How do you sell a whole collection?

As someone who does a lot of buying and selling of VtES and other cards, here are the suggestions I can make :

In the US, priority mail flat rate is the way to go. The large flat rate box costs just over $14 if you print your shipping label online, and holds quite a bit of stuff. Take care to back things carefully - card boxes help a lot, but without them, I'd use cling wrap to get cards into small stacks, then put a layer of cards, a piece of cardboard, a layer of cards, etc. A box full of loose cards can (at worst) break, or more typically some of the cards will get bent or folded as they jostle around.

Craigslist can get you a quick and local transaction, you'll probably get a lot less for it this way though.

Ebay is ok but expect to lose 15-20% of your final sale price once you add up all of their fees and the PayPal fees. Also, the bigger the lot, the less you'll get per card. Typically better to bust things out by expansion or clan or something, rather than saying that you have 8000 cards.

You might be able to find someone to sell for you on eBay (I offer consignment services, but need to have physical possession of the cards, so you're back to the shipping problem). The store front shops that sell for you on eBay generally take an absurd commission rate and may do worse than you'd do on your own, because they know nothing about it or how to make it attractive to the buyers.

On eBay, you're going to do auctions, and so there may be lots of interested parties out there who can't muster the cash during the exact week of your auction, and that's what makes the prices a bit on the low side the larger the lot gets. eBay's current fee structures make fixed price listings a bad option for the everyone except people who subscribe $60+ a month to run a store.

I guess in summary, if you're trading off laziness against wanting to get a good price, I think your best options are :

Craigslist and do a cash transaction locally (easy and fast, lower value)

Get someone to sell the cards for you (less trouble and decent cash even after a commission)

Sell yourself on ebay, busting into smaller lots that fit in a priority mail box each (more trouble; good cash is possible but not guaranteed).

Jos,
I'd say break it into Sets. Box of KoT, Box of 3rd Ed, etc.

I'd be personally keen to buy a 3500-5000 card box and could afford the shipping for anywhere in the world for that sort of thing.

One guy in Australia is attempting to offload a LOT of cards, something like 10x 5000card boxes in a single lot. I don't think you're going to find anyone interested in THAT number of cards without them being a reseller.

So either be prepared to sell them as individual 3500-5000 card boxes... or just talk to the resellers.

jozxyqk wrote:

So, let's say you are, hypothetically, a veteran player of the game with a substantially-sized collection in Massachusetts...

Step 1) Email Rick Stock .
Step 2) Set up a time for him to drop by and evaluate/purchase.
Step 3) Profit (or stop losing money, either way).

jozxyqk wrote:

wastaz, unless I'm using a shipping calculator I shouldn't, it seems like a collection of size 25000-ish cards would cost hundreds of dollars just in shipping. That seems like it would deter overseas buyers.

Speaking from my own experience of buying stuff, there's usually ways around a high shipping cost. For example, shipping by boat instead of by flight. It takes a lot longer time, but... I'd still consider bidding for a 25k large collection even though it was overseas, as long the seller was upfront with how much the shipping would cost and how the shipping would be taken care of (boat/DHL/DPD/carriage pulled by a horse).

Still, the "lazy"-argument is tough to beat. It's definitely some work to figure out the shipping.

Juggernaut1981 wrote:

Jos,
One guy in Australia is attempting to offload a LOT of cards, something like 10x 5000card boxes in a single lot. I don't think you're going to find anyone interested in THAT number of cards without them being a reseller.

Really? That sounds interesting, do you have a link?

Thanks for the answers..
I think these answers have convinced me that the hypothetical seller is better off being un-lazy and selling individual cards on ebay instead of a "whole collection".

Non-hypothetically, cards that I'm selling are here:
shop.ebay.com/jozxyqk/m.html