Evaluating your collection: How often do you do it?

Ever reach a point where you want to streamline your PC and get rid of the clutter? If so, please participate in this thread and feel free to share your tales of sorting, selling, streamlining...

only once.. so I sold or traded off all the other rookies I had kept of various late 80's early 90's now HOF'ers for cards for my PC when I got back collecting in 07. These cards had actually either stayed at the same BV or lost some value since I obtained them back when they were new. I keep tradebait around still just in case I can find someone who has cards I need but even that is coming to an end.

what are you getting rid of Dan?

I just did this recently and couldn't be happier with ny decision.

Before, I tried to get every single card. I realized how difficult that would be and decided to focus my collection entirely on high end stuff and a few of my favorite sets.

I re-evaluate my collection almost weekly.

Last year, I went through and auctioned off all of the cards that had no appeal to me.

5 of them were patch autos. :shock: :lol:

Planning to do this again very soon, I think. Have fallen out of love with some cards, and wish I could afford others. :lol:

chashawk said:

I re-evaluate my collection almost weekly.

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This.

I have, over the years, accumulated duplicate items, upgraded when the funds became available and just decided to reduce my collection for one reason or another. I did this evaluating the level of personal importance I placed on a certain item. Does it pertain to my favorite player, does it pertain to a specific event, is there a personal connection, such as a memory, to the item. Most of the time, if I said no to any of these questions, I would sell the item and go on the hunt for a suitable replacement or something that just caught my eye and I absolutely had to have it.

Bottom line, be sure it's not something you will deeply regret selling later on.

I would have to say pretty constantly.

The only things I look to pickup anymore are Team and Player PCs, and stuff for sets I am working on. Everything else, I have been slowly getting rid of. I think the worst part is knowing what you paid for something and then coming to grips with the fact that the likelyhood of getting what I originally paid isn't going to happen. However, it is nice that money doesn't leave the bank account as quickly this way.

Just getting to the point that I want to move everything that I dont see s=myself keeping long term. Whether its inserts/RCs/autos...whatever.

I need to get organized better, and selling off some things to have a balance in paypal would be nice

My question with this is what to do with all the base dups. I'm a set collector and buy boxes to complete the sets. Never fails I end up with a ton of dups. I trade off 10-20% but still always have a ton. They are not worth selling in a big lot due to shipping costs so what do you guys do in a similar situation?

Fairly often. I have my strongholds, then I usually have cut-offs that don't make it. My most recent ones i've kind of regretted, but at the time, there was always some good rationale why I let them go.

I learned the art of consolidation around 7 years ago. Before consolidating I bought anything and everything but it was all low ticket items. I realized one day that I could have cards I once called "impossible" if I would sell off what I could live without.

Me? No

My wife...well she wants them all gone :lol:

I do it every single time I look at my collection.

Right now, I am going to toss all of my base cards in a big tub. I am going to try and sell some every month, and whatever doesn't sell in the next year and a half goes to a thrift store. As far as GU/Autos, I am weeding those out to figure out what I am selling/keeping.

I have been slowly streamlining my collection, selling off a few things here and there. It is nice having money in paypal to pay for purchases. Just this weekend I bought 3 1/1's for my Michigan football collection, including an NFL shield, which were all paid for by selling cards I no longer cared about. And I still have more to sell. Slowly but surely.

id love to get rid of all my raw cards lol

Try not to keep anything I have two of... even if that mean two different autos or game used of the same player. With exception of Colts cards.

I'm pretty much set on what I want in my PC (again with the exception of Colts cards) so pretty much all buying is strictly for resale.

Hey Dan, good topic. I usually try to do this regularly, at least every few months or so. It's amazing how much clutter one accumulates after being in the hobby even a few years, 5-6 years for me. I can only imagine those who have been collecting for decade or longer.

