Selling Baseball Cards

Whether you are thinking of selling your boyhood collection or you have been handed the responsibility of liquidating the collection of a family member, it can be a very daunting task. This article reviews the options open to a person selling a vintage sports card collection and will hopefully assist in “parting the fog” on how to get the most money possible for your collection.

If you are interested in selling a collection, or just a few cards, Dean's Cards will buy your collection. Dean's Cards spends thousands of dollars each week on Vintage Collectibles. We will purchase Memorabilia, Magazines, and pre-1980 baseball, football, hockey, basketball and even non-sports cards. The older the better. We will buy the whole collection. We will also buy complete sets from 1985 and older, plus any Reprint or Archives Sets. If you have sports magazines or books to sell, please see our article on selling magazines.

While there is no shortage of dealers who will buy vintage collections, Dean's Cards is able to offer higher percentage of the collection's actual value than most traditional card dealers. Dean's Cards can usually pay more for vintage card and memorabilia collections simply because what we buy goes directly into our own online inventory of 250,000 cards. In fact, quite a few card shop owners who buy collections will regularly send them to us — knowing that they will make a nice margin on the cards.

Dean's Cards offers the best selection of vintage sports cards and memorabilia available online. In order to do so, we are continuously purchasing collections. We spend thousands of dollars every week on collectables. Dean's Cards makes selling your collection an extremely easy process. When we receive your cards, we are usually able to provide you with our bid within two business days. We make our top offer right away. If you accept our offer, we will mail you a check.

I sincerely hope that we end up writing you a large check! This means you have some nice cards and we always need the inventory. If the amount that we offer for your cards falls below your expectations, we will pay the postage to return the collection to you. To receive a bid on your collection, please contact me directly at dean@deanscards.com

Although this article contains my opinions (and definitely my biases), hopefully the information provided will save you considerable time and effort and also help you get the best possible price for your collection. Let me state up front that we buy 1000 vintage collections each year - so my opinion is biased. (As are most of the opinions presented about the card collecting hobby.) I also believe that what Dean's Cards can pay for a collection is more than you will get elsewhere - so it is in both our interests for me to give you as many facts as possible to help you make the best possible decision. So, here goes....

Selling a Card Collection

Quite often people that have never collected vintage sports cards inherit the responsibility of selling a vintage card collection. It can seem like an overwhelming responsibility. The first thing that some people do is go to their local baseball card shop (if they can still find one) to ask what the collection is worth. Most are surprised to discover that they are often offered a few pennies on the dollar of a collection's stated book value.

The dealer at the card store usually offers a brief economic lesson of card collecting in order to explain the low amount that he is offering. The dealer may explain that there are numerous reasons that the cards are worth such a low amount and gives examples such as: buyers seldom pay “full book price” on cards and the shop must pay rent, labor, insurance, and other types of store overhead to cover the stores' expenses. He may also tell you that a card may sit in inventory for months or even years before it eventually sells. All of these reasons may be true, but there is a much more important reason that the “strip mall” card dealer can only pay the collector a few pennies on the dollar for a vintage card collection.

The main reason that their offer is so low is that retail card stores sell mostly the newer collectibles. Their clientele is mainly kids (and maybe their fathers) who collect the new sports cards, fantasy cards or even comic books. Unlike Dean's Cards, vintage cards are not their specialty. Card shops serve a different niche of the hobby. For every collector of the vintage sports cards, there are probably a hundred new card collectors. Most of the new card collectors prefer the current players that they recognize and can still see play at the ballparks. Most card shops keep a few vintage baseball cards in the display case for show, but it is impossible for a retail card store to do enough traffic to sell more than a few vintage baseball cards.

On a side note, the traditional “strip mall” card shop is quickly disappearing, mainly because it is so much more efficient and convenient to buy and sell cards online. Only a fraction of the stores remain from the ones that were in existence twenty years ago. Most vintage card buying and selling now occurs online. According to a top hobby newsletter, there were about 5000 sports cards shops in the early 1990's. Today that number is below 1200 and getting lower every year.

The “strip mall” card shops simply serve a different niche of the hobby. They either quickly liquidate the vintage collection on eBay themselves or wholesale the cards to another dealer — like Dean's Cards. The card shops are forced to pay less for cards, because they do not have a direct way to sell the cards. Online auctions are usually not the best option, because they generally appeal to bargain hunters and rarely bring top prices for collectables.

Most people are shocked to learn that it is not unusual for a collection to change hands between four or five dealers before the items are made available to the individual collector. Each dealer in the process will take out some of the cards and then sell the remainder of the collection to the next dealer for a profit. Even if you find a dealer who is experienced in selling online. The dealer must price the cards for quick sale and is rarely are able to pay more than they are assured of receiving from the online auctions.

