Opinions needed: Best way to sell a massive Legacy collection?

[Reverend Damaged]

There's recently been issues with cancer in the family, and between that and work I've lost all time to play Legacy. Anyone who knows me personally (Matt P, Sims, etc) knows it's got to be pretty serious for me to look to move my collection.

I couldn't even give you an estimated count on the number of cards, but there's 4 to 8 copies of almost every remotely playable card in the format (basically anything that can be used in a casual legacy environment that has even an ounce of potential) as well as just about every tier 1 card (full set of duals, 8 FoW's, 2 full sets of fetch lands, Tabernacles, all the goblins you need, etc). I'm missing a few major cards, like The Abyss and Nether Void, as well as Resets. But there's very few cards I am missing. There's plenty of all the good commons too. 20+ lightning bolts. set of Beta StP's + 3 or 4 other sets. Basically 2 to 8 playsets of every good uncommon and common save for a handful, as well as plenty other commons and uncommons from all sets and in multiple playsets as well.


Basically, you can build almost any legacy deck you can think of out of these cards. It took me 10 years to put this collection together and I take major pride in how nice of a collection it is.


What would the best way to sell this be? Would parting it out really be worth it? Would I get enough extra money to make up for the time it would take me to do that? Or should I just get a full list of the cards, and sell it as one big lot? Does anyone have an idea what this would sell for all together? If so, what do you think it might sell for minus the standard legal cards? (I know that means minus the pain lands, minus the wraths, etc. But I'm just curious as I can still manage some nights at Type 2 every now and then).

It's taken me a long time to come to this decision. I've been thinking about it for the last year or so since running my own vintage game business was really starting to feel like work, but the illness in the family pushed me into a decision this time around. Any input would be greatly appreciated.

[Arsenal]

Parting it out is by far the best way to get maximum $$$. This really applies to the chase cards only (FoWs, Duals, Fetches, etc), not commons and uncommons so much.

However, as you touched upon, parting it out takes way more time than selling a complete lot together. If you need money as soon as possible, then you might have to consider selling a complete lot. If you need money, but not immediately, I couldn't imagine a playset of Duals, Fetches, FoWs, etc at reasonable prices sitting untouched for too long anyway.

[Atwa]

If you do deceide to break the collection up, I am very interested in buying one (or more, depending the price) Tabernacles.

Send me a PM if you are interested in this.

[freakish777]

A full 40 revised duals should get you $800+, sounds like your collection should go somewhere in the $2000~$4000 range (maybe/probably more). The problem with not splitting it up, is that on eBay the only places that are going to cough up that kind of cash are the dealers, and they all need to make a profit also.

I might suggest trying to split it up into smaller chunks at the very least, something like:

1 lot of the 40 duals + 1 set of fetches
1 pile of Standard legal cards
1 pile of other non-basic lands
1 pile of non-land, non-Standard high dollar cards (no more than playsets of each) plus up to 2 playsets of the good commons and uncommons (so 4 FoW, 4 Goyf, 8 StP, 8 Bolt, etc)
1 pile of everything else

at least that way some players will be able to bid (since they're more likely to justify spending $1000 on the lot of duals and fetches, as opposed to the $4000/whatever for the entire collection) and they're likely to bid higher than the dealers.

[Reverend Damaged]

What do you guys think about a place like CardShark? A lot of my cards are played (when I played my cards, I PLAYED my cards), so I don't know if that would be the place since people can't really see pictures of them there. But it crossed my mind as an option, especially if I could get all this stuff organized somehow. Then I would just ship whatever sells, but again this would be a long drawn out process.


EDIT: Thanks for all the input so far, as well. I am going to review everyone's suggestions after a few days here and try to make a decision based on it. I can see where parting it out would get me the most (I put a little plastic box of 100 or so cards together that would easily bring me $2000, just for the box (Berserks, Duals, Fetches, Chains of Mephistopheles, Tabernacles, FoWs, etc). But then the rest of the stuff, though it'd probably be worth some 4000 more dollars once I get it all sold, would take me forever to sell just based on quantity. If I sell it all together it'll be over and done with though I'm afraid I'll regret selling too cheap in the end. I'm just hoping to have something worked out within a month or so, as far as making the decision goes.

[Ewokslayer]

1 lot of the 40 duals + 1 set of fetches

Won't splitting up all the duals into sets of 4 bring in more money?
By leaving all the duals together you cut out all the people that already have some duals that don't want to bid on the full set.
Plus I don't know what kind of feedback you have on Ebay or other sites so selling some of the smaller sets of cards first to build up your feedback as a seller would probably get you some more bidding on the higher end stuff later.
Though if you really want to sell fast you can just contact a dealer like SCG or Gaming Etc. they offer decent prices considering they will take everything.

