Any card collectors in the house????

[1-tonmudder]

I have about 10,000 assorted football,baseball,basketball and hockey cards,most from the late 70's to the early 90's and I'm ready to get rid of them.I know the card market is'nt what it use to be but I have a few ????'s anyway.
Graded cards,is it worth the expesnse/effort to have them graded???? Who can I send them to to be graded and whats that usually cost????
Complete sets,I have several complete sets of football cards so is it better to sell em as a set or pick the best cards out and just sell the rest as singles???
Is there an online outlet,other than Ebay,to sell em on????
I have several unopened boxes/packs of cards,is it better to sell them unopened or open them and see whats in em and then go from there????
Im tryin to get my shop finished and hope this'll free up some cash.

 

[UTfball68]

No real help or answer, but this was my little endeavor. I was in the same boat you were about 2 months ago. I collected alot of cards when I was a kid...similar to yourself, my collection had a focus from the 70's-90's. In the mid-90's my collection legitimately had a Beckett value of $30k. I decided I didn't want/need the cards anymore, so I called every card shop I could find listed in the Piedmont of NC. Most said they were only interested in pre-70's stuff. A couple told me to come in...and cards I had that were once worth several hundred dollars were now sitting in there case with a double digit sale price on it. I had a rather extensive collection of RC's that I figured were still my bread and butter, and some of these places had just brought in varying lot sizes of the exact same cards for pennies on the dollar. I did have one guy offer me a grand for everything I had (keeping in mind it was once a 30k collection), but I wasn't willing to separate for only a grand...I didn't need it that bad.

That said...everyone I talked to simply told me to post it up on ebay, because even if they did want what I had, that's what they do with all of their cards anyway...and that's where the majority of their business comes from.

As for graded cards...what I was always told was a graded card would generate more interest from the casual buyer...and would command a little higher premium. However, when dealing with folks 'in the biz' you pretty much know how the card will grade out, so savvy collectors/buyers won't have an issue purchasing a non-graded card.

When it comes to sets...I don't have a definitive answer, but I can tell you from my personal experience, I've always had better luck plucking the 'star' cards out and selling individually...and is always a quicker sale.