The Money Mustache Community

Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: Vertical Mode on February 23, 2016, 10:09:12 PM

Title: Anybody have any experience selling collectibles? (Cards, stamps, dolls, etc.)
Post by: Vertical Mode on February 23, 2016, 10:09:12 PM
I've searched the forum for existing threads on this topic to no avail, find it a little hard to believe that this wouldn't have come up already but maybe my search function is just bugging out on me. Mods, please feel free to delete/repost/redirect the discussion as needed if someone has already had this conversation.

So, to my original question: does anyone have any experience or resources they could share with regard to selling old collectibles?

In my case, I've got loads of old baseball cards, and some Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering cards carried over from childhood. In theory, these things are worth something to the right buyer, but I'm trying to figure out how to get the most (any?) real value for them.

I've gotten as far as plugging my MTG cards into MTGPrice.com to see what the book value of them is, and it's a lot more than I expected. Still, actually understanding how I would get anything close to that figure remains elusive. I'd rather that these cards not sit in the attic collecting dust, and getting money while decluttering would be a nice bonus ("Tap target land: add VTSAX to your mana pool"! lol)

Anyway, I was hoping others who may have sold such things recently could share their methods and results. All leads appreciated.
Title: Re: Anybody have any experience selling collectibles? (Cards, stamps, dolls, etc.)
Post by: arebelspy on February 23, 2016, 10:38:31 PM
Most money is pricing and selling individually.

Best for your time is selling as a lot (and pointing out the higher priced items in it).

Likely eBay, typically, though niche products may have their own other third party marketplaces.
Title: Re: Anybody have any experience selling collectibles? (Cards, stamps, dolls, etc.)
Post by: jan62 on February 23, 2016, 11:59:08 PM
I used to have quite a large doll collection that I sold off a few years ago. I did quite a bit of research to work out how to get the most money and ended up going with a doll & toy auction centre. I got much better prices selling them individually than if I had sold the whole collection. I sold them over a period of about 6 months, researching what prices they were getting before sending them off. At the time I sold a set of KISS dolls in original packaging it set a new price record for them.

I think if you have collectables it pays to really research prices and values yourself before you put them up for sale. That way you can set the right price, set up alerts on ebay and google to start finding information. Talk to several dealers and get on their mailing lists if selling by auction.
Title: Re: Anybody have any experience selling collectibles? (Cards, stamps, dolls, etc.)
Post by: Bettis on February 24, 2016, 09:33:17 AM
I basically search sold listings on EBay.  EBay is essentially your price guide, not Beckett or anything else because they aren't very realistic.  With sports cards, odds are they are not worth much outside of pre 1985 stars or rare autograph cards.  I've learned that the hard way and have way too many binders full of cards that I got as a kid and want to get rid of for space reasons.  I'm not sure if it's a thing anymore but I remember people donating cards to hospitals for kids.  The tax benefit seems like it would be worth it since you can likely use a regular price guide to itemize it.

I'm not familiar enough with Magic but since it's a 20+ year old game with probably millions of different cards, it would have to be very special to be worth selling.

I don't mean to squash your dreams but it seems like cards are not worth the hassle (full sets being expensive to ship, thus lowering the selling price, is part of it too).

Old Nintendo(NES, SNES) games on the other hand are pretty hot right now if you have any of those, especially if they have the manual and box.