Before you try to sell the cards yourself on eBay, and before you contact a big auction house to consign your PSA graded set, get an offer from Just Collect first.
The idea is simple. You want to sell your cards, you want to get paid now, and you want to get the most money possible. And there's really only one way that can happen. The simplest way to sell your collection is to Just collect. We start by providing you with a free appraisal. We go through your set, card-by-card, and evaluate the current market value of each one. We have a plethora of online tools that help us determine the value of each card, by looking back on years of data and sales trends. We don't fly by the seat of our pants and make a guess. It's based all on factual information. It's also not done by flipping through pages of a dated price guide or market report. Those are just suggestions, and a starting point. It's more for comparing cards to one another to see a difference in value. We have come up with a system that can get you a full appraisal on your collection within 24 hours. After your appraisal is done, we'll make you a cash offer on the entire collection.
A question we commonly get is "How can we trust you?" or "How do we know you won't just low-ball the numbers?". Well, that's also simple. We believe in complete transparency. Once the appraisal is complete, you're more than welcome to see all of the information and how we got the numbers. It's also just a percentage game. We pay a certain percent of what the collection is worth. For ungraded cards, we pay "x percentage". For graded cards we pay "y percentage". And since we end up re-selling on a public platform (eBay), you can find out what everything sells for individually a few weeks later. So there is no need to pull wool over anyone's eyes and make bogus offers, because our reputation is too important to risk over a few dollars.
Aside from that, you will most likely get the most money for your collection if you go through us. If you decide to sell your graded set on eBay, well... good luck. It's taken us the better part of a decade to perfect the process, and eBay is always changing, so it's almost impossible for the average Joe to be successful. The process is extremely tedious. You will have to take photos of the front and back of every single card. Then you will have to write a title and description for every single card. Then, to maximize your value, you will have to individually list every card to eBay. Then, after you list all of your cards, you will be charged with insertion fees from eBay. They literally charge you just to list your items on eBay, regardless if they sell or not. Then, after your item sells, you are hit with final value fees from eBay that you have to pay. While the cards are listed on eBay, you will have to deal with all of the questions that come in.
For example: What is the centering on that card, 55/45 or 60/40? Why is that card only graded a PSA 7.5, it looks like a PSA 8? Why did that card only grade a PSA 3, are there any creases or wrinkles that are not visible in the images you provided? Is that small mark from the scanner or actually on the card? Can you end this auction early, I want to buy this card for "x number" of dollars (which will inevitably be about 50% of it's value)? Hi, sorry I bid on the wrong card, can you please retract my bid? What's your return policy? Do you accept personal checks? Can I pay you in two weeks?
Believe me, it's a nightmare. After all of your items sell (and hopefully they do end up selling), you will need to mail out each card, which means paying for postage, packaging, tape, bubble wrap, etc. That's a hidden cost you probably didn't think of. Then, after everyone has paid, PayPal will now take out a percentage of each sale, as part of their commission. Fantastic. When it's all said and done, people will leave you negative feedback, they will want to return the cards, and worst of all, if you are not an experienced seller on eBay, people will bid/pay less for your cards because of the uncertainly, or will choose someone else. "Well, I could buy this card from Person A for $100 and they have 75,000 feedback, or I could buy this card from Person B for $100, who has 35 feedback. Definitely going to pick Person A, unless I can offer Person B $75 for the card, then I'll do it. So, you either lost the sale or lost money on the sale. Either way, it's lose-lose situation.
Ok, eBay is clearly not the right choice. Your next thought would be to consign to a big auction house. Good idea, but again, it's risky move and not timely. Most auction houses only run semi-annual auctions, at best. So, let's say you send your cards in June 1st - their auction might not be until the fall. So you will have to wait a few months for the cards to be even listed in their auction. Then, once your cards are finally ready to sell, you'll be hit with consignment fees, which can be up to ___ percent. Then, you have to worry about buyer's premium on the back-end. What does that mean? Well, when your items are listed in an auction, there is an automatic up-charge to each bid, called a buyers premium. So, if I'm the bidder, and the next bid is $1,000, I can bid that amount, but it's really $1,150 with the buyers premium. I end up paying the full amount, so obviously I'm going to take that into consideration when bidding and bid lower than it's value. That's how the auction houses make money. Off the front-end consignment fees, and the back-end buyers premium. They will try to sell you with "well it's only a 15% fee to consign your items" - what they don't tell you is that you will get considerably less for your item because the bidders will be hit with premiums during the auction - so you are essentially getting hit twice. Then after all of that, you have to wait a month or so for the auction house to cut the check. They wait to get paid from the bidders before they pay their consignors. Just the nature of the business. So, now you might not get paid until October or November. That four or five months away!
Here's where we come in. We've been doing this for almost 10 years, buying complete sets and collections from people all over the United States. In the past few months, we've bought some incredible graded sets: The 1960 Topps Baseball PSA Set Collection, The All-American Acquisition. Find out what the people are saying about us.
You don't even have to mail your graded set into us for the appraisal. Just send us the complete list (in excel), or the link to your registry on PSA's website, and we can have an appraisal & offer ready for you in just 24 hours! There's literally no risk involved. You don't have to send us your cards. You don't have to wait months to get paid. You don't have to worry about paying any fees.
Send us the list. We'll make you an offer. It's that simple. We'll even pay for shipping.
