General Forum

Been doing some spring cleaning around the house recently and planning to have a garage sale soon. Mainly apparel, but cards will be included with a mixture of sports and years, i.e., junk wax era and modern era. How should I go about pricing and presenting them? For example, how much for junk wax or modern or inserts?
Divide them up by sport or year or pricing? Should I be prepared to sell a whole box?

Looking to see what other members do for their own sales or what they like to see at sales. Thanks!

I haven't done this but I feel it is a bit of a tough call because you have team collectors and set collectors out there. I am more of a set collector so my preference if I were garage sale hunting would be to buy a lot of the same set. I would think locally you are going to get more interest of a local team but the rest might be a tough sell.

The other thing you should ask yourself is are you selling star cards in the lots or just commons/minor stars? A decision then needs to be made if you pull the stars and sell as singles or include them in the lots? If you are only moving commons and minor stars it may not be worth the prep time to do anything more than have them in a box and have a cheap price on them. You might only get something like 5 cards for a penny if they don't have any major stars.

I tried to do garage sale selling a number of times. I tried to do it similar to how I saw tables at shows. Most garage sale buyers were looking for a super star for a quarter. I ended up selling a 4000 count monster box to a neighbor kid for $5.00. He had to run home and convince his parents it was a good buy. It had 80's and 90's Topps and Upper Deck. I had pulled most of the rookies and high value cards but my wife was happy to see a large box gone and who know that kid may be a member here now! It really depends on the right buyer showing up but be ready for tire kickers who don't know the difference between 91' Topps and 52' Topps and offer $1.00 for the whole box.

You could try mystery grab bags.

My $.02, the purpose of a yard sale is to get rid of stuff, so price accordingly. Set aside the cards that have greater value and try to move those through a more hobby specific channel.. be it a group on social media, this site, a show or brick and mortar store.

Yeah I agree I would have to do one thing or another because I do not want to spend too much time on cards that I'd like to just get rid of anyway.

I do not believe I have any high value cards in the mix, but I will double check and maybe set them aside to be priced individually or lot them up if several of the same player. I am sure selling a whole box would make my wife happy too!

Good idea!

Very true, I need to go back and double check everything that may have a greater value in terms of trade potential or price.

I've had good luck with a stack of $1-2 cards, partial sets (mostly commons with a few HOF's included) of 80's-90's sets, and shoebox of whatever I decide to put in there.  Be prepared for someone to ask for a bulk discount or how much for all of it.