As the subject says, I have a lot of practice selling storage unit types of items coming up, courtesy of a friend.  After this selection of items, I think I will be ready to tackle a majority of sales after winning an auction.

Well, to make a short story long, here goes.....

A friend told me to come to his house to pick up some sports cards he had found for me.  He said he also has few things he would like for me to sell for him, and we will split the income from it.  By the time I get to his house, he has a few boxes out, full, and is still filling more boxes!  He has been collecting Nascar memorabilia, antiques, hot wheels, and junk (lol) for over 20 years.  Well, after 7 hours of packing and loading my pickup, my bed cover would not shut and I could not see out the passenger window, and barely could shift gears!!!!!

A quick list of types of items I have to sell are:

1.   Nascar memorabilia – everything from die-cast cars to shampoo bottles and cereal boxes (full of cereal)
2.   Hot Wheel cars – probably over 300, and almost every single one is still in a perfect package
3.   Military issue gasoline lantern in perfect condition
4.   1800’s ladies small leather boot – yes I said boot, not boots, just one.
5.   Late 50’s hot rod tachometer with control box
6.   Late 20’s Model “A” parts – smaller items
7.   Wired remote control R2D2 robot that works and looks great
8.   GI Joe doll with clothes – missing one foot, will sell as a parts for someone to restore
9.   30’s tricycle
10.   Sports cards – mostly junk, but a few good items
11.   Coca-Cola glass bottle commemorative 6-packs.  All are in excellent condition, including the cardboard carry cases.
12.   More stuff that I can’t think of right of f hand

I will be starting to list a lot on CL tomorrow, and what does not sell, I will periodically move over to eBay.  If I have a lot left by the time I get to go to the next flea, it will all be coming with me.

He told me to try and sell everything.  Sell what I can, give him a percentage, and keep a percentage for myself.  He said do not bring back anything that does not sell.  I told him I will do an inventory and track the sales, so he knows how everything is going.  The reply I got was “Don’t waste that kind of time on me, I just want to see some green”.

After this truckload is finished, I have probably 1 to 1.5 truck loads more to pick up and sell.  The next lot will have a lot more high end die-cast cars, like 1:36 scale concept cars that were only sold to Chrysler employees.

As I list items and they sell, I will probably report updates on this thread as to the good and bad that goes along with it.  I will also post some of the links to the ads for ya’ll to review and help me improve my selling strategies.  I want to hear all positive and negative feedback, because that is the only way I am going to learn what I am doing right and wrong.

When I come across items that I have no idea what the value may be, I will post questions in the appropriate section “What’s it worth?”.

Most of the time, at least a good 1/4 to half of a locker is clothes, that and junk and personals. (I may be overexatering here of course )

That is pretty much what I expect.  The way I am looking at it is:  When I had my storage units, what did I store in them? 

I have an old metal basketball printing press plate mounted on a block of wood.  I have no clue who the player is, it is a picture of him in his uniform.   By the high waisted shorts, thigh high shoes, and thin strapped tank-top, I assume it is late 60's to early 70's.

I am assuming it is for a sports card.  I could be wrong.  It could be from a magazine or something else to do with basketball.

Since there is no markings on it to denote the year, manufacturer, player name, or even team name, where can I possibly get this appraised at?  I am at a complete loss of ideas.

One of the only times I think that this section would be good is for one of my part-time businesses.  Buying and selling sports cards.  A lot of people come into boxes of cards, don't know anything about the business, and want to sell them off as one lot to someone like me who will take the time to sort them out and re-sell them individually.

Its a very tedious job, and results in a lot of headaches, but since I still love going through sports cards, it is worth it.

I have an older Micronta 3001 I found in an abandoned travel trailer I purchased.

The power comes on and when you turn the peak up it sets an alarm off.  I haven't tried to see if it works on anything on the ground.

I held it over the top of a paint can just now and it set the alarm off with the peak just barely set to the sensitive side.

It has three knobs:

1.  Volume/ on/off
2.  Peak
3.  Ferrous/Non-Ferrous

It has an analog meter and an earphone jack.  Everything seems to work perfect.

I can clean it up and take some pictures.  It is real dusty right now.

If you are interested, shoot me a pm.  I want to use it a couple times outside my house before I sell it.

Dean

Looking for most sports, but mainly football, baseball, and basketball.

Mostly looking for small to medium collections (large if the price is right) with:

1.  Pre 1980
2.  Post 2000
3.  Rookies, Stars, Semi-Stars
4.  Short Printed Inserts, Game Used, Autos

I will take the whole collections, including the junk cards (which I can give away to people for free), as long as it includes good cards too.  I will even take your cards for free if they are just in the way, lol (it was worth adding).

Note - let me say this ahead of time so I do not hurt anyones feelings.  I will not pay full Beckett value for any cards, since I am planning on reselling them starting at 50% of Beckett and letting people talk me down.  When I make an offer, I take into consideration my time of sorting through and organizing them, and my possible sell price.  I do not try to lowball, but I am trying to make money too.  I do not try to buy cards to add to my personal collection.  I usually only find like 1 or 2 cards out of thousands that I fall in love with anymore.


