My Yard Sale

[T206Collector]

I had a yard sale over the weekend. I put out a table filled with boxes and boxes of new (1980-present) shiny baseball cards. I even had some 70's stuff and, for fun, a beat up 1940 Play Ball common. While my yard sale did rather well, I sold more beat up old comic books than baseball cards. But I did manage to sell a 1987 Donruss PSA 9 McGwire for $5.00; a 1996 Score Yankees Team Set for $5.00; and a 1994 Emotion Rookies ARod for $2.00. That was it -- $12.00 in baseball card sales in a Yard Sale that pulled in over $400 on a Saturday, so you know I had a lot of traffic. Even though I had a box of 3,000 commons priced for $15.00 -- nobody even made an offer on that. Anybody got any bright ideas of where to unload commons by the penny or even nano-penny?

I had a couple of T206 reprints on my table (Cobb Red Back and Young Throwing), which drew some eyes. One guy said he loved old tobacco cards, and so I showed him my autographed T201 Nap Rucker and T202 Davy Jones cards, which I had inside and easy to access (most of my "good stuff" resides in a safety deposit box). He was really impressed by those, but I ain't parting with them anytime soon -- let alone at a Yard Sale!

I know sometimes people talk about great Yard Sale finds. Anyone ever have any luck (or fun) selling pre-war cards at a Yard Sale? I'm not talking about setting up at the local flea market or church attic sale. I'm talking about a solo table in front of your house. Anybody ever do that?

[calvindog]

Funny you should post this; I was at a yard sale in Westchester over the weekend and found this awesome T206 Cy Young card in pristine condition! The poor slob guy had no clue and sold it to me for $700! What a maroon!

[GrayGhost]

What Cy Young?

[JK]

Last December, I gave about 15,000 cards (mostly commons) from the 70s, 80s and 90s to Goodwill. Card values were provided by Beckett and ranged from .01 to .10 cents per card. Im fairly certain that the write off saved me more on my taxes than I could have earned selling the cards.

[Cat]

Originally Posted by JK

Last December, I gave about 15,000 cards (mostly commons) from the 70s, 80s and 90s to Goodwill. Card values were provided by Beckett and ranged from .01 to .10 cents per card. Im fairly certain that the write off saved me more on my taxes than I could have earned selling the cards.

This is what I do too.

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by JK

Last December, I gave about 15,000 cards (mostly commons) from the 70s, 80s and 90s to Goodwill. Card values were provided by Beckett and ranged from .01 to .10 cents per card. Im fairly certain that the write off saved me more on my taxes than I could have earned selling the cards.

This would serve as one of the "bright ideas" I was talking about. Thanks!

And as far as the Cy Young card -- Jeff was making a joke about purchasing my reprint Young at my yard sale only to have it turn out to be authentic. However, the joke is on Jeff -- I still have it and will soon be listing it on the B/S/T!

[calvindog]

Paul, I'm glad to see that you caught that joke -- there are Ivy League boys on this site that didn't!

[T206Collector]

...it could have been on me, the seller of the reprint as you described. Or you might have intended it to be on you -- that you bought a reprint for $700 thinking it was real. Amusing either way....

[calvindog]

Actually, it was the latter that I had intended.

[daviddbreadman]

The joke is on me for reading this thread!

[David W]

I'd try again.

An employee of mine's mother in law wanted me to buy several thousand beat up commons from the 70's to the early 90's for $75. The cards included some horribly cut Hostess, some Kellogg's all cracked, and dinged and creased 71 to 77 Topps. 3/4 were 87 and later. There were some stars and HOF'ers, mostly late 70's (Schmidt with creases, Ryan 90 Donruss bad corners, etc...)

I politely declined.

"But I have rookie cards, look here is Derek Liliquist and Sid Bream...."

She sold them for $150 to somebody. Maybe you should spike them with the above mentioned mix.

[T206Collector]

Originally Posted by David W

I'd try again. . . . Maybe you should spike them with the above mentioned mix.

I got a number of people to view the "baseball card table" but not a single person was interested in thumbing through the boxes. My take is that I had set up somewhat professionally, with the good cards out, so everybody knew that I knew what was worth something and what was not. If I had just left boxes of cards mixed in with the baby strollers and old stereo equipment, I probably would have done better. People might have thought they could find a diamond in the rough.

[David W]

Originally Posted by T206Collector

I got a number of people to view the "baseball card table" but not a single person was interested in thumbing through the boxes. My take is that I had set up somewhat professionally, with the good cards out, so everybody knew that I knew what was worth something and what was not. If I had just left boxes of cards mixed in with the baby strollers and old stereo equipment, I probably would have done better. People might have thought they could find a diamond in the rough.

Yep. I've had the exact same experience selling my 80's junk. Look organized and it won't sell, just stick it under a table by the kids clothes and it sells.

[marvjung]

Interestingly enough, when I put on a garage sale at my community (I'm an Assisted Living Director), we put out all kinds of stuff. To save some space at my apartment, I showed up that morning with three boxes of baseball cards (blaster boxes from Target that I had saved) and stuffed all three boxes with commons and left overs - stuff that I really didn't care about.

It took about 2 hours, but somebody came up, looked once, offered $15 for the commons, and I got rid of them.

I got rid of them by simply just throwing them on the table with no order or organization - as if they were part of the sale. I even had one box of misc cards all over the place and those got picked up too in one whole lot. It was a breath of fresh air as I was able to dump my cards

[JamesGallo]

about 10-15 years ago I went to a garage sale with my dad and we stumbled across a bunch of 30-40s programs and score cards. Nice stuff in ok shape. I remmber my dad left me there to guard the pile while he went to get the cash. We paid ok mony for them so it wasn't a steal but still something I strongly remember.

James G