Advice on Liquidating a HUGE Sports Collection

[Danimal16]

All,

I need some advice. Long story short my ex-BIL must liquidate his substantial Baseball Memorabilia collection. This thing is huge. Estimated at between 500K and 800K items ranging from cards, and autographs to actual player uniforms, bases from world series parks and even one of the foul poles from Yankee ???? Stadium.

Without getting to detailed, and with my Sis's limited funds we were looking at the least troublesome manner to sell this. Packing it up to go to an auction house is expensive etc. etc.

Though I have never been to an estate sale can some similar arrangement be made and who is out there that could provide that service?

Thanks in advance.

DanB

[masraum]

Folks will often do "estate sale"s for you and take a cut. They do all of the prep, they do all of the advertising (they usually have a list of customers and what the customer's interests are) and take care of the sales, etc....

Because this a special collection of stuff, they may not have good luck selling everything.

You may want to search for all of the sport memorabilias sites that you can find and post lots of info on all of them. With enough publicity, someone (another collector with $$$ or a store owner or someone willing to take the stuff to auction) may be willing to come get all of it for a lump sum.

[craigster59]

There's a Porsche guy in Santa Barbara, Chad Dreier who has a HUGE collection (Honus Wagner card, Babe Ruth bat, etc.) who might be a good contact.

[LeeH]

Tough call. You'd be counting on the estate sale company to research and price a lot of stuff.

The risk with private collectors is that they cherry pick the collection and leave you with a whole lot of lower value merchandise that you can't get rid of.

Any way you look at it, liquidating a collection that large is going to take a lot of time and effort. Anyone who helps with the task is going to expect a big cut.

[HardDrive]

Well the 'easy' way is very likely going to mean that you won't get close to the full value. Is there some rush? If not, why not slowly start releasing the items on to the market?

[J P Stein]

For that kind of money it would pay you to do it right. The world is full of sharks...the cynical old man said...... Do your research then do it yourselves.
My recent experience with several old coins showed me that evilbay has the required audience.

Evilbay/paypal will ding you for 10-13 %......but if you can do better elsewhere go for it.
It would be a full time job for a year or better. Now that I'm retired something like this for *my family* would be a slam dunk.

Surely someone in your immediate family is available to turn this windfall into cash. Your "sis" wouldn't be funds limited for long. Yeah, A PITA, but what job isn't?

[LWJ]

Put the high value pieces on E-bay to bring immediate cash? This buys some cushion to sell the other stuff in the best possible manner?

I will have a similar situation at some time. I am not looking forward to this. It will be work!

Larry

[J P Stein]

Originally Posted by LWJ

Put the high value pieces on E-bay to bring immediate cash? This buys some cushion to sell the other stuff in the best possible manner?

I will have a similar situation at some time. I am not looking forward to this. It will be work!

Larry

Actually no. You put some decent stuff (less than $100) on first to build you reputation & get a feel for what's going on....that also makes your mistakes hurt less. The high buck stuff comes later. Those guys are funny about the Rating that comes after your user name. They like to see a lot of sales/buys and a 100% rating. Some won't touch your stuff without it. Like anything else that's new there are some tricks to be learned

[Rick Lee]

I once wanted to trade a guitar for a different color. They're pretty rare, but people watch for them on eBay a lot and a lot of folks collect them and are looking for other colors. So I put it on there with a ridiculous reserve, like $4k, knowing it was worth about $2700 at the time ($4k now though). I figured that would get me some bidders and emails wanting to know my reserve and I could then let them know I wanted to trade and not sell. It worked too. A few guys seemed pissed off, but one guy had the color I wanted and wanted my guitar plus $200 for it, which I was very happy to do.

The people who bid on high-value baseball memorbilia aren't doing so for the first time. They are either high-end collectors or run shops. Get a few of those interested and then, via email, tell them your story and see if they'll buy a big chunk of the collection outside of eBay and PayPal.

[Zeke]

I'd determine who the experts are and work with them. You can piecemeal the collection out with a lot of effort or have it appraised as a whole and pay the appropriate broker's fee to have it sold as a lot. The high profile and highly priced items must remain with the collection to attract the buyer.

Half a mil to 800K is a little much for the Antiques Road Show, but Christies or Southeby's could appraise the collection and move it. They are going to be on the high side for commission. I'd look for the qualified broker.

[J P Stein]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

I once wanted to trade a guitar for a different color. They're pretty rare, but people watch for them on eBay a lot and a lot of folks collect them and are looking for other colors. So I put it on there with a ridiculous reserve, like $4k, knowing it was worth about $2700 at the time ($4k now though). I figured that would get me some bidders and emails wanting to know my reserve and I could then let them know I wanted to trade and not sell. It worked too. A few guys seemed pissed off, but one guy had the color I wanted and wanted my guitar plus $200 for it, which I was very happy to do.

The people who bid on high-value baseball memorbilia aren't doing so for the first time. They are either high-end collectors or run shops. Get a few of those interested and then, via email, tell them your story and see if they'll buy a big chunk of the collection outside of eBay and PayPal.

This is not a bad idea but you have to do the research. If you root around on the net you will undoubtedly find publications that have approximate price lists for this stuff. You'll also find real life sale prices on evilbay for more stuff than you can imagine. I sold a Hardy fly reel that I bought 25 years ago for twice what I paid for it. Over 250 views and 35 watchers....go figure. How many here have even heard of Hardy Bros?....come to think of it there are some hard core fly fishers here.

If ya don't take care of biddness....as someone wrote, the big guys *will* cherry pick you to death. A possibility would be to divide your collection up in lots....say 10k a pop and offer those to dealers......but, you gotta know a goodly percentage of what they know to make that work. They are out to make money on your stuff.....do you watch Pawn Stars? Rick is a shark and his kid is worse ....the old man is a bit dull...like me.. Your 300k could quickly turn into 150k or less.

Research X 10. Like building your first Porsche motor.

EDIT: I went to evilbay and punched up vintage sports memorabilia. 357,000 items shown.

[lendaddy]

Contact a local auction house, use the biggest one (most exposure). They will take a cut but they will reach a huge audience. And when it's done...it's done.

[Danimal16]

Hey guys,

You have got some good advice. Of course this has to do with a long emotional battle that we just want to see complete. I SURE as hell wish I were retired as I could go down there and help her out.

You have cleared out a bunch of mush in our heads and I think we can get this done.

DanB