Need help/advice on disposing of Dad's hobby "stuff"

Here's the problem-we have a basement full of crap from my Dad's hobbies. He was totally out of control buying hobby stuff for a long time before his death. Since it's worth something, and neither of us are rich, we can't just throw it away. However, going by typical eBay prices most of it would sell for so little after counting eBay/Paypal fees that we wouldn't do much better than breaking even. For example, there are a lot of mid-80s to mid-90s sets of baseball cards. A collector might be willing to pay $10 or $15 a set, but not the additional $10 it would cost to ship. This means on eBay you'll be lucky to net $5 before fees for the same set. Not to mention the logistics of going to the Post Office every day ( usually a 2-3 hour line ) with heavy boxes of baseball cards. Same story with a lot of the figurines. A lot of work to essentially break even in all likelihood, work I really don't have the time, energy, or desire to do. So eBay is out, except maybe for a few select items. The total inventory of the stuff we would like to get rid of the most includes roughly 1000 complete sets of sports cards, mostly baseball, but with some basketball, hockey, and football thrown in, and perhaps 1000 or so figurines ( mostly Precious Moments but some Hallmark ornaments ). There are also stamps and coins, but volume wise those take up the least space, and are worth at least face value, so it's not essential to get rid of them right away.

It seems the only way to possibly get rid of this stuff is to find people locally, but given the volume involved, that would be difficult. Dealers are out. Most don't want the kind of things we have because there's already a glut. The few who might we'll be lucky to get ten cents on the dollar compared to what collectors might give. Frankly, I'll throw the stuff in the garbage before I'll sell it to a dealer for ten cents on the dollar.

The reality is no matter what we'll get way less than my dad paid for these things, that's a given, but we have to get rid of them. Between this crap and a garage full of my brother's car parts we just can't move around here. Any ideas where we can get close to what this stuff is worth (i.e. by eBay prices, not inflated "list" prices ), and not take forever to sell it all? Perhaps finding a few collectors willing to give us package deals on the stuff, but I'm utterly clueless where to even find such people. I'm getting tired of hearing the same complaints every day so it has to all go fairly soon. My blood pressure is way up lately, I'm overeating, and I have rashes, on account of all the fights over this garbage. Fact is my Dad never should have bought half this crap to begin with, but he had OCD, among other issues. As it'll be 4 years in March since my dad passed away, I'm about ready to toss it all in the garbage, to be honest, to end the constant arguing about it.

On another note, I wish there were a class-action suit against the companies who took advantage of people buying into the hype by selling them grossly overpriced stuff with zero intrinsic value or utility. All told, what's downstairs probably would be worth $1 million had the money used to purchase it been invested properly. :shakehead By my conservative estimates the cost was at least $250,000. In the absence of a nice lawsuit, maybe me and others dumping all the now worthless cards of the front lawn of the former CEOs of Topps, Fleers, etc. might not be a bad idea.

This is maybe 1/10 of it:

I know very little about collecting these items and their value, but I would like to suggest that you don't totally abandon the ebay idea.

The post office has several sizes (at least three) of Priority Mail boxes that are available in their lobbies for free. The shipping costs for these are the same regardless of weight. I would suggest that you pick up one of each and see how many of these cards or figurines you could put in each. You could bundle your ebay offerings based on the capacity of these boxes and do a trial run to see if it is worthwhile.

If you set up an account with the post office online, you can print and affix labels to the boxes from home and bypass those lines at the post office. It may not be quite as bad for you to ship these as you think.

Good luck!

Hi jtr ,

I guess you're saying a Pawn shop is out of the question.

Could you possibly donate it to a Good Will store or such ...

And possibly claim a Tax deduction on the estimated value donated ?

Local kids might be interested in some of that stuff.
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what about trying to visit a collector's show or convention? that might be a place to consider.

also, i agree on the flat rate postal stuff. set up an account, and they'll even come to your house. so, "issues" with the post office such as lines, etc. are completely eliminated.

almost impossible.

I just cleaned out Mom and Dad's place - the stuff goes for almost nothing - heck, I was giving away tools just to get them out of the house. By the time I got done paying the guy to run the tag sale, and pay for the dumpster and labor - I netted a whopping $20 for the entire contents of a house, and that included selling 300 lbs of copper and 100 lbs of brass fro scrap, because I couldn't find buyers for the fittings as fittings

First, I'm sorry for your loss of your father, and know how this feels to do

Since you have 1000 sets of cards, these guys might be interested. They buy
large collections in the NYC area
http://newyork.craigslist.org/lgi/wan/1524583171.html

What kind of car parts are there? for which cars?