At Dean's Cards, we offer a different concept than you will find with other dealers. We buy collections from dealers all the time and pay the same percentages to them as we do the individual collectors. Dean's Cards can pay more for vintage card and memorabilia collections, because what we buy goes directly into our own online inventory. This way we can both avoid the middleman.

Dean's Cards is often called the “Amazon” of vintage sports cards and is recognized within the hobby as the #1 Online Seller of vintage cards. Although some other dealers came to be #1 in online sales, no other dealer has more than a fraction of our 250,000 card online inventory.

If I can be of assistance, please contact me at dean@deanscards.com

How much Money can I really get for my Card Collection?

Often when it comes time for the non-collector to sell a card collection, they are surprised to learn that no one will offer them anywhere near the Book Value Price for the cards. Here are a couple reasons why this may occur:

• The Book Value are refers to cards that are in Near Mint condition . Cards that grade “NEAR MINT” still have sharp corners, good centering and no gum stains or pen marks on the card. Very few vintage cards (less than 2%) grade as high as NEAR MINT. Since most cards were originally bought and handled by kids, a very low percentage of the cards remain in high quality condition. Most of the cards that I collected when I was a kid would be graded in FAIR to VERY GOOD Condition — which means that the card's Adjusted (for condition) Book Value is worth 10% to 30% of the Full Book Value! Even cards that are graded in “EXCELLENT” condition sell for half the price of the cards in “Near Mint” condition. The reason that the book value of some cards is so high is that so few vintage cards remain in pristine condition. The Book Value of a card is almost meaningless. It is the Adjusted Book Value that is much more relevant to a vintage cards actual value.
• The “Book Value” is the Suggested or the “Pie in the Sky” Price . Few collectors are willing to pay the book value price for cards. On the Dean's Cards website we list the Adjusted Book Value as the price of the cards, but we are forced to discount this price in the way of quantity discounts to remain competitive. Many cards will sell online for a fraction of their Adjusted Book Value.
• Card Dealers need to make a profit on the cards to cover their time and expenses . Most cards dealers have the expense of renting a table at a card show or in the case of Dean's Cards - the advertising, labor, and hosting expenses of a website. Not to mention it takes months (or years) to sell the cards that we have in inventory.

The good news is that — if you bought your cards as kid - you are going to make a great return on your investment. How many of your other childhood toys can you say this about?

To help put this into perspective, I have a great story about a Financial Investment Advisor that sold us a collection of his cards from the mid 1950's. This guy made a lot of money in his profession and his expectations were that he was going to make a fortune selling this collection. After all, he had read the stories of people making tons of money selling their collections. He checked a half a dozen dealers or so and told me, although Dean's Cards (by far) offered the most for his cards, he was still a little disappointed in the bid.

First, I suggested that if he was still emotionally attached to the cards - then he should not sell them. After all, they are his cards. But I also wanted to help him put this in perspective so I broke it down into terms that he was familiar with. First, we figured out the original purchase price for the cards. We figured that he bought these 2000 cards in the 50's for a penny a piece (5 cards came in a Nickel Pack) to get the gum. That was a $20 investment.

I forget the actual figures, but let's say that we offered him $1000 for the collection. This would be a return of 50 times his investment or 5000%! He was shocked. His comment was “I wish that I could get that return on my client's investments. We are doing great if we can average 15% per year for my clients!”

The bottom line is that they are your cards and you certainly do not have to sell them. Many collectors never do sell the cards, until there is a special event which encourages them to do so for the money. Typical examples include: Weddings, Sending Kids to College or paying off a big bill. Most collectors keep the cards until they die and then let their heirs worry about what to do with the collection.

Usually there is too much of an emotional attachment for the seller to part with his “boyhood memories”. The cards often sit in a closet until the original collector dies. I certainly understand this sentimental attachment and will probably never sell my personal collection. But if you have not looked at the cards in years, it may make sense to do something useful with the proceeds that you could get for the cards.

It is often the family member that inherits the collection that ends up selling the cards. If you come to the point where you feel that the value of the collection could be put to better use, then please contact us. You have my word that you that you be will be treated fairly and honestly and that we will pay top dollar for your collection.

If I can be of assistance, please contact me at dean@deanscards.com

Determining which Vintage Cards have value

The purpose of this section is to provide sellers with as much information as possible into which cards have value and which ones do not. For educational purposes, let's divide the sports cards into four basic classifications or eras.

