Thoughts on 1950s cards over the next 15 years?

[wfubob]

Hi all, great forum here. Seems the perfect place for any advice on my situation.

I was a casual baseball card collector as a kid of the 70s and 80s. Before my grandmother passed a few years ago, she said she couldn't leave much for her evenual grandkids, but gave me a box of pretty well-preserved cards that my father collected, with strict instructions to use them, whatever the worth might be, to help send my first child to college.

I had forgotten this until I came across them this weekend, ironically my son's 3rd birthday. As I went back through the cards, they are mostly '53 through '57 Topps, and '53 through '55 Bowmans, with a mix of stars and commons. (The '57 Topps and '53 Bowman colors are in especially nice condition to my uneducated eye). I'd guess about 700-800 cards in total.

I don't need the money, and actually would prefer to hold and preserve them to give to my kids someday as I will my personal collection, but want to fulfill my grandmother's wish. So I'm looking for thoughts from long-time collectors and experts around here. Given the vintage of the cards, would you advise someone in my shoes to sell them now, or hold them now and sell then? In other words, this is just a somewhat fun projection on what the market for this vintage will be over the next 15 years, when my oldest will start college. My initial thought is that those years would appeal to the baby boomers, so I'd be better off selling now.

Secondly, if I decide to sell now, what are your recommended outlets for individual card sales? I don't see myself taking the time to go rent a booth at a card show or anything like that.

Third, if I decide to sell in bulk now (i.e. not worry about maximizing proceeds) any advice on doing that would be welcome.

Finally, I spent a few hours this weekend surfing here and other places on the subject of grading. From my brief read, seems the advice would be, for these years, to go PSA (Beckett--I know, not BCCG!--for modern, SGC for pre-war?), and limit it to stars, and those that I think might get a 7+. Not that I've done enough research yet to know what a 7 might look like...

Obviously any educated feedback would require seeing the lot, so just interested in any general observations anyone would be kind enough to share. I'm in Atlanta, so if there are any recommendations of reputable and trustworthy folks here to talk to, I'd also appreciate that.

I did scan a few of the star cards last night, which are attached. I'd say the condition of these is generally indicative of the condition of all the cards in each of the years, with the exception of the 56T Mantle, which is much worse than the others (looks like my dad must have had it on the top of a rubber-band-secured stack at some point!).

I also am logging the inventory as a "public" collection into beckett.com (seemed like an easy format and I could eyeball the useless book values to begin to ID better cards). I have about 135 in so far. My username there is also wfubob if you have any interest at looking what I've logged in and you know how to view public collections (obviously ignore the condition column, as NM/M is the default on the site).

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

Robert