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01/02/2015 4:53 am
Inherited New Collection...Advice for Sale?
I just inherited a large collection of Franklin mint, Danbury mint, and a few other race brands of diecast cars. I am planning on selling most of the collection (roughly 1000 Mint In Box cars). Any advice would be great?
Also, I seem to have many cars that haven't sold online in a long time. Let me know if you have any models you've been particularly interested in tracking down. I'll keep an eye out.
Wish me luck,
Knut
01/02/2015 5:08 am
Do you have a list?
Usually collections of that size have a written inventory somewhere.
Posting that list on a site like this - or sending it to people who express an interest - could get you started on reducing your numbers before you go to the time and expense of listing them all on someplace like E-Bay.
01/02/2015 5:55 am
Basic decisions
The best way to look up values for the cars is to research sold prices on ebay AND/OR on our 1/24 auction board. Since selling on our board costs less than e-bay AND you have the #1 website for 1/24 scale collectors, consider using it as your first option. ebay will charge you just for listing the model - we don't.
Make sure you compare models in similar condition. Models without boxes and/or dusty won't command what models in boxes will. And again, not just asking prices - people often have a very unrealistic valuation based on 'should be worth'. You want verifiable sold prices.
Selling the pieces individually will require you to do the hard work of cataloging all of it and listing it individually. If you don't want to move that slowly or go to that level of effort...
If you are looking to sell the entire collection at one shot, be prepared to accept a low offer because the odds of someone needing everything you have is minimal - but the ability to turn the collection in to cash more quickly might be a benefit to you. Call local estate sale or auction houses and try Craigslist but if you do the latter be prepared for mucho low balling.
If you sell the best ones individually and then try to sell the rest, that value goes down even further on the remaining stuff....
Once you've made a decision on a path to follow, it is easier for us to advise you. Just one gentle reminder, you may not try to sell them through our Forums by posting or offering to e-mail people lists - but that said, you might ask on the Forum 1/24 board if you could e-mail the list to someone to help you evaluate the worth of the collection. In all fairness that service is worth something, so be prepared to give that person a model or two for that service but we have the best experts in the business, so it might be well worth your time and treasure.
01/02/2015 2:38 pm
Very good advise, thanks Rusty