1. Pre-War Cards

Pre-War (WWII) Cards have the most value on a per card basis. Although the prices quoted for these cards are typically high, much depends on the condition of the cards. Dean's Cards will purchase these cards in almost any condition. Many of the cards that have survived are not in top condition and this definitely affects the value of the cards.

It is difficult for the collecting novice to determine what years these cards were issued by just looking at the card. Another confusing problem is that most of the pre-war sets have been reissued in the form of reprint (or archives) sets. These sets have been released over the last 15 or so years.

Unfortunately, sellers will send us a Ruth or Gehrig Card that they bought for $100 at a Flee Market a few years back, only to discover that it is a reprint card issued in the 1990's that was roughed up to look old. Please be careful when buying these cards. Most of the cards for this era show wear, so if you have a card like this in great shape, chances are that it is not an original. The value of the reprinted cards in very low when compared to the original cards.

When you hear about a particular card being worth a lot of money, it is most often from the Pre-War Era. But the card that is worth thousands of dollars is definitely the rare exception. Most of the very valuable cards are super stars that are in near perfect condition. The cards of the common players in average condition are worth far less money. Most of the newspaper articles or TV interviews that I have seen, paint an unrealistic value on these cards. For example, I once saw an “expert” on the Antiques Road Show overestimate the value of a collection by 25 times! I personally know many people in this hobby, but never heard of this “expert”. It may make for good TV, but it confuses many of the people that are seriously trying to sell a collection.

It is important to remember the old “Economics 101” Lesson about Supply and Demand. The supply of the pre-war cards is low, which drives up the value. But, because of the higher price of the pre-war cards, the demand is also fairly low, when compared to the newer cards.

When one thinks about this, it makes sense. Suppose that you were starting a card collection, and had a limited amount of money that you could spend. Would you spend it on a few expensive pre-war cards that contained pictures of players that are long sense dead? The answer for most collectors is “No”.

2. Vintage Cards - 1948 to 1972

Vintage Cards are still relatively available. Collectors can still afford to complete the sets. Vintage Cards definitely have value and Dean's Cards will always purchase these cards in just about any condition. These cards are also fun because many of us collectors are old enough to have seen these guys play ball.

If you have a vintage card collection, it is definitely worth some money. The checks that we write to the sellers of these cards are often very large, partly because the Vintage Card Collections are usually much bigger when compared to the numbers of cards in Pre-War Collections.

There are no numbers published on the sales of vintage cards, but I am confident that no one sells more cards online than Dean's Cards. One reason for this is the size of our inventory. In order to maintain our superior selection, we buy hundreds of card collections a year. Sellers (who shop around) routinely tell us that we pay more for collections than other dealers.

To determine what year a vintage card was issued , simply look at the player's statistics on the back of the card. Most of the cards will have the “stats” listed out by years. Just take the most recent year on the card and add one, to determine the year that the card was issued . For example, if the card has statistics for the player for the years 1959 through 1966 — this means the card was issued in 1967.

3. Semi-Vintage Cards — 1973 to 1979

As far as I know, I coined the term “Semi-Vintage” for the cards from the 1970's. It seems to make more sense and reduce confusion for both collectors and card sellers.

Semi-Vintage Cards have been gaining popularity in the last couple years. Dean's Cards has made a big effort to support these cards, because the cards from the seventies have allowed a new generation of vintage card collectors to enter the hobby due to the affordability of the cards. Besides, many of the guys that collected these cards as kids are now middle aged and starting to come back into the hobby. The Cards from the 1970's are still very affordable and readily available, but unlike the cards from the 1980's, where there are millions of cards available, completing a set can be a fun challenge.

Semi-Vintage Cards are a great entry point into the hobby. This trend is a positive for the industry and we want to do all that we can to encourage new people to start collecting vintage cards.

Semi-Vintage Cards have been traditionally ignored by dealers. Dean's Cards is one of few card dealers that sells the individual cards from the 1970's. The reason for the lack of dealer interest has been the low price of the cards. Dealers can make more money selling the older cards. Simply put, it costs a dealer the same amount to value, bid, put into plastic sleeves, grade, sort, enter into the database, scan, file, retrieve, and then mail a 25 cent card as it does a $250 card. This makes for a much lower (or non-existent) profit margin. In fact, I am not really sure if we make or lose money on Semi-Vintage cards. I just like selling the cards that I collected as a kid.

Cards from the 1970's are very common and there are many of the cards in existence that are in the same great shape as they were when they came out of the packs. Therefore the collectors of 1970's cards tend to be very picky in terms of the card's condition. Seventies Cards that were badly abused (my boyhood cards come to mind) are almost worthless.

