Inherited my uncle's collection. Advice greatly appreciated!

[upsizin]

First and foremost, Hello! This is my first post. I'm a massive sports fan and have been my whole life. As a kid I started collecting cards (1990-1996ish) with my dad and still have most of them somewhere at my parents' house.

My uncle always told me about his card collection and told me if anything happened to him that he wanted me to have his cards. I didn't think much of it. Well he passed away last summer and my dad went to sort through his things and called me and said there were "a lot of cards to go through." I assumed he meant a half dozen shoeboxes or something.... Nope. 6 massive moving totes full of cards. My mood quickly shifted from excitement to go through the cards, to absolute dread of the task at hand. I opened a couple of containers and saw some box sets and some pretty standard stuff, even some sets I remembered collecting when I was a kid. I put the lid back on the box and the crates have sat in my office ever since. Every time I look at them I just feel that dread all over again. My plan was to do a quick search through the crates and then post an ad online for someone to come give me a price to take them off my hands.

So the other day I open the first crate and find a book of sleeves that are organized by player. I open ebay and search that player's cards and find a few that are listed in the thousands. I then look back at the book and identify those cards. Now I realize that my original plan is no longer responsible and I'll have to do a bit of work to find out what I'm sitting on. I've probably gone through less than 1% of the stuff and have found multiple cards that are listed for $1500-$9000.

Now, I know enough to know that those list prices aren't the selling price, and I also know that there are a lot of variables as to the value of a card. Someone quickly briefed me on having to have cards graded and all of this other stuff and it honestly seems like a really overwhelming task. I also know that the majority of these cards (all sports) are from the time period (1985-1998) where cards were kind of at an all time low. My expectations are pretty low, but I do kind of get sick thinking about my uncle's stuff making someone else a ton of money. He was pretty clear that anything he had, he wanted us to profit from if possible... he wasn't a very sentimental guy.

I was hoping someone could offer me some advice as to how to proceed. I live outside of New Orleans and there hasn't been a card shop nearby since I was a little kid. Is ebay really my only option? And if so, does anyone have some pointers or tips as to how to establish myself as a trustworthy seller when I admittedly don't know much?

Thanks in advance and I look forward to participating in the community.

[pwskelly]

Hey @upsizin and welcome to SCF! eBay is one option, COMC is another. Another option would be to contact a consignment company that specializes in sports cards.

Good luck either way.

[pwaldo]

First off sorry about your uncle's passing. Second I'd like to know what cards from the 80s and 90s that are listed for up to $9000. Must not be baseball. And lastly if you want just take some pictures of the collection and post it here. No matter the sport or decade somebody on here will specialize in it and could help you. If in the rare event we can't we can find somebody else or place on the internet that can.