OMG what if I’m gone?

[debtriddin]

Hi All

I was looking at EBay sales of cards in general. Noticing some nice sold prices on some cards I have. Now I’m an older collector but not that couldn’t apply to anybody.

My wife asked me the question , what if you died tomorrow (I know she’s morbid) what would I do with your cards . I said sell them. I wouldn’t know where to begin. Who would I take them to , what would I sell or could I sell them for.

Some of us have some pricey collections. She’s worried she wouldn’t get what they are worth. I told her to take them to a certain person that I trusted. Because she knows nothing about card collecting and she’s not interested in eBay or selling cards one at a time she know where not to turn.

So my question to you is what do think the best approach for her would be.
A -Do I catalog and price by book value and say take a certain value
B- go by eBay sales and and take a certain value . Problem with that is that we don’t know what’s down the road. If you knew you were pricing for tomorrow that would be easy.

Just some thoughts I had. I’d be curious what people thought . Not sure this has ever been brought before.

Cheers Mike

[scottkoz20]

Becky asked me this recently as it relates to my collection, our bills AND the site.

For the bills, we should be good. For the cards, I think she knows enough of the people I trust locally to help, but the site... thats a whole different discussion.

GREAT QUESTION!

[ari4l2010]

Same question was asked to me awhile ago by my wife. Simple solution that I came up with was to record what I bought each card for in CAD dollars, the date and title of the card. Doesn't help very much for future sales but if something were to happen, at least she can recoup knowing what was originally paid at the time. Just our strategy as we also have a couple of friends that we trust as well.

[doniceage]

I told the wife to buy a subscription it beckett and list it on ebay. As long as the cards are correctly listed they should get a fair price. If you have rare ones might want to put a reserve amount on those.



DON

[camsue]

My wife educated herself just for this reason on sports cards and book values.

[MR.M's Cards]

lol glad to see I am not the only one, got asked the same question......told her to divide them up between the kids when the hit 18 and let them do as they please......hard to speculate but based on current interest I think my three kids would sell/keep/sell

[creasecollector]

My brother would probably take my cards. Though he knows nothing about hockey and wouldn't care, I suspect he'd keep them for the memories of me only.

[the_chief]

Well, i tought i was the only one. My father will take care of my collection until my son turns 18.

[bdiam]

An "honest" card store will always be there to help a family / loved-one deal with unwanted cardboard.

About a year ago, one of my neighbours lost his son. This gentlemen is in his 70's and his son I believe was in his mid-late 40's. His son was a giant comic collector, as well as being heavily into the Magic seen. The only hockey cards that he really had, were from 2005-06. I was asked to go over to his son's place and look thru all of his stuff. I sorted certain stuff the best that I could and informed the dad which items he should take back to his home for safe keeping.

I was asked the best way to try and sell the collection and the first piece of advice that I gave, was that an entire list of what was there (especially related to the comics) needed to be made.

To make a long story short, unless you've ever been put in charge of a loved-one's estate, you really don't have an idea on what you are facing. Everyone handles things differently but from personal experience, I would say at least 3/4 of the people are overwhelmed and either can't deal with the task (usually because of the grief they are still feeling) or they just don't want to deal with it.

The gentlemen asked me if I wanted to buy everything but I declined. He then asked if I could make the list, price everything for him and then sell it for a piece of the pie. Unfortunately, going-thru (4000) comics and at least 20,000 magic cards wasn't something I had the time or expertise to do. I advised him to simply put everything aside and to leave it there until he was ready to deal with it.

A month later, I ran into the guy and asked how he was doing. He very happily told me of a trip that he took to a local card store in town and how he got cash for some of the cards. I said "way-to-go" and then asked where he went and what he sold.

A local sports card store in Calgary purchased his 2005-06 Upper Deck Series 1 and Series 2 sets (complete with Crosby and Ovechkin Young Guns), along with another Crosby Young Guns in a screw-down holder, for a grande-total of.............................$200 Cdn.

You can take-away many things from this tale: the guy didn't have to sell the cards, he didn't have to accept that price, etc. but I tend to side with the "taking advantage of someone who told you they lost their son, who has no clue about cards and then basically raping them for easy profit, earns you a first-class seat in hell". Sadly, he isn't the first person to have this happen to them and he won't be the last. As a local-community, all we can do is to make sure that none of us ever spend so much as a dollar at that store or with them online, "ever".

[doniceage]

An "honest" card store will always be there to help a family / loved-one deal with unwanted cardboard.

About a year ago, one of my neighbours lost his son. This gentlemen is in his 70's and his son I believe was in his mid-late 40's. His son was a giant comic collector, as well as being heavily into the Magic seen. The only hockey cards that he really had, were from 2005-06. I was asked to go over to his son's place and look thru all of his stuff. I sorted certain stuff the best that I could and informed the dad which items he should take back to his home for safe keeping.

I was asked the best way to try and sell the collection and the first piece of advice that I gave, was that an entire list of what was there (especially related to the comics) needed to be made.

To make a long story short, unless you've ever been put in charge of a loved-one's estate, you really don't have an idea on what you are facing. Everyone handles things differently but from personal experience, I would say at least 3/4 of the people are overwhelmed and either can't deal with the task (usually because of the grief they are still feeling) or they just don't want to deal with it.

The gentlemen asked me if I wanted to buy everything but I declined. He then asked if I could make the list, price everything for him and then sell it for a piece of the pie. Unfortunately, going-thru (4000) comics and at least 20,000 magic cards wasn't something I had the time or expertise to do. I advised him to simply put everything aside and to leave it there until he was ready to deal with it.

A month later, I ran into the guy and asked how he was doing. He very happily told me of a trip that he took to a local card store in town and how he got cash for some of the cards. I said "way-to-go" and then asked where he went and what he sold.

A local sports card store in Calgary purchased his 2005-06 Upper Deck Series 1 and Series 2 sets (complete with Crosby and Ovechkin Young Guns), along with another Crosby Young Guns in a screw-down holder, for a grande-total of.............................$200 Cdn.

You can take-away many things from this tale: the guy didn't have to sell the cards, he didn't have to accept that price, etc. but I tend to side with the "taking advantage of someone who told you they lost their son, who has no clue about cards and then basically raping them for easy profit, earns you a first-class seat in hell". Sadly, he isn't the first person to have this happen to them and he won't be the last. As a local-community, all we can do is to make sure that none of us ever spend so much as a dollar at that store or with them online, "ever".

That why I say if you put something on eBay you will probably fare better than if you took everything to the card store to sell. I know many dealers that have done this but as many of them say they have a lot of overhead. I agree that those folks will get a dose of Karma when their time is up.

DON



DON