- I typically sell one or two Large Flat Rate Boxes every year for $10-15 + S/H. I fill it with like 1000+ common cards, random supplies, Becketts, and whatever else I have picked up that I no longer am attached to. These are an even better value now with those Regional Flat Rate Boxes the USPS introduced. A nice way to make space and de-clutter.

As far as streamlining...

- I moved nearly all of my completed sets, they were just sitting in boxes collecting dust so I decided they had to go. They were fun to build and look through initially but I hadn't touched them in years. I am looking to sell some of my non-sport sets this year as well as my partial 1986-87 Fleer Basketball set.

- After much debate, I sold my Mariano Rivera player collection which I built from 2003 to 2008. I had close to 600-700 different cards, many GU and a handful of autos. I was not a fan of the newer cards and felt rather than picking up random mid to low end cards I would much rather than spend/save that money towards 1 or 2 high-end items which I would enjoy more.

- I also sold the majority of my Yankee Rookie collection last year, when I realized I'd rather have autos of those guys. So I started picking up certified autos of the 90s players. Currently I am debating whether I should switch over to TTM/IP as it would give me more flexibility and control as to year/set and also all be on-card plus free up extra fund to use towards the O'Neill collection.

I've probably done it every 6 months over the last 5 years. No regrets, though. Every purchase and sale has lead me to where I am now - extremely happy with my current projects with no hint of changing, ever.

rimcdonald said:

My question with this is what to do with all the base dups. I'm a set collector and buy boxes to complete the sets. Never fails I end up with a ton of dups. I trade off 10-20% but still always have a ton. They are not worth selling in a big lot due to shipping costs so what do you guys do in a similar situation?

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Then you can set up on sportlots and sell them to people like me. In fact this is one of the biggest reasons I stopped busting as much wax. I felt I was getting nowhere. So I will now buy what I can as a starter set from the local shop if they have one or I will buy some rack packs(usually 4 or 6) and then get a set going and then hop on to a site like sportlots and kill it off. Yes it sucks paying $0.18 for a rinky dink base card. But I figure I am saving some money because I am not dropping a slew of money on new wax all the time.

Now...every once in a while I'll bust something if I want to take a chance or really like the set and would rather buy a hobby box so I can not only get a good start on the set but also get some hits from that product. I just busted a box of Topps Magic Football(Got royally burned), 2010-11 Leaf Rookies and Stars Basketball(Got burned even worse), and a box of 2010-11 Donruss Basketball(Did pretty nicely). I was a little disappointed to find just how far from a set I was on all three , especially after busting the Leaf Rookies and stars. There is no way in hell I should still need that many cards for such a small set. Not at $90 a pop.

As for evaluating my collection...I do it all the time. But rather than get rid of a lot of things, I narrow my focus and still keep what I have. In the last 4 months I have been trying to stick to buying only the following: cards to finish my sets, Bagwell items, Stackhouse items, rookie cards of star players and Hofer's from the top three sports, and either complete sets or very close to complete sets.

The good thing about the way I collect (and started collecting) was that I had a little insight of just how out of control it could get and how much space it could take up. I used to do the comic thing. So the way I started, and am ending up, is that it started big but it sloughs off as I reach certain goals in my PC. Of course it would start off big. I had nothing and I had plenty of stuff to trade. But now its kinda evened off. In the next year or two, hopefully all I will be adding are new Stackhouse cards and Bagwell cards. I'll still pick up rookies of guys I don't have that I want. I will also still pick up autos and sets. But it will be to the point where I don't have so much catching up to do. I wanted a well rounded collection and now I am getting awfully close to where I want to be.

I have been doing this over the last 5 years or so. I had amassed over 120k plus cards and was busting wax more than I can remember. I did trade some, but it was for things that I did not really want. I now only work on Topps base sets and the other 2 in my sig. I think when I finish 1973 Topps and 1954 Bowman it will be time to take a break and save for some bigger purchases! I am slowly weeding away about another 35k extras. When done I will have my main collection of around 45 sets.