Player collectors- When selling your collection, what is the best way to liquitdate?

[rickeyfanatic]

For the collectors who have sold out, or the ones who have dabbled or thought about it- How did you break up your collection?
Did you take certain blocks of years of base and move them in lots?
Did you piece out every single card?

Looking for some differing options from people with experience. I'm not moving my Hendersons, just wondering how people with a large collection have done so.

 

[hive17]

I've been buying a guy's Yount collection for a year, and he just does about 70 auctions at a time and lists every card in its own auction. Huge chunks of base are probably best sold in grouping by year. If you could, it might be a good idea to travel to a big card show in a place where the player has a big fan-base.

 

[Gwynn545]

I'd agree with [MENTION=2016]hive17[/MENTION], each individually would get your best return, especially if you could do it over time.

 

[rickeyfanatic]

I was thinking that the base years would be hard to sell individually, just based on the supply/demand. Like Rickey from 1981-91, unless you have the oddballs/hard to finds, seems like you'd be peddling a bunch of low end and hard to move items.

 

[rickeyfanatic]

I thought more of the PC guys would weigh in on this, knowing we've all thought about selling at some point in time

 

[MansGame]

Has to be extremely tough if you're trying to maximize your return. You'd have to do it as slowly as possible because you wouldn't want to flood the market or drain the funds available for your guy out there at any one time.

I bought out two Belle guys last year and the one was fairly easy for one foul swoop - got cards at fair value to slightly below since it was off eBay

The second guy had a MASSIVE collection and he wanted to get out and get out quick, so I got a great deal but if he would of gone one card at a time and done it over a year, I would be broke and he would of maximized his return probably... or I would of just quit collecting all together and got frustrated... or I would of just started liquidating mine...

Never mind...

 

[jszczech]

I saw a Puckett collector sell out over the summer and he grouped his together with the parallels and that seemed to work well. If it were me I would pull out the stuff that would sell well and then group things together just to get rid of the lower end stuff too.

I have also been slowly buying items from another collector over the last year or so and we have been just doing small lots at a time. I bet I have spent between $500 to $800 buying his collection so far but everything has been done off ebay. He has gotten good value for his stuff and I have saved a lot of money by not getting into bidding wars with other Puckett collectors over the rare stuff.

 

[sschauer]

I've bought out a PC collection a few actually and if moving in bulk when buying I look at the big money cards +$50 and almost solely get the price of everything off them. Add it up and the commons and buck cards if everyone is reasonable in the deal are fluff. General principle is top 20% of your collection holds 80% of it value. Give close to book on the 20% should cover everything. If buying for resale adjust the percent of book on the 20% to where your comfortable.

Now if your collection is super massive player collector best way to sell out is find the larger collector of your guy the one that always beats you in auctions and start talking to them.

 

[theplasticman]

Network with all the other guys working on the same player. I've had to do that (unfortunately) but it's been a win-win experience for everyone. Nobody has to bid against other guys and I get near market value.

I'm getting ready to do more of my Eddie Murray collection (sad face).

 

[ASTROBURN]

When i sold back in 99, it was card by card. And when i sold my biggios, it was card by card, but i let the buyer pick out what he wanted and sold him a fat stack.

so, if you do ebay, do one at a time. If you find a collector who wants a lot, let him pick what he wants and sell it at one time. As for the base, you can make "lots" and mix em in with other better cards. When a collector wants that one card, they get stuck with all the others. I mean, they get to add the others to their collection with open and welcome arms.

 

[rickeyfanatic]

That's what I was thinking, you bundle a bunch of more common issues in with a rarer issue, so you get value for the rare card, and also unload others in the process.