Advice please ... what do I do with ....

[scottglevy]

So my parents are finally retiring, moving, and forcing me to deal with a huge amount of cards that I had collected as a kid. Sure I know that all the 70s and 80s commons are completely worthless - I'll either junk 'em or give them to a random kid, etc.

But what do I do with all the stuff that's better than junk. At the top end of the range is cards like NM Ripken Rookies, complete Kelloggs, Topps, Fleer and Donruss sets, Mid range are late 70s/early 80's super stars like Rose, and bottom shelf are cards like Fred Lynn or Jim Rice. All in all probably at least 2,000 stars and many, many more cards if we include complete sets.

So what do I do? I don't really want to keep them - Thoughts?

Best,
scottglevy@yahoo.com

P.S. If anyone knows of a charity (especially for under-privileged or sick kids) that might want them I would likely give it to them for free.

[mintacular]

Go to a flea market and find a dealer there, that cheap stuff works well at a flea market, you might get an offer of a couple hundred bucks. Also, tell them the stuff books for like $10K cause it probably does

[cdn_collector]

The last time I moved [about 2 years ago], I was forced to finally deal with about 50,000 baseball cards from the 80s and 90s that had otherwise survived about 5 moves in the 6 years prior. There were a lot of complete sets, a few low value cards [ie. nothing over $25] and then a sprinkling [ie. less than 100] vg or less 50s-70s cards. Probably the only "significant" thing there [and I use that term loosely] was a complete 1991-95 run of the Conlon collection.

What I ended up doing was basically giving away [selling for the price of shipping, or heavily trading in other people's favour] anything of interest to collectors that I've met through Net54 and the rest went to a local card shop that offered to distribute them to local schools. I ended up leaving a lot of the star cards in there [Jeter, ARod, Griffey, etc] figuring either it would make some random kid's day, or the dealer would sift through all the junk, pass it on to the schools, and sell the few decent cards to justify his time spent.

In the end, I never actually followed up to see if this guy did what he said he would. I figure that way I can just assume he did, and since I totally assume he did sift through it and sell some, I'm more than okay with it.


Richard.

[ullmandds]

I wish I had your problem! I'd love to have all of those cards back from my youth...I'd think it'd be lots of fun thumbing through those!

[Peter_Spaeth]

It sounds like collectively there might be some reasonable value there, so perhaps with a little work you could auction groups of the cards off and donate the proceeds?

[glchen]

I think some auction houses like Huggins and Scott, Hunt, or Mears *might* be able to take them and sell them for you. The drawback would be the cost of shipping the cards to them. Or you could slowly sell them on ebay. There's still a market for some of these cards. For example, a 2001 Topps Factory Set that I was watching today sold for ~$40.

[vintagecpa]

I sold mine for $5-10 per 4000 card box at a garage sale about 12 years ago. Gave the kids on the block something to look at for an afternoon. I had about 80,000 worthless cards at the time. I picked out the Ripken rookies and other cards with some value, but left most everything else.

[deadballera]

A few years back...I donated thousands of cards to a children's hospital. They were very happy with the donation and that the kids would love them.


If they didn't keep them, I am sure they would sell them as a fundraiser.

Either way....they go to a good cause.

[36GoudeyMan]

I think the Arie Foundation (associated with New York University Medical Center in New York City) has been gratefully accepting donations of cards for years (and comics and other stuff like that). I don't know how many 3,000 and 5,000 count boxes I've sent up there over the last 10 years, but its tons. Their website used to have pictures of kids with the cards, and I even recognized some of mine among them, but that version of the website is gone, I think. They'd also received higher dollar value cards over the years,which they used to offer up at benefit sales.


http://www.ariefoundation.com/

[Exhibitman]

I'd pull and keep the cards I had when I was a kid that meant something to me and give away the rest of them. You can put those into an album and use it to remind yourself of simpler times, something that is priceless. I wish I had more of the cards I got as a kid. I have some but got rid of the vast majority when I was in college/grad school. The few I have mean a lot to me.