[Reverend Damaged]

My feedback on ebay, etc. is extremely good. Cardshark is the only site I never used where I would need to build feedback.


That's a good idea though, about splitting up the dual lands. I probably would get more that way.

[Afro]

Franky sorry to hear about the situation your in....I hope everything works out ok. As far as selling your stuff goes you MUST sell separate on either MOTL or ebay. When I ended up selling out I separated everything and unloaded on ebay over a months time and ended up with 10k+. Well worth the time spent. I regret selling it now as I am purchasing many of the same cards back again but if you are interested in selling some Trops for a reasonable price I could pick those up for cash at the Science and Hobby store some Friday night. Good Luck.

JP

[Reverend Damaged]

Thanks JP. Good to hear from you, being someone who sold their stuff. See, I was hoping to end up with 10K+ when this was all over, considering what is in this lot, so it's reassuring to hear that it's possible to get that much.

I'll have to hire in some help or something to get these cards sorted and go from there.

Do you have any pointers? Playsets or single cards? Etc? When I'm selling them. Also, I have 4 trops, you can PM me with some sort of offer, though I honestly want to try and get top dollar for all my major cards. Most of the duals are unlimited, though there is a considerable amount of play to half of them.

Just let me know what you're looking to spend.

[Finn]

Hey dude. I have what sounds like a similar collection to yours. For kicks I priced it last year. I only included the cards that booked for $5.00+, and it came to over $10,000 using MtgBrain (http://mtgnews.com/ColumnEntry/100/119_001_MTGO_Brain.html). I think you are undervaluing the breadth of your collection.

[Reverend Damaged]

Thanks Finn! If just the money cards are worth $10,000 - then this collection is worth something close to what I thought (Honestly, I was hoping it would book at 10 to 14K, and I'd take $8,000 for the whole lot of it.) But JP's got me thinking it really should be parted out, since he first hand got a lot of money by doing so with his.

[Tog]

Hey mate,

Sorry to hear about your situation. I have not personally sold (though I trade) any cards on EBay or MOTL but selling chase rares in small sets is the way to go. It will rake you in more money as the pool of bidders is larger for individual sets. One word of advice when it comes to MOTL or places like CardShark, if you don't have the refs, you're going to get ripped. I don't think the risk is worthwhile. You could potentially get a friend with refs to help you out so you don't have to send out first. If you are seriously looking to sell your cards, I'm looking to purchase a set of Revised Bayous if you happen to have any.

Hope this helps and PM me if you'd like to sell them.
~Tog

[hi-val]

Bummer of a situation, and what I'm about to say is especially relevant because of it.

This is a matter of Time vs. Money. Do you have the time to put everything up on Ebay and scan all of the high-value items and post them? Do you have time to wrap things up and ship them? Do you have time to handle possible lost shipments or scammers? This will be the best way to make money but it requires a lot of time to get everything parceled out and listed and then shipped.

The other alternative, which won't cost you a dime to do, is to type up a list of everything and contact Ben or Pete at Starcitygames.com and ask them if they would make an offer on it. I suggest SCG because they're really easy to work with and they have the cash available to buy large collections such as yours. You would get a dollar amount that you can then make a decision on about. You can choose whether it's enough money or whether you need more. The advantage of selling the whole collection at once to a dealer like that is that you don't have to put much time in at all.

So in conclusion, if you have a lot of time, Ebay it, if you don't have a lot of time, write the list up and get offers on it.

In any case, I would reccommend against posting a list on a forum or site like Cardshark and letting people pick over what they want. You'll end up with piles of unsellable stuff that would otherwise be worth something if they were bought with other cards.

[Reverend Damaged]

Thanks guys. Tog, I believe my Bayous are all unlimited except for 1. If I decide to part the stuff out, I'll contact you. Hi-val, I hear what you're saying. I'm going to get a full list, 100% complete right down to the commons regardless of whether I sell in bulk or part it out, so I may approach them about it and see what they say at SCG. :-)

[clavio]

This is really sad.

I would advise against cardshark if you don't have any feedback. A while ago I listed 4 scrublands at a price cheaper than everyone else. It took a really long time for people to buy them. Since I had no feedback, I didn't have the little shark next to my name, so nobody wanted to buy from me.

