Selling Question

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Posted By: gdp

My comments largely echo the comments of others. You were unclear whether your collection was of type cards, whole sets, etc. In the case of collections of whole sets (assuming that the sets are reasonably uniform in condition) you can do quite well elling them in whole sets. To the extent that your collection does not meet that description, you will usually do quite poorly unless you sell it as individualcards or other discrete units. My experience is that you are best off doing one of the following:

1 - Consign to a well-known dealer. Do your research, but there are a large number of reputable and quality dealers (including those on this page) and part-time hobbyist-loonies (including me). This will cost you around 10%, but will probably be the most cost-effective way of dealing with an unwieldy range of material. Benefits include the fact that he/she will do the hard work for you in figuring out how best to sell your collection, and in identifying the hidden diamonds within your collection. The disadvantage is that, if your collection is of modest value, the dealer may well not be interested in consignment, offering instead to buy at dealer prices or to simply re-sell as a lot.

2 - Picking out the Diamonds: If you know enough about values and "grading" of your cards, you can first pick out the "diamonds" from the rest of the collection and have them graded. Any of PSA, SGC or GAI should work for this, with different people having different preferences. Once graded - assuming you were correct - you can deal with eBay (see 4 below), auction houses (see 3 below) or a dealer (see 1 above) and will likely get a better price.

3 - Auction Houses: These make sense only if your collection includes truly unique items or if the auction house is willing to waive the "seller fee." Otherwise, the 10-15% seller fee can wipe out the benefit of the auction atmosphere. Advantages of auctions are (a) you can piggy-back off the auction house's reputation (assuming you pick a good one) and (b) you may hit a "home run" that nobody would have expected. But, then again, you may not .... You need to make sure whether the auction house will allow you to set a reserve and the auction house policies on starting prices, lot sizes, and listing of multiple similar items.

4 - eBay: This option only makes sense if you already have an established "positive" eBay reputation. If not, you will not be able to get a fair price, since buyers will discount on the risk that you are not honest. Assuming you or a friend have such a reputation, you still will need some expert advice on whether to sell in groups or individually, and a lot of spare time to handle the listings, so expect to either learn by trial and error or go back to option 1 above (dealer consignments).

Hope this helps. Not knowing more about your collection, or your level of sophistication in dealing with this market, it is hard to be more specific. Also, I have avoided the general discussion of whether you are hoping to be paid for this collection without attracting the attention of the IRS (eBay or dealers) versus taxable benefits (auction houses, though some claim otherwise).