How do I sell my baseball card collection?
The question I get asked most is: "Are my old baseball cards worth anything?" However, there's another question I'm asked almost as often: How do I sell my baseball card collection? The answer depends a bit on what you have as well as how much work you're willing to do. In this series of articles, I'll walk you through some of the more common approaches along with their pros and cons. We'll start with the easiest way to sell a collection.
The Easiest Way to Sell a Collection
By far the easiest way to sell a collection is to create a listing on a free forum such as Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. You can avoid any shipping charges or extra hassle by requiring local pickup. If you choose to go this route, here are some tips for maximizing your take while minimizing your hassle and risk.
- If there are particular items in your collection that you know or believe to be the most valuable, ensure that you call them out in your listing and (importantly!) include photos. "10,000 baseball cards from the 1980s and 1990s" will not do as well as "collection includes 12 pack-fresh 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey, Jr. rookie cards."
- Do your best to describe what you have. About how many cards? What years and brands? Condition? And again, photos are not only welcome but necessary!
- Avoid shipping time and fees by specifying local pickup only. Shipping an entire collection can literally cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars, which neither you nor the buyer will want to bear. Furthermore, shipping also carries the risk of damage.
- Arrange for the deal to go down at a public place such as the parking lot of a supermarket or Starbucks. This eliminates the need to supply your home address to strangers.
- Start at a higher price but lower it as needed. Pricing a collection is tough, and you don't want to accidentally price your collection way too low. On the other hand, if you price it too high, nobody will buy it. Fortunately, the "market" has a solution. Why not start high and then take 10% or so off every week that the collection fails to sell? Maybe you open at $900 but then go down to $800 a week later. And from there, $700 or $750. At some point you will land on just the right price where a deal goes down.
The above is definitely the easiest way to sell a collection, but that doesn't make it the best way. Why? Buyers shopping for large collections are generally on the hunt for bargains, in many cases so they can "flip" the same cards for even more. The result is you will very rarely see full value for your cards when taking this route. Still, if your time is at a premium, the ease and simplicity of a single, quick listing on a free site, particularly with local pickup, will more than make up for whatever dollars you miss out on.
Check back soon for the next installment in this series, which will look at how to get more money for your collection by doing a bit more work.
JASON SCHWARTZ
Jason A. Schwartz is a collectibles expert whose work can be found regularly at SABR Baseball Cards, Hobby News Daily, and 1939Bruins.com. His collection of Hank Aaron baseball cards and memorabilia is currently on exhibit at the Atlanta History Center, and his collectibles-themed artwork is on display at the Honus Wagner Museum and PNC Park.