How do I most effectively sell my gramps massive baseball card collection?

[Cubsfan]

@Gangster_Octopus

Unfortunately it seems that no cards since 1990 are really anything to get excited about. The market just became super saturated. The easiest thing to do is to pack’em all up take them to a dealer who seems trustworthy and unload the whole lot of them in one fell swoop.

This is a situation where a dealer would have to come to me, and spend a couple of days on the ground probably assessing the collection. It’s far beyond bringing it into a dealer.

Maybe I should start my own baseball card website for a few years and whittle them down that way and then dump the excess bulk?

[Gangster_Octopus]

@Cubsfan

This is a situation where a dealer would have to come to me, and spend a couple of days on the ground probably assessing the collection. It’s far beyond bringing it into a dealer.

Maybe I should start my own baseball card website for a few years and whittle them down that way and then dump the excess bulk?

If you tell them what you might have they would do a house call certainly.

[Justin_Bailey]

@Cubsfan

He actually managed to collect an entire 1992 Topps GOLD set.

Holy fuck for real? The Gold set or the Gold Winners set? Because one is a lot rarer than the other. But still, damn, that’s impressive.

Looks like the Gold set is going for about $25 on eBay.

@Cubsfan

Maybe I should start my own baseball card website for a few years and whittle them down that way and then dump the excess bulk?

That would be a lot of work, but you’d definitely get the best return on your investment that way. Might even be fun too.

[ReticulatingSplines]

@Cubsfan

He actually managed to collect an entire 1992 Topps GOLD set. If you recall you only got 1 or 2 gold cards for every BOX of packs and he managed to collect all 792 cards in the gold flavor.

While it’s possible, of course, I doubt he hand-collated it one by one. There was a Topps Gold factory set along with the Brien Taylor auto you could order. Which you can STILL order, incidentally:

http://www.amazon.com/Topps-Baseball-Featuring-Exclusive-Autographed/dp/B0043AOY3C

[NDP]

@Cubsfan

This is a situation where a dealer would have to come to me, and spend a couple of days on the ground probably assessing the collection. It’s far beyond bringing it into a dealer.

There are dealers out there who do that. Maybe you’ve done this already but you might want to take a look at the Beckett website to see if there are any near where you live.

I estimate my collection to be over 50,000 mostly-baseball cards from the years 1939 to 1999. The bulk of them are from the late 70s and early 80s. I stopped seriously collecting nearly 20 years ago and am also considering selling my collection. However, the market’s never recovered from its mid 90s collapse.

[Lamar_Mundane]

@NDP

There are dealers out there who do that. Maybe you’ve done this already but you might want to take a look at the Beckett website to see if there are any near where you live.

No dealer is going to spend their own money to go and evaluate a collection of post-1990 cards. Even if a set is “worth” $20 on paper, he’s likely to have five of then already in his back room that no collector has even asked about for 15 years.

[Cubsfan]

@ReticulatingSplines

While it’s possible, of course, I doubt he hand-collated it one by one. There was a Topps Gold factory set along with the Brien Taylor auto you could order. Which you can STILL order, incidentally:

Amazon.com

It’s possible and he did. I watched this one happen. I’d hazard to guess he has over 150lbs of the regular 1992 Topps cards as well. I know it’s hard to believe but it’s true.

Is there any way to tell his originally collated set from one of the factory versions? Seems fucked up for Topps to hype extra special insert cards and then sell them directly later on.

[Justin_Bailey]

@Cubsfan

Is there any way to tell his originally collated set from one of the factory versions? Seems fucked up for Topps to hype extra special insert cards and then sell them directly later on.

Sorry, they’re identical. But the Gold set was never supposed to be the special set. That was supposed to be the Gold Winners set that you could only compile by winning the Winners cards through a special scratch off card included in each pack. But a problem with the scratch off card made the winning box easy to spot by holding it up to the light. People cashed in making the Winners worth less than the regular Gold.

I think it’s cool though.