I know how much of a PITA this can be, I've done more than a few house cleanouts of my family and it really is sad what happens after people pass away. The Vultures come around and act like you should pay them to take stuff there're going to sell to someone else.

I understand your feeling like throwing stuff away just to not let some scumbag get over on you. Been there and have done that. I even have spitefully broken stuff then put it at the curb, so when the garbage pickers who were at the sale and didn't want to pay a cpl bucks got beat when they thought they scored by stealing it out of the garbage. ( yes i was younger but still feel that way about people that take advantage of people):devil:

Hold on to the coins and stamps and when you have time go over them, you never know which of them may be worth more than you think till you look at them, esp ones actually from the US Mint. I have some myself bought during the mid 90's worth 10 times what i paid then for them, some are worth only face value but that's the chance you take with coins

Do you have such a thing as garage or yard sales?
You pay a small fee to the city for a permit and just set your stuff on the front lawn and price it. If you price it cheap enough, usually someone will buy it. A couple of years ago I bought a $250 electric lawn mower that was like new for $30.

He doesn't want to spend excess time and effort doing it .....

For the little he will gain from it.

IMO

JTR1962,
As you know, I live near you - I used a cleanout /tagsale company, if you want the number, PM me

Thanks to all who have responded. Just to clarify things a bit more, we've already tried dealers and the like for the baseball cards. Problem is they don't want what, which is mid-80s through early 90s, at any price. Even the link given by Vinniec5 says they're looking for mostly card collections from the 1900s through 1970s, same as everyone we talked to. They all said pretty much the same thing-it wasn't worth their while to take our cards, even for free, due to glut on the market for those years. That basically leaves us with the alternative of selling directly to collectors. I don't mind doing that, but it has to be local, and given how little most of these sets are worth, I'd prefer to get a few large buyers over 100s of people buying one or two sets. Also, our local PO doesn't have a drop off box. The nearest one that does is 1.3 miles away. Visualize me or my mom pushing a shopping cart full of packages there once or twice a day, every day. The time and energy just isn't there, not to mention with eBay/Paypal we'll be lucky to break even on most of the sets. So that leaves local buyers who can pick up their purchases. I don't really care if I get $3 or $5 a set, but I want to deal with as few buyers as possible because arranging everything takes time.

Next up-other venues such as conventions, flea markets, etc. If the stuff doesn't sell, which is a distinct possibility, then this could very well put us in an even worse situation-namely we still have the stuff, and we lost money trying to sell it ( not to mention our time standing around all day ). So those are out. A garage sale? I've thought of it. Permits don't seem to be necessary here, or at least I've never heard of anyone saying they needed to obtain one to sell stuff on their own property ( so long as they don't put posters on street poles or block sidewalks ). I'm dubious of the possibilities of success, however, given the relatively small target audience, and the fact that none of these things are necessities.

So I'm basically left with trying to somehow connect with local buyers who might be willing to buy 25 or 50 or 100 sets at a time. Post a flyer at the bulletin board at the local grocery store perhaps? That's free at least, and doesn't take up any time unless I get buyers calling.

I guess charitable donations are a possibility, although I doubt anyone would want this stuff. Donating however won't benefit either me or my mom as neither of us itemizes.

Hold on to the coins and stamps and when you have time go over them, you never know which of them may be worth more than you think till you look at them, esp ones actually from the US Mint. I have some myself bought during the mid 90's worth 10 times what i paid then for them, some are worth only face value but that's the chance you take with coins

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Right now I have no intention of trying to get rid of the stamps or coins. They take up 10% of the space compared to the cards and figurines. I know enough about coins anyway to know which ones are worth way more than face. As for the stamps, most of the collection is post-1930s which is worth postage, unfortunately. So they will come in handy mailing out the few items worth enough to sell on eBay. Frankly, I wish my Dad would have just stuck to coins. At least they're relatively easy to get rid of, even if they have no numismatic value.

almost impossible.

I just cleaned out Mom and Dad's place - the stuff goes for almost nothing - heck, I was giving away tools just to get them out of the house. By the time I got done paying the guy to run the tag sale, and pay for the dumpster and labor - I netted a whopping $20 for the entire contents of a house, and that included selling 300 lbs of copper and 100 lbs of brass fro scrap, because I couldn't find buyers for the fittings as fittings

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Unfortunately, it's looking more and more like it's going in this direction.

