Your Opinion on Complete vs. Near Complete Set Value

[oldeboo]

Originally Posted by CK

So, a redirect to anyone else who may be reading, should I go “all in” to acquire the remaining pieces and feel confident that I made the sum of the whole greater than the individual parts of this set? Keep in mind, we are talking 6 cards that will cost the equivalent of a small SUV.

That's the interesting thing about complete sets, especially in pre-war cards. If you sell it as a complete set, the potential buyers will start by valuing the set based off of the most important cards first. A lot of people out there are buying complete or partial sets in order to break them up and make a few bucks. A complete set has much less value than the sum of the individual cards. That gets into a whole different discussion of how to sell.

It's crazy to think that even 3 or 4 years ago a complete 1933 Goudey set could have been bought for the going price of a single Ruth today.

[CK]

Originally Posted by oldeboo

That's the interesting thing about complete sets, especially in pre-war cards. If you sell it as a complete set, the potential buyers will start by valuing the set based off of the most important cards first. A lot of people out there are buying complete or partial sets in order to break them up and make a few bucks. A complete set has much less value than the sum of the individual cards. That gets into a whole different discussion of how to sell.

It's crazy to think that even 3 or 4 years ago a complete 1933 Goudey set could have been bought for the going price of a single Ruth today.

Prices have certainly exploded. It would be challenging to piece together the entire set in PSA today considering the lag in the grading process at this time, I feel fortunate I submitted most of my cards a year or so ago. At the least, I feel having a near complete set in PSA removed most of the mystery in terms of value in comparison to a raw set where the value is in the eyes of the beholder. Wrong or right I have a numerical value anyways as a basis.