| Author |
 Replies: 12 / Views: 1,416 |
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
717 Posts |
Let me start out by clearly stating that this doesn't have anything to do with coins per se. I am a retired elementary school teacher. Around 1999, or so, my students were all abuzz about, Pokemon cards, and dare I say it, I got sucked into the vortex of Pokemon card collecting. I'm posting here because I feel all the principles of coin collecting apply. At the time I spent a couple of years buying Pokemon cards, and probably spent about $2,000 on them until one day I thought to myself, "What the heck am I doing?," and I stopped collecting them. Put all of them safely away in cardboard boxes with many in plastic hard cases, shoved them under a bed and forgot about them. A couple of years ago during the Pokemon Go craze I wondered how much they might be worth and holy cow, the answer is many of them are worth a lot. Now my problem(s). I want to sell them. The Pokemon card area doesn't seem to be nearly as organized as coins are stamps (yes, I collect those too). I would like to have them appraised and sold by a reputable auction firm, but I can't find one that handles them. I went to a Heritage rep at the recent Long Beach show and they don't handle them. Google search yields nothing. There's not even a Pokemon discussion group similar to this one where I can ask questions. There's no Pokemon periodicals that I can find, though there were some back when I originally accumulated them. I know I can always sell them on ebay, but I'd rather auction with a traditional auction house. I've looked at valuations on the PSA site (I have about 30 cards that are slabbed) and completed ebay auctions to get an idea as to value. Some of the prices seem hard to believe (on the high side). I have one card that appears to be worth between $5-6K. Does anyone have any idea as to how I should proceed beyond what I've already outlined? |
|
|
|
Rest in Peace
United States
17900 Posts |
ebay is far and away the best selling venue. Be sure to take bids or buys from Japan, as US issues sell better than many of the Japanese issues. I was fortunate to buy several large card collections which included lots of Pokemon and the prices on ebay are excellent.
|
|
Moderator
 United States
56855 Posts |
|
|
Pillar of the Community
 United States
8938 Posts |
Years ago I collected pokemon cards as well. Best way is to get them encapsulated and up on ebay. Try PSA as that was the preferred grading service when I collected. I dunno what you had, but even pokemon has grade rarities. I could use an example, but I fear endless razzing  |
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
94367 Posts |
Okay, how about some pics of your best examples?
|
|
Pillar of the Community
 United States
717 Posts |
I'm sorry Coinfrog, I've never figured out how to post up pictures and am unwilling/unable to devote the time necessary to do so. My Pokemon card that's undoubtedly the most valuable is a 1st edition Charizard from the base set (English) graded 9 by PSA. I have many cards that I suspect should be sent to PSA, but like coins and stamps there is an almost exponential difference in price between grade levels and while sending a card out to get a top grade (PSA 10) if it comes back any less it wouldn't be worthwhile. Ive submitted about 30 cards to PSA for grading and slabbing and about 10% come back as PSA 10. The rest are generally 8's and 9's.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1346 Posts |
howell1018 - it is disheartening to hear of your situation. Makes me glad that I sunk all my extra funds into Beanie Babies!
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
7273 Posts |
My son collected baseball cards, a few years ago he was done and put the whole set in the garbage. I saw it and put it in the garage. 10 years later this July I was going to chuck them, but decided to see if I could sell them, took them to a card shop and the cards that probably cost me $300-$500 I got $35 for. I would have been better collecting beany babies.
|
|
Pillar of the Community
Canada
999 Posts |
I would go for ebay, as others have mentioned. I think that is your best bet in this case. I still have boxes of baseball and hockey cards that I collected as a kid in the early 90's. At one point I was convinced they would become valuable if I hung onto them for long enough. Now I'm not so sure. |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
717 Posts |
I still have boxes and boxes of baseball cards. A few are actually worth something, most are not. I'm thinking time capsule is the way to go.
|
|
Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Sorry to say those sort of went the same way as sporting cards, Beanie Babies, How Wheel cars, US Postage stamps. It is unfortunate that those manufacturers over killed on production and made so many that the values and prices dropped. You can try ebay but you'll probably loose a lot of money from what you spent. |
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
8938 Posts |
A first edition eng charizard is still in pretty rare in PSA 9. Last I heard 70% of all PSA 10's for that card were owned by one person
|
|
Pillar of the Community
United States
1949 Posts |
Growing up in the 90's, I also had quite a Pokemon card collection. I too was shocked a couple of years ago with the prices and sold off the collection I had. I recently assisted a longtime friend of mine liquidate their collection, and he was very happy with the results. The ebay prices for certain cards are all over the place, but it seems the scarce ones do consistently get strong prices. As a side note with the grading, we sent a handful of the nicest looking ones with good value into PSA. Everything came back as 8.5's and 9's, I would guess they are quite strict with higher grades. Feel free to shoot me a message if you want, we just went through the same process about a month ago! |
| |
Replies: 12 / Views: 1,416 |
|
Posted 09/25/2019 7:24 pm
