How to Sell Baseball Trading Cards

It used to be that baseball, football, and to a lesser extent even basketball cards were easy to sell. You could visit your local sports hobby shop and sell them or trade them in for store credit. The sports card market took a nose dive in the late 1990's, resulting in many of these hobby shops going out of business. These days if you want to sell your sports cards your best options is selling them online.

Things You'll Need

• Sports cards
• Protective sleeves
• Protective pages
• Binders
• Pricing magazine
• Internet access

Instructions

1. Catalog the baseball cards that you currently have. The best way is to keep a database on your computer of the cards. You can either use a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel, or purchase one. One of the best options is Beckett's online service where they will even update your card values for you each month when their new hobby magazines are published.

2. Protect your cards. This means either placing them in a binder or individual sleeves. If you are going to place them in a binder you should get the protective pages. Do not "double up" and try to put 18 cards in these pages, only put nine cards in each protective page.

3. Keep up to date about the current value of your cards. Beckett's online service can do this for you, or you can purchase the "Beckett" magazine or "Tuff Stuff" magazine.

4. List your baseball cards for sale at eBay. Keep in mind you will have to pay both a listing fee, and a final value fee, so you will only want to list individual cards or sets of cards that you feel are worth paying these fees to list.

5. Set your auction time for seven days. It is best to give other collectors a full week to discover your baseball cards, as there are over 10,000 currently up for auction at eBbay.

6. Arrange for your auction to end on a Sunday night. It is widely known among eBay listers that products ending on Sunday nights tend to do the best as far as the amount of interest and late bidding they receive.

7. Be realistic when you set your sale prices for your cards. Keep in mind that most cards do not even sell for 60% of the low end price in the Beckett price guide. If you overprice your cards you will end up paying a listing fee, but not selling them.

8. Ship your cards with great care.The buyer will expect your cards to arrive to them safely. Make sure you put them in a high quality case, and wrap them in bubble wrap as well.

Tips & Warnings

• Selling baseball cards on eBay is not something that you can get rich from, but it can produce a few extra spending dollars for you. It's a great way to get more money to buy additional boxes of baseball cards.

• The relationship you develop with the buyer is much more valuable than they money you are receiving from them. With the increased difficulty sellers find in selling baseball these days, repeat buyers are like gold. Treasure your customers. If you alienate them, you will lose a significant amount of money in potential future sales.