He doesn't want to spend excess time and effort doing it .....

For the little he will gain from it.

IMO

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That's just it. If I'm going to net the equivalent of $1 an hour, or perhaps even lose money, then it's a complete waste of time. I already know what to do with the few items worth something. I just haven't gotten around to it. Just the bulk of it is common stuff not worth the cardboard it's printed on.

On another note, might it be worthwhile just stuffing this crap in the attic in the hopes that in 20 or 30 years it'll be worth something because everyone else who had mid-80s to mid-90s sets tossed them? Just a thought. At least up there it's not bothering us any more. I only want to do this however if there's a reasonable chance it would be worth more than it is today. If not, it may come down to just giving it away, or tossing it in the trash.

As for post 1930s stamps, while it is true that MOST are worth postange, thee are a few oddballs out there worth a LOT more

Dad came across one in his collection - seems USPS did a test run of a certain stamp on a different stock, and they only did a few hundred rolls, and the only way to tell is under blacklight. As of 3 years ago, Dad had the ONLY known remaining mint copy. You really need to look

As for getting to the post office with boxes - I could help you out

CRAIGSLIST

On another note, might it be worthwhile just stuffing this crap in the attic in the hopes that in 20 or 30 years it'll be worth something

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That was my thought, but only after somebody went through it and took a guess at what 10% or so had the best chance of being worth something in 25 years, and getting rid of the rest - even for free.

Yep...anything before the strike and not very old is worth about as much as the pulp it's printed on.

The PO does advertise Priority pick up. You do the postage and packing and they will pick up. Other than that I don't know what to tell you. When my grandpa died, we sold his machinist tools for a pittance. Years later now that I have an interest I wish we hadn't. No way to know though.

Burn them in the chimeney? at least it will keep your house warm, just a tought.

Not such quantities as you but we've been using CraigsList and a local forum to post various stuff for sale to stay alive until I get a new job.

There is the untold sadness and pain from just keeping all the stuff and having to see it, think about it, and deal with it...because you know the wasted money, and the personal connection. Happened with my mom getting sucked into wasting $40-70K buying crap to increase her chances of winning in the Publishers Clearinghouse scams. She ended up with a 3 car garage completely filled with boxes of junk....half unopened, and parked her car outside. None of us kids could talk her out of ongoingly doing it, but we had no idea the magnitude of her obsession and wasted money until she died.

If I were you, after doing the checking you did, I would make 3 categories, and just handle the first two and get it over with. It is one thing that he wasted the money. It is a whole other issue to have his obsessions disrupt your life too, and you feel like you should now have to get some money for his foolishness. Probably 80% should be in category #1.

1) To the trash
2) To the attic
3) Needs more research (stamps/coins)

LuxLuthor said:

There is the untold sadness and pain from just keeping all the stuff and having to see it, think about it, and deal with it...

If I were you, after doing the checking you did, I would make 3 categories, and just handle the first two and get it over with. It is one thing that he wasted the money. It is a whole other issue to have his obsessions disrupt your life too, and you feel like you should now have to get some money for his foolishness. Probably 80% should be in category #1.

1) To the trash
2) To the attic
3) Needs more research (stamps/coins)

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I agree completely. We had to take a very hard line approach to getting rid of my late fathers property also. He too amased a lot of 'stuff' before dying. Most went for pennies on the dollar in an estate sale, however his model railroad collection we handled differently...

We contacted the local model railroad club of which he was a member. We had them inventory and remove all his model railroad stuff. They provided us with an inventory and value of each item and in return we told them to dispose or use it how they saw fit. Some of it they gave to club members, some they kept as communial property and some they sold to raise funds for the club. I took a $15,000 tax write off that year :thumbsup:

But I miss my father terribly. :mecry:

Your start of this post is very sad to read. Your threads and posts are always unusually insightful, highly intelligent, and always rewarding to read. I am very sorry to hear you have this problem with your deceased father's hobby stuff. This thread really hit home for me, as my father had OCD.

Have any of you engineers out there had success in controlling the OCD of collecting stuff. Most projects are 90% completed, it is frustrating.

Any suggestions from viewers?

mossyoak said:

CRAIGSLIST

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I also recommend Craigslist. It's a great way to get rid of things locally.

Also for things that aren't really worth selling but you don't want to deal with the hassle of throwing away you can also try Freecycle.

Either way think about getting the cheapest prepaid cell phone you can find & using that as your contact number.

On some things people will be still be asking you about it months down the road (and long after it's gone). Craigslist is especially bad in that regard.