A Strategy Change?

[kailes2872]

Since August of 2012, I have been on a single-minded goal to complete a Post-War run. Early on, I bought sets at a time. Over the last 3-4 years, as I have gotten into the more expensive sets of the 50's, it has slowed down (although gotten more expensive). I am finally down to 3 - 49 & 51 Bowman, and 52 Topps. Give the cost of the big 2 in '51 and the heavy financial commitment to 52 Topps, it could be another 5-7 years to get them all done.

I really love my sets and look at them on occasion (although not as much in the last couple of years). My 56 set is my favorite because I collected it card by card. I am proud of the fact that I have all of the HOFers from 54-56 Topps in at least PSA 6.

However, they do end up taking up a lot o room and there are a lot of binders in the safe.

I have been thinking about perhaps changing my collecting strategy and using the proceeds from a liquidation to purchase a hand full of really nice, mount rushmore type cards. These are ones that I would be happy to own and in the case of my eventual demise, it would be much easier for my heirs to liquidate.

Where I am struggling is the fact that I enjoy my cards so much and have so much passion in energy in their pursuit. My kids like them, but I don't think that they share my same fire and would probably end up selling them off. If that is the case, I would rather do it since I am much more knowledgeable of their value. I would turn all proceeds back into a much more focused and smaller collection, but I am not excited about losing value in the transaction as I would pay sales tax again on the smaller collection that I would turn around and get.

I would then have to go through the effort and energy of dealing with auction houses and getting them sent off. I know what I have and don't plan on selling them off at 70 cents on the dollar, so I might just stay the course, but I am not sure what the eventual end game is.

Has anyone gone this route before? Was it hard to part with the sets that you had spent so much time, energy, and money completing? Did you go with an auction house? How long did it take to get through the process? Did you feel like you got fair value?

I'm in my late 40's so I feel that I still have plenty of time. It might also be the overwhelming feeling of knowing how much money and energy that I will have to put into 51 Bowman and 52 Topps and if I break it down into smaller bites, it might not seem so overwhelming.

I'll figure it out - was just looking for any feedback from anyone who went through this same process in their collecting lifecycle.