Another drawback is that Semi-Vintage Cards can be more difficult for a dealer to buy. Even though we see ten times the number of semi-vintage cards available for purchase, when compared to the number of vintage cards available — they can be laborious to purchase. The value of the bid is usually lower, because the cards are worth less. As a result, the success rate of buying the (lower margin and less popular) seventies cards was lower. It takes us almost as much time to bid on a $50 collection as it does a $500 collection - with a much lower success rate.

It is an interesting study in human nature. For example, if a seller sends us a box of cards from the 1960's and gets an offer of $500 for the cards - they are thrilled. That same seller could send the same box of cards — filled with cards from the 1970's and because the cards have less value, we may only be able to offer $50. In some cases, the seller feels insulted. In these cases, we spend time and postage with no positive result. This is the reason that the majority of dealers do not handle cards from the 1970's.

We are not opposed to buying collections from the 1970's, but we can not afford the time and cost involved to go through a bidding process on them. All too often, we will make a fair bid and the seller thinks the collection is worth more. We then have to send it back. It turns out to be a waste of everyone's time and shipping costs. As it turned out - the older, more valuable collections are much easier to buy. We have found that over 90% of our bids on the older collections are accepted by the sellers, where as the success rate on the newer collections was less than 50%!

Unfortunately, baseball cards are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them. That fact does not always make sense to me and can be down right perplexing to the novice. There have been occasions where what we paid in postage to return cards was worth far more than the value of the collection!

We would very much like for you to send us your semi-vintage cards. We want to buy them, but we are forced to treat these cards a little different than we do the older cards. We will value them fairly and send you a check. We will certainly pay you fair market value — probably much more than you will receive elsewhere - but you will have to trust our judgment on these particular cards. Please understand - We can not return the cards - but simply send you a check. Please do not send the cards if you are going to be disappointed. I am sorry that we must be so rigid, but these are the only conditions that work for us on semi-vintage cards.

That said, we would love to buy your semi-vintage cards. We will do the best that we can in terms of payment, but many of these collections have a low or marginal value. Some people have received some very nice checks. The point to take away here about semi-vintage cards is that they definitely have some value, but it also important to have realistic expectations about their worth. The seller is just not going to get rich selling a semi-vintage collection.

4. Non-Vintage Cards — Issued after 1979

The card collecting hobby really started gaining popularity in the late seventies and by the eighties most people began to realize that baseball cards had value. As a result, kids stopped putting the cards between the spokes of the wheels of their bikes and instead placed them in protective plastic sleeves. Mothers no longer threw out the cards. Topps began making huge profits, and (most importantly) many card companies emerged and started printing many more cards. Collectors bought the cards by the case for investment purposes. Life was good!

The problem is the value of cards is directly dependent on the economic factors of supply and demand that I have referred to throughout this article. The demand for these cards is fine, but the supply is hundreds of times higher than that of earlier cards. The number of cards printed each year is greater than the total number of cards produced before 1980. Last year, there were over 280 sets of sports cards issued — and this is only counting the major manufacturers. The result is that cards issued after 1980 are almost worthless! I personally do not think that this will change anytime this century. There are just too many cards and the demand will not catch up to the supply anytime soon. People have begun throwing away cards again!

As far as the current issues of cards go, I heard one dealer say that “New Cards have the shelf life of produce.” There are so many sets issued every year that the collectors are not sure what to collect. While they have value today, they are nearly worthless when the next year's card is issued. The point is this: go ahead and buy the new cards (and PLEASE encourage your kids to collect them), enjoy them and have fun with them, but it is probably not a good move to buy them as an investment.

This comes as a terrible shock to many people. After all, a baseball card is a baseball card — right? Unfortunately the answer is “No”. If you have cards from the eighties or nineties, your best option is to keep them and enjoy them or donate the cards to charity and take the tax deduction. Every year, we donate hundreds of thousands of these baseball cards to Goodwill. I have no idea what they do with them, but I would guess that most get thrown away.

There are a few cards from the eighties that Dean's Cards can purchase. We will buy complete sets from 1985 or earlier and any of the Reprint or Replica Sets of the older cards. We will also buy the Rookie Cards of the Super Stars from 1985 and earlier. Even these cards sell well below their Book Value. The cards to look for are:

• 1980 Topps Rickey Henderson #482
• 1982 Topps Pascual Perez #383 (No Position on the front of the card)
• 1982 Topps Orioles Rookies (Cal Ripken) #21
• 1983 Topps Ryne Sandberg #83
• 1983 Topps Tony Gwynn #482
• 1983 Topps Wade Boggs #498
• 1985 Topps Mark McGwire #401

To avoid hurting feelings (and also being misquoted), one last comment is needed. Collectors tend to be very sentimental about their boyhood cards and tend to get dented emotionally when they discover these cards are worthless. After all, back in the 1980's there were even publications on which cards to buy as investments. At the time, there was even talk of a Baseball Card Limited Partnership that would speculate by purchasing cards! I am not sure if it ever came to pass, but it helps provide insight into the mental attitude of the time.

