chunk back from what they put into a set..myself, I'd probably take the headaches of dealing with individual card sales even if meant recouping an extra $1000

[Archive]

Posted By: Phil Garry

One of the biggest differences is that the sets/near sets can be consigned to the big auction houses as one lot. On an individual card basis, the big auction houses would probably take the key cards/HOF'ers but would not be willing to list the others individually unless they are very rare, high grade, etc. Now you would be forced to sell those yourself on e-bay, private transaction, etc.

[Archive]

Posted By: Bobby Binder

There have been a number of times where the big houses had it both ways to bid on the set as a whole or individually. Which ever was higher was the winner and I think every time the highest price was for the whole set.

[Archive]

Posted By: JK

Bobby,

I dont know that you are correct. I recall at least one set (unfortunately dont remember which one) in which the individual cards went for more. But you are correct that most of the time the full set went for more. However, I attribute that at least in part to individual bidders giving up when they no longer feel that they can catch the price of the full set. As a result, I think you end up losing a lot of the late action on those lots. I believe that there have been previous posts on this topic concerning some fairly poor hammer prices on some full vs. individual auctions (I seem to recall a cracker jack set that sold for a very low price, but may be wrong).

[Archive]

Posted By: barrysloate

Selling them individually is more work but will likely get you more money. Sets are often bought by dealers and broken up and sold on ebay anyway.

I would offer as a set only if it were very rare or very high grade. Otherwise, one card at a time.