It's probably a good idea to break everything up. It may seem like a daunting task now, but it'll probably only take a day or two to sort everything. The extra money you will make will make it completely worth it.

Good luck.

[Atwa]

Another thing about Cardshark is that you can only sell to foreign buyers when you have a shitload of refs.

Just sell it on ebay, motl or even here. Just avoid Cardshark, it's not worth your time.

[APriestOfGix]

Part the $$ cards, and bulk sell the rest.

That said, depending on prices, i might want to buy some, i'll PM you...

[Reverend Damaged]

I will keep everyone who PMs me with interest in certain cards in mind for when I have a full list.

[Braves54321]

Hi Frank, its Steve from the guild.

I am sorry to hear of your family situation, I hope everything works out for the best.


I think the best way to sell the cards is going to be on MOTL, with basically splitting up the collection is the best way to go.

I would sell the staples of your collection as follows:


High dollar cards:
Stuff like tabernacle or anything $50+ I'd sell not in playsets, but as singles, as less people are willing to drop enough money to buy a playset.

Playsets: Duals, Fows, fetches, basically any cards worth more than a couple bucks you can sell in playsets.

Bulk: Crap rares, Commons/Uncommons
Any commons or uncommons worth less than a dollar or so(individually) aren't going to be worth breaking up and selling, as it just becomes too much of a hassle.


I use motl ( www.magictraders.com for those not in the know) because then you only have to pay paypal fees, not ebay(and paypal) fees.
You can get full value for the cards on that site, but you have to be patient, as sometimes it can take a bit to move the cards.
If you need the money fast ebay is going to be the way to go, as either way the cards will sell for at least close to market value.

Any of the following will be the main factors of you moving these cards:
-Card conditions
-Scans of high $ cards
-How fast you are looking to sell
-Is your paypal account at vrified premier status(this is a big one)
-Will you ship internationally
-Are you willing to send first (This only matters on motl for buyers with high refs)


If you are looking to unload the collection to a dealer, you could move it in 1 lump sum and save yourself a hassle of sending out multiple times and whatnot, but then you'd take a decent loss of the value as they need to take a cut.

I you are looking to move this I may be able to help you, but thats up to you.
If you have any questions or anything feel free to PM me, and my best wishes are with you and your family.

-Steve

[Lego]

Just a note about organizing things/parting things out: it will probably realistically only take you a couple days time, maybe 8 hours total organizing things and piecing out your collection. And in the long run, it will net you several thousand dollars more in profit. Would you work 8 hours sorting cards for $2000? (ok, realistically you need to add ~1 month of small amounts of time each day selling those cards, but you get the point.)

The amount of time it will take to sort out and individually sell your collection is well worth the amount of extra money you'll make. Ask yourself if you would do the same thing for someone else if they paid you several thousand dollars.

[from Cairo]

Agreed with pretty much everyone.

Sell the money cards as playsets: playsets are going to move alot easier than 40 Duals in bulk, and you will make more off of 10 sets of 4 than you would off a lot of 40 and other than witting out 10 different envelopes it's really minimal effort for large pay off.

When it gets to the commons and uncommons it really depends on playablity. Things like Swords, Bolts, Cabal Therapys, Chain Lightnings would all move fine as playsets, if you have more random stuff, like SB cards or weird niche cards it might be better to take the random junk and just move it as a large lot of playable legacy stuff. Just remember to take into account that you'll be having to ship each lot that you put up, so even if a set of Tempest Shocks might move for $1 it may not be worth your time with the volume of cards you're trying to unload, at the same time if you're not in a huge hurry, it might be worth the time.

I would go with Ebay, it's easy to get selling stuff once you take a couple mins to see how listing works, and you can use "sell similar item" to cut out alot of work. It supports images if people want scans/photos of the cards and of coarse catches much more traffic than MOTL or Cardshark.

[Ebinsugewa]

Send me a list, I'll buy the lot.

[Reverend Damaged]

So far, with all the input from you guys I'm leaning towards separating the lot and selling it over the course of a month or so. My vintage game business has me shipping out 5 to 20 packages a day anyway so another handful won't really be a problem. I've got a few PMs from people who want cards, and the people who asked will get first dibs in order when I finally get a list and start parting it out (it might be a week or so before I find time to sort it all).

As for Ebinsugewa, when I get a list I'll send it to you, though selling separately for maximum profit is sounding like the best course of action right now. When I get a list with a rough value on the whole lot of it, I'll have an idea of what it would take to just buy everything.