If you bought 1980's cards as an investment and just knew that one day they would be worth a pile of money, please do not feel too bad. Many of us did the exact same thing, but it just did not work out. Today, there are thousands of unopened cases of late 1980's and 1990's cards. It is extremely unlikely, that the demand will ever catch up with the supply enough to allow these cards to appreciate to the value levels that the vintage cards enjoy.

We had one collector write us an angry e-mail and tell us how wrong we were and that his 1980's cards did have value. (He probably had been resisting his wife's attempt to unload them for years while telling her that the cards were worth a fortune!) He said that “The cards do have value and that some of the star cards were selling on eBay for as much as a dollar.”

Okay. He was technically correct. Some of these cards do eventually sell for about a dollar. The problem is that there is often dozens of that same card selling for a dollar. This means that you may have to list it several times (at a cost of 35 cents a listing) to get a buyer. This does not take into account the time it takes to scan and list the card. So, technically the cards do have some value. But it would be very hard to cover your expenses when trying to sell them.

I am not saying this to be mean or cruel, but only for the purpose of providing potential sellers with accurate and realistic information. We often come across people who have literally spent months of their time sorting and cataloging thousands of cards only to discover that the collection is worthless.

If we can be of assistance, please contact us at dean@deanscards.com

Why wouldn't I sell my cards on eBay Myself?

This is a common question that we are asked when purchasing a collection. There are two main answers: 1) Selling items on eBay is much more difficult than one would think, and 2) eBay is no longer "the place" that sports cards are bought. Most buyers have found better places to buy cards.

It is not commonly known that most of the items sold on eBay are sold by Professional Sellers — not the individual trying to unload a few items.

Online sellers are required to invest many hours to conduct a successful eBay Auction. The seller must set up an account, purchase auction software, inventory the cards, list the cards, grade the cards, scan the cards, arrange payment options, pay commissions to eBay, collect the funds, package and mail the cards out to different places. Even then it is necessary to deal with returns and refunds for the hard to please customers. Selling on eBay is a lot of work! Dean's Cards (and most other sellers) have a professional, trained staff to handle this process. We have found that selling on eBay has become so labor intensive and expensive (due to the ever increasing fees) that it makes more sense to sell the majority of our items through the Dean's Cards e-store.

Few people realize that a Card Dealer has to perform 21 steps to Sell a Baseball Card. The steps are: 1) Read the e-mail from the Seller, 2) Qualiify the Collection, 3) Respond to the Seller, 4) Receive the Collection, 5) Apprase the Cards, 6) e-mail our Offer, 7) Send the Check, 8) Sort the Cards, 9) Stuff into Plastic Sleeves, 10) Grade each Card, 11) Enter each Card into Database, 12) Scan many of the cards, 13) File them into Inventory, 14) Store Them, 15) Sell Them, 16) Fill the Order, 17) Verify the Order is Correct, 18) Process the Payment, 19) Package the Order, 20) Add Postage, and then 21) Mail the Cards. This assumes that the customer is satisfied and the order does not require any follow-up activity.

If we mess up on any one of these steps - we must go back and correct it. We have a staff of a dozen experienced employees and we still have some cards that we have bought five years ago that are not yet listed online! Our labor cost is a huge part of our expense.

There are many subtle nuisances to Selling Cards Online that are not addressed here and some skills that are required that literally take years of experience. For example, there is available literature on Card Grading, including our article on How We Grade Vintage Cards , but the simple truth is that Card Grading is a skill that takes months to learn and years to perfect. Most novices do not know what to look for and tend to “over grade” their cards. Vintage card collectors are a very picky group!

When the work of selling items online is finally completed, the seller seldom makes as much money as he or she would have made if they sold the collection directly to Dean's Cards. The auction process on eBay for the first time (even with a small collection) could literally take months of a person's time to complete. A large collection could easily take years to liquidate.

The next problem in selling items on eBay for the seller is that most collectors only buy cards from sellers with established track records. Serious collectors will seldom purchase cards from anyone with less than several hundred positive feedback references. To do so, is a major risk for the buyer. Even with very good scans, it is often impossible to determine the true condition of a card. The buyer must rely on the seller's reputation and promise to refund the money if he or she is not satisfied.

