How can I sell my cards?
First, each collector needs to understand a fundamental
principle of economics - the law of supply and demand. If your
cards or collection consists largely of commons from the
mass-produced years (1987-1994), the demand for your cards will be
very low. If you have vintage cards, star players or commons
from the more sought after brands and years, then your cards are
more valuable and will usually fetch a higher price. The
bottom-line is you need to be realistic about the value of your
collection. Where do I start?
Depending on how much effort you are willing to dedicate to the
sale, I'm certain that one of the following options will work for
you. Please read them and weigh the difficulty associated with
each of them and decide for yourself which option best fits your
situation. Local Hobby
Shops - Sports Cards Stores
Regardless of where you actually decide to sell your cards, I still
believe the best place to start is your local card shop. They can help you determine the value of your
collection and the best place to sell them. In many cases, the
local card store will make you an instant offer. This will
undoubtedly be the faster and easiest way to sell your cards.
In many cases, you may also get your best return on your investment
here. At our store, if we can't offer you a fair price for your cards or for some reason I am
not interested at the time, I will try and suggest several other
ways to sell them. We may offer to add your cards to our web
site's inventory and try and sell them online for you. If we
do this for you, we take a commission or percentage of the sale when
they sell. If we know of a customer who may be interested in
buying your cards, we will try and set up a meeting for you and
hopefully you can make a deal. Several stores offer other ways
for you to sell your cards including bid boards, rent-a-shelf and drop zones.
In a nutshell, your sports card
store staff should be able to advise you on the best way to sell
your cards. Classified
Ads
You know the drill here. Place an ad, answer the phone calls
and wait for people to come to your home to inspect your
collection. Only you can decide if this is the right selling
method for you. Classified ads can be found in the local newspapers,
trade magazines and price guides. Online
Auctions
I'm sure most of you are aware of the online auctions such
as eBay, Yahoo, Beckett.com, uBid, etc. These are web sites
that allow you to post your cards for sale in a live auction.
These auctions range from 1-day to more than 10-days and are quite effective
in selling higher priced singles, vintage cards or groups of cards
(called lots). The seller pays a small listing fee and a
selling commission and is responsible for shipping the cards to the
winning bidder after the auction closes. This is a valid place
to sell your cards and worth trying. The downfall of this
system is it takes some effort to list the cards on the auction and
you won't sell your collection very quickly. Sellers can
expect anywhere from 10% to 75% of price guide in return for their
efforts. From our experience, unless you have rare or smoking
hot cards for sale, expect to get an average return of about 30% of
price guide value when using the auction services. One major
downfall of the auctions is that you won't have any success selling
commons or base cards. The buyers just won't waste their time
bidding on these type of cards. You can read more about
auctions in our Collecting
Tip - Opening a Store. Card
Shows
If local card shows are being held in your area, this can be
a great place to sell your cards. Setting up as a dealer at
these shows is relatively cheap and you'll have an opportunity to
sell your cards to the many collectors who attend the show.
Card show tables can run between $10 and several hundred dollars
depending on the size of the show. I would suggest starting
with a smaller show and see how things go before jumping into a
larger show. Smaller show fees usually range from $10-$50 a
table. The downfall of this method of selling your cards is it
takes some effort (labor) to lug your collection around from show to show
and some effort to set up for the show. If you are willing
to wheel and deal, this can be an excellent place to sell large
portions of your collection. You can read more about card shows in
our Collecting Tip -
Opening a Store. Another
option is to offer your cards to the dealers at the larger national
shows. The dealers who sell at these huge shows are typically
the largest in the country. Many are looking to buy specific
items and if you have what they are looking for, this can be a great
place to sell your cards. Keep in mind that the competition at
these shows is fierce and many of these dealers are selling at
prices that are 50% or less or price guide. If they're selling
at 50%, then they'll be buying at much lower levels. But
again, it is a place where you can sell your cards.
Burbank Sportscards
I would be remiss if I didn't mention Burbank Sportscards
here. Burbank is one of the largest dealers in the world and
is constantly buying cards to replenish their amazing
inventory. Burbank posts a huge "Buying
List" on their web site which includes all major sports and
players with their current buying prices. You can access their
"Buying
List" by clicking here.
Back to Top Selling
Your Commons
If you have monster boxes of commons that you would like to
get rid of, there is hope. Dealers like us, are in constant
need of replenishing our Internet inventory and are willing to
purchase them. Our buy prices range from $20 to as high as $250
for a 5000 count box. We determine our
prices by the year, brand and players you have for sale. We
don't buy everything that is offered to us but we are always looking for
good quality cards to resell. If you have commons that you
wish to sell, check out our "Want
List" for our current pricing by clicking
here. Many other local dealers may be interested in your
commons also. Start with your local store and go from there. Back
to Top Selling
Your Entire Collection
Selling your entire collection is sometimes difficult to
do. My recommendations would be to try visiting your local
dealer, selling on the auction sites or setting up at card
shows. Since many collectors have huge collections, there is
really no best way to handle a sale of this type. One new piece of advice
is to surf the web or the Beckett.com
Dealer Marketplace looking for dealer email addresses.
Create a list of what you have for sale and forward the list to as many
dealers as you can. Don't expect a reply from each of the
dealers, but state in your email to "please reply if
interested". We get hundreds of requests like these every
month and most dealers will look to see if you have items they could
use. This entails considerable work, but it can pay off if you
find the dealer who is looking for a large portion of your
collection. Don't forget to try Burbank
Sportscards. Back
to Top Where
can I sell my rare or high ticket items?
Do you have a slew of T-206 tobacco cards for
sale? Do you have a 1952 Mantle rookie card or a collection of
1933 Goudeys for sale? If you do, almost every collector would
love to trade places with you!!! If you are marketing these
types of rare collectibles, you may need a different strategy.
Here's what I would do. First, stop by your local card store
to show the dealer your cards. As a store owner, I would love
to just see these cards since it is extremely rare that cards like
this walk through our door. In reality, many of the local card
stores simply could not afford to make you a reasonable offer.
This doesn't include every store, but these cards are
usually a huge risk for most mom & pop stores. Where
do you sell them? The single best place to try is a large
national show. At these shows, many of the nation's largest
dealers are set up to buy these very same cards. They have the
cash and depending on what you have, will more than likely make you
an attractive offer. Another option is to stop by your local
card store and purchase a Beckett or Tuff Stuff price guide or an SCD (Sports
Collectors Digest) newspaper. In these publications are ads for many
of the industry's top dealers and auction houses. These
auction houses specialize in sports memorabilia auctions and will
take a commission of the selling price of your item. Before
deciding on what dealer or auction house to use, do some
research. Ask your local dealers and send a few exploratory
emails to see how much interest your email generates. Whatever
you decide, take your time, your in the driver's seat.
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