eng621 and all fellow collectors,

When I started to collect 30 years ago, my goal was to do the same thing. Wait until I die then let my family have it. Now that I have retired, I have re-thought that whole scenario. Why wait until I am dead? I would rather spend the money WITH my family and enjoy it WITH them when I am alive.

Even though you created an excel program for them to make it easier to sell and set up contacts to help them move it, only you can really make sure that your family gets the most out of your collection. And why burden them with that task? Believe me, selling a huge collection is a nightmare.

I sold off 98% of my collection. I had over 4 million cards and 1,000 wax boxes. And I got to enjoy the 30 years of collecting. I had just as much fun spending the money as I did collecting.

Why wait to die when you can enjoy the money with the ones you love. I am so glad I didn't leave it behind. I do have some cards left, my favorites, but I am not ready to sell those yet.
Just think how much it would mean to your family to spend time with you now doing all the things you ever dreamed of doing.

I don't believe you are doing anyone a favor by leaving it behind. When you get to that point in your life when you know it's time to sell, just do it. You will not regret that decision. I surely didn't. Thanks for listening.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: beamer,

quote:

Originally posted by beamer:
I sold off 98% of my collection. We paid off the house, paid for my daughters college in full, purchased new cars, fixed up the house and have cruised and traveled the planet.

If i sold off 98% of my collection i could afford a McDonalds Happy Meal.....a whole one.

Now come on. You mean buy a McDonalds franchise!

Do i get fries with that.

And a large shake ??????????

Have you seen the price of a large shake these days???
What a rip!

quote:

Originally posted by beamer:

I sold off 98% of my collection. I had over 4 million cards and 1,000 wax boxes. We paid off the house, paid for my daughters college in full, purchased new cars, fixed up the house and have cruised and traveled the planet. And I got to enjoy the 30 years of collecting. I had just as much fun spending the money as I did collecting.

Good for you beamer, as the old story goes our possessions will start to own us if we are not careful.

But I must ask you, even with thirty years of card collecting and millions of cards, a lot of that had to be in vintage sports cards, right? And you sold most of it personally to other collectors, not bulk sales to dealers, right? And maybe you let the best ones go quite a few years back?

Its very hard in today's market to realize that kind of money on the sale of modern cards, really not much in post 1970 sport and even less in non-sport of any era. In the late 80's and early 90's people were turning terrific profits on 50's and older baseball stars and rookies and also on basketball and hockey stars and rookies from the 60's to the early 80's.

But after the late 80's all the sportscards began being manufactured as collectibles and, with only a few exceptions, they could never compare in value to the vintage stuff.

I'm just guessing about what was in your old collection because I know that if I sold everything I have in cards right now, I wouldn't get anywhere near what I paid for it all. It's a good thing I never thought it was an investment.

Michael, can you give us an example of what cards you sold off so as to pay off your house ? That must have been some collection !

My mortgage is down to 350 K, but I doubt that my cards are worth that much !

My family tells me that if I died before getting rid of my cards, they would just put them in a yard sale, no matter what they might be able to get for them. They just do not want to go through the time and effort. I told them I can give them contacts to potentially help sell the cards, etc, but to no avail.

I will be slowly selling my cards like Michael as well, keeping my favorites for now.

Anyone wanna obtain a baseball card collection or a stamp collection while you are at it?

Mike

Lucky for me, my son is already trying to divide my collection up for him and his sister. Oh my.

I make custom autograph mattes. I have dozens that I have done. Some are small a few signatures. All the way up to the Harry Potter matte that is 3ft x 5ft and has over 120 autographs. I know they could be worth a lot of money or they might not. It just depends on the market. But, I just enjoy making the cards, sending them to get signed and then matting them. So that is the fun I get. I talk about selling them eventually so my wife and I might go on some big vacation. But, who knows. My kids are keep claiming certain matte's they want.

On a side note with what a poster mentioned earlier about an items a value to another collector or to a dealer. It reminds me of the show "Pawn Stars". When a person brings an item in and find out from an expert its worth X amount of dollars RETAIL. Then they expect the stor who has to resell it to pay the same amount.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any individual cards in my collection which are worth more than $ 100 each, except for maybe certain promos: the Star Wars Galaxy P3 Yoda, the Superman Man of Steel SW1, Speed Racer P3, Lion King SB1, and the set of Biospheres.