I prefer to be able to see the cards in person, that is why I said local.  If the price is right and the cards are exellent, I might consider having some shipped.

I live in Mt. Vernon, TX.  It is 100 miles east of Dallas.  If you are out of Dallas, Texarkana, Longview, or Tyler area, and I am heading that way, I would be willing to stop by and check out your cards.  


In the future, if I have enough cash to play with, I will even consider taking a couple of vacation days to head down to Houston, San Antonio, and Austin Areas, if I have guaranteed purchases lined up.

I have been collecting, buying, trading, and selling sports cards for 21 years.

I can tell you that the best way to make the most money is the hard way, sorting through them, organizing them, and selling individually or as lots.

I have a collection of at least a million cards.  I have enough boxes and totes that fill our 6'x6'x8' storage closet and then some.

Sports card dealers will offer you crap prices usually, unless you have high dollar cards.  They will want to pick through and only get the best cards, since they have to sale them as quick as possible.

eBay has too many cards listed.  Unless you have something hot, its not going to do great.  I just checked eBay and there are 4,517,061 listings for sports cards.   As far as doing Dutch auctions or grab bags, be ready to get 1 negative feedback for every 2 or 3 positive.  You will get negative or neutral feedback for not giving someone what they wanted.  Some people think that a $3 grab back should have a Cam Newton auto (for you younger guys) or a Mantle rookie (for the older guys).  I don’t think I have ever seen 100% positive for people who offer grab bags, especially now when a seller has no recourse action to take.  That is why you do not see as many of the grab bags.  You can try to do the by the pound sales, but make sure that you toss in at least 1 excellent card of the buyers favorite player or sport in there.  I am not saying to sort through the cards for these, just toss it in the mix to make dang sure they get at least one good card.

Card show booths are usually only good for guys with massive collections or stores, unless you are going to a small town.  If you do not have good cards, people will not want to look through any of them.

The best place I have had luck at was at the flea and yard sale.  After you get your cards organized by sport and category the best you can, get a subscription to Beckett online price guides.  Each sport costs $7 per month, unless you buy a total access package for $24 a month.   What I do is get a subscription for the main sports I want to sell and only the month I want it for.  While I have the subscription, I price as many cards as I can and do live pricing at the sales.

I put a sign on my table that says "Sports Cards - Most 50% off Beckett Value".  I use that as a starting price and let the buyer haggle from there.  Some cards bring a premium, like Texas sports teams, my personal collection, highly sought after cards.


If you are going to sell your cards individually, you must know what you have and what its worth.  As a collector, it is a major turn off to see someone ask $20 for a card that will only bring a couple of bucks.  If you do not have an idea of prices, you need a quick way to price them, at current prices.

If you do not know prices, you can do one of two things.  You will either drive customers away, or get yourself ripped off.  Either way, it is a major loss.

There are a lot of worthless cards that I use for fodder.  Those are the mass produced cards of the late 80’s through the late 90’s.  Most of those years only have a couple of cards worth something  that will sell.  If it is not a card worth over a couple dollars, I use them as free giveaways with purchases of good cards.  People love getting stuff for free, plus you get rid of your crap cards for free.  Also, the free cards get buyers to look through cards again, and knowing that with every say, $15, they get a couple of free cards.  That drives them to buy more cards, especially if it is a parent with kids.


Another point is to have a variety of cards, and make sure there are some awesome cards mixed in.  You need to have a variety of game used, autos, game used cards with autos, short printed cards, rookies of major stars old and new, and a lot of inserts.  

The sports card industry is still vibrant, but not like what you think.  It used to be kids buying and collecting cards.  Now, it is us kids that have grown up that are doing the collecting.  Keeping that in mind, we do not just buy cards to buy cards, we want specific players, cards, years, etc.

When there is anyone around here that has boxes of cards that they do not want to go through, I will take a quick glance through the cards, and if I see something I like, I will make an offer.  I love to buy boxes of cards just to see what I can find.  I have a lot of bulk packed boxes that I still go through a lot of times and find cards that I did not know what in there.  When I look on craigslist for card collection, I look at the pics.

I have some rules I go by if I am looking on Craigslist for cards:

1.  I look for the years they collected and years they have the cards listed as.  If they are crap years, I do not even respond.  
2.  If someone says they have a couple thousand cards listed for $200 and up, and they have pictures of boxes with just the tops laid open, I walk away.  
3.  Most small collections, unless they are pre-1980 or post-2000, are not worth looking at.
4.  If the collection is 1990 and up, and they do not post a single auto or game used card, then its not worth looking at.

With all of that said, you have to remember, I do not just collect cards, I sell them too.  It takes a lot of man hours to sort through and organize cards, so I won’t just throw money at a collection unless I know it will be profitable.

I can go on and on about this subject.  If anyone has questions, I will answer the best I can.  I am following this thread, so either ask here or pm me.

That's freakin' hillarious!  I would have loved to see the look on her face!!!!!!  Did her jaw break when it hit the floor?