The few times that we have purchased cards from collectors without established track records — the results were very disappointing. The cards were sometimes inexpensive, but I was usually dissatisfied in the quality of the cards that were sent to me. If the seller does not have at least several hundred positive feedback references, most bidders will shy away from that seller. As a result, fewr people bid on those items and the money that seller receives in bids will usually be a small fraction of the cards worth.

RECENT UPDATE: So what happened to eBay?

Since I orginally worte this article a few years ago, the hobby has had a huge changes in regard to eBay . It began when eBay went public a few years back. They were still the #1 seller of baseball cards. No one else was close. eBay (as are all public companies are) was very concerned with continuously increasing the company's profits. After all, most corperate executives are paid bonuses on quarterly earnings. Last year, the decision was made to raise the seller's fees on low dollar items about 500% to increase the profits to meet the next quarter's earnings.

Many dealers could no longer survive and were forced to leave eBay. Some dealers stayed for a while and paid the higher fees. The higher eBay seller's fees increasd eBay's revenue and decreased the support costs for that quarter - thus created a short-term profit. Of of the card dealers that remained, many lost money and either soon left or reduced the number of items that they listed online.

Very quickly, the vintage card selection posted on eBay decreased and the customer went elsewhere to buy his cards. It was a very destructive trend. With less buyers using eBay are their source for vintage sports cards, there is less demand and very quickly the prices paid for the cards has also decreased.

Dean's Cards always buying cards and often bid online. This year, we have bought some cards off eBay for a small fraction of what we usually pay!

It is an increditable business case study. eBay used to own the vintage sports card market. Due to their quest for quick profits and short term thinking, they have lost their niche. They lost many of their loyal dealers and soon after lost the customers because of the lack of product selection. I would have never have imagined that eBay could have ruined a wonderful market niche so quickly. It is amazing.

The result for Dean's Cards has been fantastic. Last year, we recieved 35% of our revenues from eBay. The percentage of our eBay revenues quiclkly dipped below 5% and we very rarely list items with them anymore. Also interesting, is that our web site sales have increased so much that we are still going to grow 50% this year.

The bottom line is that a person could take a year to liquidate a large collection on eBay and make far less — after the selling expenses — than Dean's Cards would pay them for the cards. This does not even include the cost of that person's time.

If you do not care about the profit you will make, it can be an interesting experience, but it is a lot of work and you are competing against professional sellers who have years of experience and organized staffs to get the product sold. It would be much like, making shirts in your basement and competing for sales against the major department stores. It is certainly possible to make some sales - but not necessarily practical or profitable.

If you would like us to bid on your collection, please contact me directly at dean@deanscards.com

When NOT to sell a collection

Dean's Cards would appreciate the opportunity to bid on your collection, but after buying thousands of collections over the years, we have learned to identify a few “red flags” that often signal when a collection will not get sold. I bring this point up to share our experience and hopefully save some people a lot of time and effort.

The most common reason that collectors end up not selling a collection is that he may be still emotionally attached to the cards. Even though a person may not have looked at his cards in twenty years, once the cards come out of the closet those old memories of his boyhood start to resurface. He is often transported back to a simpler time and place.

After all that is what card collecting in all about — middle aged men reliving their boyhoods! I certainly understand this emotion and probably will not ever sell my collection. Therefore the liquidation of the collections are usually left to love ones or heirs who know little to nothing about baseball cards.

Very often the original collector will have a very unrealistic expectation of the collections true value. Unfortunately, sports cards are only worth what someone is willing to pay for them. That price rarely can satisfy a collector's emotional value of the cards.

If you are a collector and you feel that you will “sell the collection IF the price is right”, let me try to save you some time and effort. The folks that we hear this comment from rarely end up selling their collection. It seems the price never is and the seller never does!

On the other hand, the statement that we love to hear is “I decided that I am definitely going to sell my collection. I want to get a good price for it, but I am definitely going to sell it.” It seems we end up buying almost all of these collections. We do not mind paying “top dollar”.

Many of the times that the original collector actually does sell the collection, the proceeds are often earmarked for a special event. Checks from Dean's Cards have helped pay for many weddings, cars and semesters of collage tuition. I love hearing those stories. What a great way to use the money - especially if your cards have been sitting in the closet for the last ten years. It also gives a new vintage card collector a chance to enjoy the cards.

On the other hand, we also see people sell vintage collections to pay off big bills. Although those stories are not near as happy, I am still glad that the value of the cards can help out these families in times of financial difficulty.

