[OT] How to dispose of a collection?

[ThomasBJJ]

The Ebay rout is good. It takes some patience though. What i did was scope the market out. Followed the bigger dollar items that someone else was selling and got an idea of what they would go for. Then you also need to time your auction right. You dont want to sell your item at the same time that 3 or 4 identical items are up. This may take some waiting, and you never know when someone is gonna put up the same item right after you do. You can always pull the ad though.

I sold LOTS of old stuff and got more often than not a profit on the cover price, plus they paid for shipping.

One guy in the netherlands bought Planes of Conflict from me for $110 (it was MINT cond.) and then said it was horribly damaged in shipping. I told him to send it back and I'd give him his $$ back. He then wanted to keep it, but wanted like 1/2 his money back. I said no, send it back for full refund (I suspect he was trying to con me.) He never responded, but left negative feedback for me. Oh well. Just plan ahead. Tell them to pay for insurance or take thier chances. Just tell them upfront.

 

[Eryndur]

How much?

So how much to want for the whole kit and kaboodle?

 

[GreyOne]

Sorry, can't help you with advice on gaming material collections. If this thread was about a shrunken head collection, well, I could give you some tips on that.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Man, just took a look at what you're selling (via your link). I'd love to get my mitts on a bunch of that stuff, but I can't even begin to afford the $6,000 you were talking about. I couldn't afford to spend $600.

But if you decide you're willing to sell it piece by piece, I'll be happy to make you an offer right up front on several of the products.

Hey, maybe you could do an auction on the message boards? You could put up individual "groups" of product--i.e. all basic D&D stuff is one set, all expert-level stuff is another, all Greyhawk stuff is a third, and so forth--each with its own thread. Anybody who wants to can bid. The highest bid placed, say, 24 or 48 hours after you started the thread, gets it.

Would that work?

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Progress of my disposal

Well, here's the situation.

My first impulse was to offer it to Morrus, free of charge. If he could find someone in the area to pick it up, it would be my donation to EN World. But I'm impatient, and he hasn't replied yet. So that's a no-go. (I envisioned Morrus auctioning it off, or holding raffles, or something.)

Right now, I'm in communication with someone who works at a d20 publisher. He's next in line, since he offered to buy it, and has friends in the area. (I figure, if I can't help EN World, I can at least help d20 in general. I've sent what I think is a VERY fair price, so we'll see what happens. Of course, I wouldn't know what was a fair price if it walked up and bit me on the arse, so it's up in the air. At the very least, I figure he can parcel it off, and make a profit.)

So, I'll wait to hear back from him. If this falls through, I'm on to the next person.

I want to set up the transfer by Saturday, May 25th. Before I have a chance to regret it. (And, before anyone thinks of talking sense into me, I've thought long and hard on it. In the past five or six years, I've gone to work, come home, watched TV, played computer games, browsed the net, watched rented movies, and that's about the extent of my social life. I want to do something, and I can't think of anyone I'd rather spend my time with. I just wish she liked country music. )

 

[Kichwas]

I noticed you're in Napa CA.

As in Napa valley?

Gamescape in San Raphael, San Francisco, and Palo Alto all buy used games for half of what they will sell them for.

If it's mint and desirable that means they'll pay you 1/4 cover price. Or 1/2 cover price in store credit.

But if they already have a lot of it they won't take it.

It is a way to clear out large sections of your stock though. After which you can sell what's left on eBay.

I quit gaming for almost four years once. I sold a lot of stuff when I returned to the USA after having it in storage while in Asia. Some of that was stuff I'd never want again; but some of it was a poor choice to sell when I look back on it.

I've kept my comic book collection. Even though I know it will never be worth anything because of the speculative market of the 80s. But I may find myself wishing I still had it in a decade or two if I were to get rid of it.

 

[Heretic Apostate]

Yeah, the Napa Valley. Your northern neighbor.

I'm not fond of making several trips to San Rafael. That's just below Novato, right? If so, that's about an hour travel each way. I can, at best guess and with some serious tight packing, manage to get maybe seven or eight boxes in my car. (Three or four in the trunk, three in the back seat, and one in the passenger seat.) I'll have to consolidate the boxes, but I had 18 more-or-less full boxes last time I did an inventory, and I've got several more boxes-worth that I've bought since.

Best guess is it'd be three trips, over a commute I grew to hate over the last two years. (I worked in Novato, until I got laid off.)

Why I spent all that money, when I never used any of it, I don't know. The only thing I bought that I ever used was the 2E PHB, and that was 9 years ago.

 

[ThomasBJJ]

If your other arrangements dont work out, I'll take them and sell them all on ebay for ya. I'll keep 40% of the profit, send the rest to you. You will have full access to the Ebay records to keep track of what sold and for how much.

Plus, like I said, I can pick them up from you all in one trip.

Thomasbjj@hotmail.com

 

[bushfire]

bushfire- why would you do that? I've been collecting RPG's since 1978 and literally can not conceive of ever wanting to get rid of them. I buy many games I will never play just to add them to my collection. It would be like getting rid of my weapons collection... *shivers*

Several reasons. I was in the process of adopting a daughter and needed the room primarily. Also most of it was boxed up and unused. I knew 3E was coming out and I knew about the upcoming ESD program, I was also pretty burned out on 2nd Edition and wanted to start clean with 3E. Plus I am *not* a collector, I am a pack rat. A lot of the stuff was bought used once (maybe) and then stored. Actually, a lot of it I have since re-aquired as PDF

One nice thing was that, with the trade credit I got for most of it, I managed to complete my JG collection and buy 3E PHB's for my entire group, along with sets of PHB/DMG/MM for a couple other people.

Oh, and I did make out like a bandit on eBay to the tune of a couple thousand.

 

[mirzabah]

The only options given so far seem to be "sell it as a single lot" or "sell it bit-by-bit". Why not sell it in bundles? Sell the most valuable stuff on it's own, but for the rest bundle one or two medium-value items with a few low-value items. Don't make the bundles too big.