Acquired BOXES of cards...

[moser000]

Hi all... My Dad passed away back in 2012 and left me literally boxes and boxes of baseball cards.

I'm just now thinking about what to do with them... It's pretty overwhelming. I was looking for a DB tool to start listing what I have, but not sure how much detail or information is needed to be able to share with an auctioneer or get the value of the card...

Believe there are 10's of thousands of cards, so I'm not sure how to even start chipping away at this. I was hoping there was some awesome SW to scan or capture information, but there seems to be very little out there other than this forum :-)

Help! :-)

/mike
ELGIN, TX

[bakemeister52]

Welcome to SCF Mike! Do you have an idea what years and companies the card are from? Is there any Autographs, Inserts, Game Used or just regular cards?

Bake

[krunchtyme]

@moser000

Find someone you trust. If necessary a friend of a friend you trust. Have them look at the cards.

The hard way. Go to comc.com and look up the current selling prices of some of the cards. With 10's of thousands, it will be a long process.


Some questions people will want to know:

1. What sport(s)? Baseball? Football? Basketball? etc What was your Dad's favorite Team (chances are there are more cards of that team and as such more cards of the better players on that team.
2. What years? - To find the year look on the back of the cards usually in some fine print there will be a manufactured year of some indication of year. Or look at the stats on a card and see the last year listed and add 1. That is a rough estimate.
3. Some cards are special or "rarer" than others. Do they have a piece of Jersey or other memorabilia? Autographed? Look for a serial number.
4. What are the conditions of the cards? Corners sharp? Card creased? Other defects.

Other issues
5. Rookie cards usually command a premium. The big rookies in any sport are listed in an on-line price guide. OR.....Once you find the year of a group of cards, Google it. "star rookies in basketball in of 1992 for example. That should give you an idea of the bigger names to look for in any particular sport.
6. I buy a lot of these types of lots. Because they are are lot of lower tier players that are worth pennies of what the price guide says for a specific card, inn general I offer about 90% of any estimated value, IF.....There are a few cards if value identified. If there are a lot of valued cards or a few but super important cards to the hobby example: 1981 Topps Joe Montana (centered), I may offer more. Some people will only offer on the important cards and the minor cards are considered irrelevant in the deal. I went to one auction where the winning bidder, took out one card and asked if anyone else wanted to pay like $5 to take the rest of the cards. Personally, I bought a lot like that one time, took out the Tom Brady rookie and then sold the other "star cards" for like 10 cents each, because it wasn't worth it to me to haggle over $1 cards, when I already had my money back off of the Brady rookie.
7. Shipping - is expensive. I recommend USPS priority boxes - flat rate no matter how many cards and what they weigh.

Ultimate Outcome
8. If you want to get what they are worth or close to what they are actually worth, it will be a lot of effort but completely doable, even for someone who had never touched a card.
9. If you want to get something of value...Try to identify the more important cards and the commons are just cannon fodder or something to push a deal over the edge because their are always diamonds in the rough that get missed in any year in large lots
10. If you need help. Just ask. I lot of people on here are more than willing to offer guidance, assistance, etc. A scanner or at least some photos would be helpful. Get ideas or input from multiple sources. I figure out a card's true worth by using eBay "completed/sold" prices, I check the price guides, I go to the current asking price on comc.com. The data from these sources gives you a decent picture of a range the card could potential sell in or a decent starting asking point.

A lot of people, and I am guilty too, believe their cards are worth a fortune and that some individual cards are worth way more than the market would actually dictate. Reality is, a card or a large lot of cards is only worth what someone will pay. Since the shipping on 10 of thousands of cards isn't going to be cheap it needs to be factored into your price point.

Sorry you came into these cards through this way and I hope you figure out the best way for you. Let me know if I can help in any other way. Thanks Rich

[moser000]

No idea :-) He wasn't big on organization from what I can tell... Literally big boxes filled with cards (mostly baseball)... Lots are just stacked up loose, but he also had quite a few in plastic covers. I suspect they run from the 70's - 2010 or so...

I suppose the only solution will be to dig in and look... But I'll pay attention to the details you mention...

Thanks!

[moser000]

Thanks Rich: Lot's of good pointers and much appreciated! So it looks like my first step is to try and get some organization boxes and try to put them into some categories... This could be a long project :-)

Thanks for the tips and I'll likely have more questions as I get into this...

/mike

[krunchtyme]

@moser000

Feel free to hit me up anytime.

As a suggestion, I would focus on ones that are in plastic covers. They meant something at one point. You can post pictures in the forum by using the "click here to add photos to post" button under the text box on the left side. I know you aren't a collector but the tools here are great. The inventory manager can be searched by others here and/or you can send a list or link to them. It includes a picture of the card if you add one or if there is a default one in there.

As a side note. The condition of cards is the number one factor of price.

Talk soon.

Rich

[doniceage]

My suggestion would be to look at the cards that are the same year and manufacturer so you can whittle the amount from biggest to littlest over time. Once you know the year and manufacturer of the card your looking at you can compare them to sold prices on websites to see if they are worth anything. A lot of the stuff is going to be base commons or what we call junk. How your going to get rid of that is the big concern. Of course there is always a way if the price is right.

I now the futility of this and I have given my wife instructions to make a call to a friend in such a instance I am not around. As she has told me numerous times she has no idea what to do with them.

As others have said if you have questions feel free to ask we will try to help you out.

DON

[moser000]

Yeah - I like the idea of starting with the ones he put in protectors... Now for the first dumb question... I see LOTS of tools for searching inventories and sharing and linking and so on, but I have yet to find a way to create a new record and start actually populating a list?

I would like to start a recording process, so need a system that I can start to execute as I work my way through the pile and am not seeing the starting point :-)

Once I get a list going, I do see a lot of stuff that seems helpful for managing it and so forth... The attached image is an example of what I'm looking at... I have stacks of these kind of boxes... :-)

[jp1216]

Looks like you are near the Austin TX area. Maybe lookup a local card shop and ask for someone to stop by and take a look. I had a similar situation with coins several years ago. Too much to go through and nothing was cataloged....

[sivjosh]

jp's tip is a good one. A quick judgement from the picture you posted is that you'll be better off getting some help sorting the "commons" out, and then building a list of the "good" stuff.

You won't get a good return on your time investment cataloging each individual card. (Again, this is a judgement based on the one picture posted.)

Josh