I am Uncomfortable Sending My Collection through the Mail

We send and receive thousands of packages through the mail every year and we have not lost one yet (Knock Wood!) The bigger concern that people usually have is the fear of being taken advantage of.

This is a very valid concern. I would also be skeptical of sending anything of value to someone that I did not know personally. I am sure that this fear keeps some people from sending collections, but somehow we never have a problem getting enough cards. I am not sure whether it is word of mouth or what. We receive collections worth thousands of dollars almost every day.

We all hear the horror stories about people being taken advantage of over the internet. I really do not know too much about it, just because we have no first hand experience, but I tend to think that these thieves are mainly the smaller dealers or not dealers at all. I do not think that these “skunks” could stay in business (or out of jail) very long with that type of behavior - but who knows?

If someone did as much business as Deans Cards and then cheated people, I feel that they would probably get caught in some sort of sting operation. Mail fraud is a federal offense that is taken very seriously by the authorities. It is very easy for the police to act like a seller and scan every card they sent, and then refuse to sell the collection.

The FBI calls their sting efforts “Operation Bull Pen” and it has produced almost one hundred indictments so far. I was talking to the FBI Agent in charge of the operation this year at the national conference in Hawaii and there is no doubt in my mind that the FBI is committed to keeping this hobby as clean as possible. Although no hobby or industry is completely corruption free, I feel that the card collecting hobby is doing a great job. This is the best possible thing that could happen to our hobby.

The best reason that I can give you for why we try so hard to treat people fairly is that it is simply good business. We do all our business by mail - both buying and selling - and have taken great care to protect the reputation of our business. Dean's Cards has never kept a card that does not belong to us and we never will. If we treated people wrong, we would be finished as a business.

We have recently started a bulletin board where both buyers and sellers of cards can leave feedback on their experience with Dean’s Cards and post how they felt they were treated. Just go to www.deanscards.com and click on the link to the “Discussion Forum”. There you can read what other card sellers have said about us.

We have been fortunate enough to meet a lot of great people through my online store, but we have also come across a few real “fruit cakes”! Surprisingly, it has been very few. In my personal opinion, 99.9% of the people in cyber space are basically honest and ethical folks. It is that small minority of cons, crooks, and hackers that force the rest of us to be skeptical of human nature.

As far as giving you a firm offer on your collection - There is simply no way to do it without physically seeing the cards. In order for us to determine the value of the cards, you will have to send them to us. Any reputable dealer with tell you the same thing. Bidding on scanned images of cards is way too uncertain and would force me to bid very conservatively — thus costing you money.

On some occasions we have let people bring their collections to our office. This usually only works for the massive collections worth tens of thousands of dollars. If your collection is big enough - let's talk. But on the vast majority of collections, it does not make sense to incur this unnecessary cost.

It usually costs a dealer about $1000 (not counting at least a day of my time) to fly out to bid on a collection. No matter what a dealer says, this expense has to be passed along to the seller. What about the people who decide NOT to sell their collections? Guess who pays for those trips? If you said, “the next seller”, you are correct. We would much rather give the travel money saved to a seller for cards, than to the airlines for transportation costs.

Our “secret” to buying so many collections is that we simply pay more for cards. Our goal is to keep costs down, so that we can continue to pay a higher dollar amount than other dealers. We have the bidding process down to an art and it works extremely well for us. Please understand - we are very motivated to buy cards.

If sending the cards makes you uncomfortable - then send several thousand at a time. We will value the cards and contact you with an offer. If you agree to our offer - I will send you a check. Then send more cards - and so on it goes... Usually, after sellers receive the first couple of checks — mailing the cards becomes a non-issue. If my offer is unsatisfactory, then I will pay for the postage to send the collection back to you.

The bottom line is that there is nothing that I can really say to totally assure the seller. At some point it will take an element of trust on the card seller's part. In reality, it all comes down to business ethics. If you can not develop a level of comfort, then I certainly understand. If you do decide to send us your collection, we will certainly not violate your trust.

I hope that this makes sense. If so, please respond back and I will forward our mailing address. If you would like to discuss the specifics on the phone, then please e-mail me your number and suggest a good time for me to call.

For further information on collecting vintage sports cards, please see the article “Buying Vintage Cards” I look forward to speaking with you.

“I will just hold on to the cards. They can only go up in value, right?”

It seems unnatural to most people that baseball cards could ever lose their value, but the truth is that the value of vintage cards has not really appreciated in fifteen years. I was a collector when sports cards gained popularity in the 1970's and 1980's. Many new collectors entered (or re-entered) the hobby. At that time, card prices increased multiple times.