I also have master sets of all of the James Bond cards that Inkworks and Rittenhouse have released, including autos, so maybe they will increase in value over the next 20-30 years

This is an interesting thread. When I buy collections I have a standard letter, I always finish it with this reminder
"Although this is little comfort, I usually ask people who are selling their collection to pretend they spent their money on football, beer or chocolate (or all three ) You don’t get a return on the money you spent on those."
Which I think is what we all have to remember. With the advent of the internet and eBay it's meant all those cards that used to be buried underneath peoples beds are now constantly on sale, which increases supply, and reduces prices. Great if you are buying, but not great if you are trying to recover some money from your 'investment'. Anyway, just off for a beer, and watching the football with some chocolate

Beer, football and chocolate all do give one a return on their investment... increased gutsize, entertainment and possible diabetes

But more to the point, I think that I'm in the same boat as most collectors in that we have a bunch of stuff floating around but none of it is particularly valuable in and of itself beyond any intrinsic nostalgic or entertainment value it may have. I know that I'll never retire off any money that my collection could bring in but you'd pretty much have to pry my stuff out of my cold dead fingers anyways. As to what'll happen to my stuff when I've finally given up the ghost... well, to be honest, I don't really care. I can't take it with me and since lining my coffin with cards, comics and toys seems a tad gauche, I'll leave it to whomever gets my collection to decide what to do with it. What'll I care? I'll be dead

quote:

Before we submitted them we catalogued them at just over $60,000. I warned my sister not to expect more than about 20% of catalogue price (about $12,000). After reviewing all of the stamps for 3 weeks they finally cam back with an offer of $2500

Stamps have been around since 1840, a bit longer than the modern cards that most of us collect. As a result, there are a lot more research materials available to the stamp collector than to the non sport card collector. I use a site called stampboards.com which is based in Australia and has extremely knowledgeable and helpful people that will assist you in getting the "true" value of your new collection. You can even post scans of the more valuable items to determine the consensus of value. Please don't get discouraged about the actions of one "blood sucking dealer".
Good luck.

I'm a big collector as well as doing the occasional selling at fairs. If someone offers me a collection I have to consider that most of the collection will just gather dust and you have to make your money on maybe a few of the better cards.

If someone has a collection they wish to dispose I would always recommend to them sell them individually if they have the time but most just want a quick sale.

I look at my collection sometimes and think what it has cost to put together and realize that I would only get a small percentage of that value if I were to sell it off. Having said that I do not collect for future profit but what I enjoy collecting now.

I hear words like "blood sucking dealer" and I think people forget. Dealers are not required to buy anything. He gave a price he was willing to pay after calculating what he would need to do to make money. Also how much time and effort would be needed to make that money. Question one has to ask themselves ( from a dealers point of view )

1) how long will it take me to move these items.
2) How much will I be able to make on this.
3) is the time and effort worth that amount of money.
4) is my money better off being spent else where.
5) do I have the time needed to put in to move it or will it sit and i forget about it

All of these things are factors.

Now also a negotiation tactic is to sometimes lowball the first offer. Why does a dealer want to do this?

A) the sellers takes the lowball offer
B) Everyone always over evaluates their own collection (or item they are selling) and the lowball offer makes them question their evaluation.

Now there are risks to this, A the buyer, ups and leaves and doesnt bother to negotiate and you dont get the chance to buy the collection at the real number you were willing to pay.

You say then, well the dealer is just being greedy. No this is there living and if they just came out and said their best offer the people would then just think that that offer was them lowballing them anyways.

You as the seller have to also yourself if you will have the time, energy to sell off the collection on your own and is the diffrance the dealer was offering and what you could get on your own worth it?

Dealers have connections and people who are looking for things, a dealer might be able to sell the same item for twice as much as you could on your own. so you could go through all of the trouble of selling it on your own and still only come out with the $2500 or maybe even $4000 but is that extra $1500 worth the time and effort you put in to selling?

Food for thought from the other side.

Instead of trying to sell your collection to a dealer you could ask him to sell your collection for you for which you will pay him a percentage. This way he risks no money of his own and makes money everytime he sells something.

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
Instead of trying to sell your collection to a dealer you could ask him to sell your collection for you for which you will pay him a percentage. This way he risks no money of his own and makes money everytime he sells something.

Agree

quote:

Originally posted by wolfie:
Instead of trying to sell your collection to a dealer you could ask him to sell your collection for you for which you will pay him a percentage. This way he risks no money of his own and makes money everytime he sells something.

Well said Wolfie! I was going to suggest the consignment route too