General Forum

I have a question that I want to ask the advice of the TCDB community.  I recently had a friend pass away and left behind a collection of easily over a 1- 2 millon cards. Every room in his house is covered in card boxes.

They are mostly baseball and some football and basketball mixed in. They range from the late 70’s up to 2020 (he passed in August). His will states that the cards be sold and the proceeds be given to several of his favorite charities. The executors and myself are going through them now and will be for a few more months. At first it was a collectors dream going through all those boxes but now it is a little over whelming sorting through all those cards. I have never dealt with some many at one time.

My question is to the community do you all have any suggestions on how to sell the collection off in a timely fashion

The will executor is hoping to find a local buyer who would buy the whole lot at once. I don’t know if that is possible, and it may take a long time to find a local buyer that would take the whole collection. An auction house would be could be an option but would would offer 20%-30% of the value and shipping that many cards would be an obstacle. Ebay ,COMC, or Sportlots could be a possibility but that could take time and be labor intensive to sell the whole collection in smaller chunks.

Any thoughts. Your suggestions are appreciated

Thanks

It's in Michigan but I'd give Kruk cards a call. Even if they aren't interested they may have a line on others that may. Good luck.

Just thinking outloud really. There are companies that will pay pennies on the dollar for bulk collections (not the best option but a single buyer to take it all) Most people that I know separate their high value cards, so my thought would be to sell the high value cards in a package with similiar type common cards as most people will want to cherry pick (which elongates the selling process and they could end up with 1000s that noone wants) I think it really would depend on the types/value of the cards and the result they are wanting (just go away/get the most $)

It all boils down to: 

The more time and effort you put in to it the more money you will get out of it.  That is why a good  action house make the 30% or more as they will take the time to max out the collection.

I think there have been some good options mentioned already, but you knew your friend best. Would he/she have rather you spend a lot of time going through every card to make sure it gets its max value? Or would your friend have understood your plight and be content with a donation to the charities no matter what the amount? It is admirable that you taking on this task, but don't forget to look out for yourself and do what you think is best in support of your friend.

I second that. In Beckett monthly, there are many ads about companies and collectors buying store inventories, unopen boxes and large collections. Kruk is a good example, but I also have Dave and Adam's in mind. Those dealers seem to travel nationwide to buy items.

Ebay can be a solution for selling block by block (set, box...), but shipping costs will kill it.

Here are a few names found during a quick search I just did in Beckett:

Dave & Adam's,

S-M-R Collectibles,

Gizmo's Sportcards,

Baseball Card Exchange

Thanks for the suggestions. All good ideas. 

Right now I'm in the midst of donating 4 boxes of 5,000 count boxes of Topps 1980s bases to a charity pickup organization.  

Might not be a bad route to take for the more unmovable mass of what you are looking at.

Before reading the other replies, my first thought was Dave & Adam's Card World. They constantly buy mass lots and will travel to check out the collection. At 1 million or more cards, that is a collection that will take FOREVER to move without moving in bulk. You could discuss with D&A what the owners' wishes were and they might also give a better price knowing that it will go to charity. My family already knows that if something suddenly happens to me, I want them to sell my collection to D&A for a minimum price that I have already set. I only have 10% of that size of collection, but I have a bunch of rare cards in mine as well.

Besides D&A and auction houses, some other options would be Steel City Collectibles, Burbank Sportscards and Dean's Cards. I think a couple of those were listed before, but you'd really need to try the major card re-sellers for selling such a large collection all at once. Do NOT use Beckett to try to sell the cards! You'll get nowhere with that!!!