The values of baseball cards peaked in the early 1990's and then decreased by 10% to 30% over the next few years. Since that time, the card values have been relatively flat. Many people find this last statement hard to believe, but it is very simple to verify. Simply go online and buy a Beckett's Price Guide from the early 1990's. (It costs less than $10 with shipping.) You then can compare the prices of the exact same cards with a current Beckett Guide.

Probably the most concerning trend in card collecting is the lack of new collectors entering the hobby. The boys of today are just not collecting sports cards (or playing baseball) like the past generations of kids did. This point can be verified at any of your local card shows. Twenty or thirty years ago, we used to see a bunch of kids at the shows with their fathers. This is no longer the case. Attendance of the shows is down, but more importantly you mostly see middle aged men.

Kids are spending their time and money of different things than the kids of earlier generations. The kids are now playing many more sports than just baseball. They also collect different items (such as fantasy game cards) and spending their recreation time on more interactive entertainment, like video games.

Kids began leaving the hobby in the early 1990's when the manufactured started issuing so many sets each year. No one seems to know what to collect anymore. In my day, I would beg a quarter off my parents and buy packs of cards for a nickel each at the check out counter of the neighborhood Five & Dime. Today, most of the packs cost $5 or $10! Parents were much more willing to give there kids a nickel for five packs of cards, than start pulling out twenty dollar bills. Yes, times have changed.

The market for vintage sports cards has always been fueled by collectors who first began buying cards as kids. As they got older and earned more money, they spent it on more expensive cards. If kids no longer collect baseball cards, then where is the next generation of vintage card collectors going to come from? No one is sure. This trend has many hobby professionals very concerned. It is hard to believe that a grown man will begin collecting baseball cards in his forties, if he did not collect them as a kid.

It goes back to our Economics Model of Supply and Demand. The supply of vintage cards is constant. Collections are sold when a collector passes away or needs money for a special event. Dean's Cards purchases about 1000 collections each year. There is a steady supply of vintage cards.

The demand for the cards is the issue. If new collectors do not continue to enter the hobby, there will be no fresh demand for the cards. If there is no demand, then the supply of cards will be greater than the demand. We all learned in our Freshmen Economics class that when that happens, the price of a particular item will decrease.

There are many hobby experts who feel strongly that this disturbing trend will continue and the price of cards will surely decline. I personally am much more optimistic, but even I do not see any growth (or price appreciation) happening in the hobby. 95% of our sales are to men between the ages of 35 and 65.

I truly hope that the experts are mistaken about the future of the hobby and it continues to grow, but my guess is that card prices will remain flat in the best case scenario and probably decrease slowly over the coming years. The bottom line is that few hobby experts feel that the value of vintage sports cards will appreciate in the near future. Hopefully the tradition of the hobby will bring in enough new collectors to keep that price from declining too far. After all, this is my labor of love.

Please relize that few collectors share this opinion. After all, what collector who has spent thousands of dollars wants to think the value of the hobby he loves is decreasing in value?

The people that would have the most informed opinion are the old full-time dealers that make their living in the card collecting hobby. Many share my opinion, but few will express it publicly. There is no benefit to do so. None of us wants to damage our livilihood or even hurt the hobby that we love. Besides, we all sincerely hope we are mistaken and the hobby continues to thrive.

The point is this: if you refuse to sell your sports card collection because you are sure that it is going to increase in value over time - this is not a safe bet. That was exactly what they were saying about internet stocks just a few years ago and we all know how that played out.

“Why Should I Sell My Card Collection to Dean's Cards?”

It is truly in the best interest of Dean's Cards to pay the best possible price for card collections. Many of the people that we buy cards from were either referred to us or are repeat sellers. Many were customers. Some people take years to fully liquidate their collections. They sell us a few sets every several months or so.

I have often been told by people who have received bids from numerous dealers that our offer was the highest. Quite simply, we can usually pay a little more because we market directly to the customer and sell a high volume of cards. If you would like us to bid on your collection, please contact me at dean@deanscards.com

We do not have our mailing address listed on the website, as we always try to gage the seller's expectations and get an idea of what they are wishing to sell before asking them to send the collection. Please contact us through e-mail first, and then we will be glad to provide the mailing address. The last thing I want to do is to waste anyone's time or postage.

The bottom line is that Dean's sells thousands of cards every week. This means WE ALWAYS NEED CARDS and pay “top dollar” for collections. From the customer feedback that we receive, we pay more for cards than other dealers. We would appreciate the opportunity to bid on your collection.

Your time and consideration is greatly appreciated,

Dean Hanley

Founder of Dean's Cards