General Forum

David, I'll take the house!! =)

I finally got around to setting up an eBay store a couple of months ago, kind of out of financial necessity but also because I have collected way too much stuff and need to start getting rid of it.  I have no kids so my ultimate goal is to eventually sell everything so whoever ends up having to handle my estate when I "croak over" doesn't have to deal with it.

I've been primairly selling individual cards lately but will be selling lots and sets of cards eventually.  I also have stamps, comic books, CDs, regular books plus various other "stuff" I will be selling.  Since I've started selling some of the cards and stuff, I'm having fun seeing what sells and for how much.  I've had several surprises already.  I'm finding that I'm not as attached to the cards and stuff as I used to be since I started selling them.  I still have good scans and photos of them if they do sell as well.

I'm also having fun finding cards that are not on this site yet and adding them, kind of like adding cards to my own personal sets.  Since I already have the cards scanned, I go ahead and list them on eBay and see what happens.  I have a LOT of cards and stuff and am not in any major hurry to get rid of them too quickly yet so I have a few years ahead of me hopefully to work on this phase of my collecting habit.  I have cards and stuff in boxes I'm going through that I haven't gone through in a long while so it's like getting them new again to some extent.  Anyway, that's my plan.

I have a few shelves at home where I display my cards of significant worth, triple digits and up. I also have a box with a fe wother cards that either have some value, singles worth approximately $25 and up. These cards are listed on an excel with approximate value. My wife also knows how ebay works and how to check for the items and the sold button to see a comp of how others are selling. I also have a card pinned to one of my boards with a consignment group if she wanted to make things easier but she can get her starting estimated value from my information first. 

Other than that the rest of the cards will all be donated to a place like commmons 4 kids. I sent them a few thousand cards last year and my wife has their twitter information so if something were to happen she is prepared. 

I am only 35 so to have so much 'estate' planning prepared is odd, but I also have had quite a lengthy battle with cancer, testicular, lymphnodes, lungs, neck so though I am in remission, you never know about these things.

This was more of a concern back in the day when cards were actually worth something. I am collecting because I am enjoying it. I have probably been putting more effort into organizing than collecting lately. My feeling is that I will take my enjoyment from collecting and get my collection organized. My focus in collecting now is back to the late 70's and early 80's items and I feel they have pretty much bottomed out. I figure if everything is well organized it should be easy to put together and sell off if I need the money in retirement and if the collection outlasts me my wife and/or kids can either keep the collection or sell it off.It will make no difference to me if I am dead.

I told my wife to find someone who knows about cards, and sell as much as she can. But, as for my Teemu collection, I told her as long as I've been collecting and as hard as I worked to get it to where it is, I'll haunt her if she gets rid of it. If anything, sell it to a Selanne collector (I know there's some out there) because I want it to go to someone who will enjoy it and make it even bigger.

Excellent reply! My collection also has book values listed for my collections. I don't update that as frequently as you do, but mine is still quite accurate. To mark the cards in cases or pages, I use the "Pre-priced Labels" made by The Hillman Group. They are removable, so I can easily switch them out when values change and use the removed sticker for another case/page. They can be found at home improvement stores with garage/yard sale supplies (For Sale signs, etc.). I've been using those for about a decade now. I started doing that in the mid-90's using drafting dots, but those only last so long before you pull it off and the sticky stays on the plastic case/page instead of the paper sticker. After years of trying other things, I found the Yard Sale Pricing Stickers (as they were called then). Now they are just called Pre-priced Labels and cost about $5 for 600 stickers. It's an excellent way to let family know what your collection is possibly worth should something happen where you can't tell them that info.