Collection Value

[raulus]

Originally Posted by garymc

I failed to mention that my collection is 90% RAW. I started collecting in 1992 and it has been only the last couple of years that I've been getting graded cards in trades and at auction.

Insurance companies will parrot the terms "like kind and quality" to you over and over again. Looks like you have a good photo log of a lot of your pieces, which should help to document the precise items and their quality. Hopefully it's complete.

The gist of the insurance companies' approach is that they will either find replacements that are of similar quality, or they will cut you a check for the amount of your coverage if they can't replace it.

My advice would be to estimate the amount that you would need to pay to replace each item if you had to go out and buy it retail, which is often a lot higher than auction prices. For some stuff, it's not easy to find comps, particularly with raw obscure pieces, just because they're that hard to find, and come onto the market very infrequently. Ebay is certainly a good resource. You can also use cardfinder, which is free, and has the added benefit of including raw cards, although I'm not sure how complete their database is.

In some cases, any given item might not have sold recently, so you'll be relying on old sales data to pick a number. Just make sure to factor in the dramatic runup in prices over the last couple of years.

Ultimately, for some things it might be tough to find much, so you will probably just have to give it your best guess. I would aim a little on the high side, just to give yourself some cushion. Because we all know that when it comes to stuff that is difficult to find, the price can jump in a hurry if you're competing with a few other collectors to get it.