25K+ cards for sale due to death in family

jholcomb

Bench Warmer
Hello card fans

I'm settling the affairs of my brother who passed away this year. He used to trade and deal cards before his illness. We have approx 25K-30K baseball, football, basketball and misc cards to sell. Mostly baseball, from 60's to mid 90's. Baseball cards are sorted by brand, year and number. Basketball, football, hockey, fantasy and other misc types are, and will remain, unsorted.

What I'd like to get is insight into selling these. Local card dealers (2) are only interested in the very old cards (60's). I do not want to try to sell individual cards on ebay. Most of the cards are in excellent shape but we will not be investing in "grading" so I realize we will get less. Perfect situation is to sell ALL the cards at once.

Any and all advice is appreciated. We need to complete sale by end of year.
Thanks
JKH
 
Do you have a list of some of the better cards? Do you have a list of any of the cards? Do you have pictures? What years are the cards from (besides the 60's)?
 
Pick yourself up the bimonthly issue of Beckett. It's the larger magazine and it sells for $9.99 I think. Go through those cards and pick out the better cards...i.e. Rookie cards and higher booking cards from the 60s and 70s. Most of the cards from the mid 80s to early 90s are worthless. Any commons from those years will be difficult to sell. I recommend giving them to a children's hospital or another charitable organization.
Once you have gone through them all you can start scanning. I don't recommend selling all 25k in one auction. Hundreds of those particular auctions go up often on Ebay, and most do not sell well. I'm sure there are several diamonds in the rough amongst your collection. You need to know what to look for. It's not a good idea to not do research.

If you would like to chat I would love to help you out...I have been collecting for over 10 years.
AIM-oswaltfan7
 
to Biggest oswalt collector, rynesandbergfan23 and other repliers

I am in the final stages of getting the Baseball cards organized. I should have a list of what we have by next week. We have the big Beckett's book and have found that we do, indeed, have many valuable cards. I have heard conflicting things about donating commons and claining market value as deduction (i.e., legal/not legal under recently changed donation law). Bottom line is we really don't have the time or inclination to do individual sales of cards. Would much rather sell entire thing and then buyer could weed out good ones. Perhaps we'll donate commons and thus have smaller collection to sell?

BOC, would your AIM name work with MSN messenger, too?

Thanks for all the comments and keep them coming. Anyone interested in my lists, e-mail me and I will get you an electronic copy as soon as it's available, keep in mind I won't be selling individual cards. I also do not have the time to take photos or scan, so please don't ask for photos. I can describe condition.

Our main goal is to move these cards ASAP. They are one of the last things to sell to settle my brother's estate.

thanks to all!
Jholcomb
 
Where do you live? If you live in the area of some of the collectors maybe someone could meet you and possibly buy the collection off ya in one shot.
 
yet more info

Hello again,
I'm in the Austin, TX area. I'm sorry, no, I haven't had the chance to get back to the cards since my last post and get any info. I don't mean to upset anyone by this, I will be happy to send anyone who wishes a list of the cards as soon as I've made it, please e-mail me personally ([email protected]) and I will promise to do this, as soon as I can.
I thank all of you again for all the helpful information and feedback. I obviously am not a trader/collector and am bumbling along best I can with all this.
Jholcomb
 
help identify year and make?

This card has no year or brand on it. Nolan Ryan, says Mets on front and Texas Rangers on back. I've searched a few sites but haven't seen this card.
Thanks
JOI
 

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jholcomb said:
This card has no year or brand on it. Nolan Ryan, says Mets on front and Texas Rangers on back. I've searched a few sites but haven't seen this card.
Thanks
JOI

What you have appears to be an unlicensed card probably printed in 1989 or 1990. These cards are often called "Broder" cards in the hobby referring to Rob Broder who produced baseball picture cards in the 70's and 80's.

Hundreds perhaps thousands of varieties exist that were produced in the late 80's and early 90's illegally and sometimes passed off by unscrupulous dealers as "promo" cards to make money off of unsuspecting collectors. Generally these cards were shunned by most collectors.

As far as value, most of these cards have no value except to somenone who may collect oddball items or collect the player pictured on the card.

Hope this helps.
 
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