If you live in the EU, you basically have to sell your own cards now as US consigners aren’t accepting our stuff -we are also now more excluded from the US market from tariffs than ever.
I had SO MANY USA buyers agree to a sale of this cool jumbo promo, only to back out when I reminded them about tariffs and what that actually meant (an extra 10% tax).
In the end, it sold to a nice person in the EU for not as much money as I could have sold to a USA buyer (20% less) - but she bought it for her boyfriends birthday - and that’s a nice thing I can get behind.
I have a good relationship with a local LGS and they let me keep a binder at their shop. I keep it full of $1-$50 cards and keep 85% of the gross. This has been a fantastic opportunity. Listing/photographing cards in this price range has never been worth it for me after considering selling and shipping fees. The 15% the shop keeps is worth every penny.
Cards between $100-$5000 are usually pretty easy to sell locally or at shows for 85%-95% of market price.
Cards over $5000 seem to be best to use a consignment service for. The buyer pool shrinks so extra eyeballs help with liquidity, and the payout for these bigger items is typically 95% of hammer price.
IMO, its great to try each avenue of selling to see what you prefer. Selling in person lets you meet other collectors/vendors and connections help grow your collection and make real relationships.
Learn to use the tools in the hobby and watch your collection grow
Right, my suggestion would be under the table with no insurance. Completely understand the risks involved. I am too used to getting large value packages without hesitation haha
I only use consignment auction when I’m realizing 90%+, and if the item is popular enough to do well at auction. Or I use consignment when I want someone else to take the fraud risk (so sealed, weird items that don’t go to eBay auth, etc).
I never use BIN consignment.
Accessing items in 5-10 business days doesn’t work for me. The market is so competitive for some items, if the timeline for adjusting the price is measured in days, that’s time when item may as well not be listed at all. A lot of people I deal with value speed, so if they’re with a consigner it’s a commitment. I can’t make a bulk deal out of items I don’t have. If you don’t close the deal the customer will move on.
I think this is for only one aspect of the card economy, and that is graded cards. Probably because the value to size ratio is so small of one item, and they are literally serialized so you won’t mix up two copies of the same card for example.
Also, elephant in the room, its a way to obfuscate stolen goods, especially if consigned, and then also sold on an auction house. Same goes for fake signatures, fakes that get graded, or faked slabs of real cards. Shoutout to swolepoke on the signature end where I think is just about always consigned.
Otherwise, yeah I’ve gone to my local store to sell them stuff mostly. Primarily if they have a single I want, and I can trade for it with any duplicates I pick up. Sealed products too since after shipping and feeds, it wouldn’t be that far off in most cases, plus its less headache. Especially these days.
Pros of consignment are pretty high, I just don’t know of people who do it with anything but graded cards. Indeed, its sippin’ on a cool beverage.
One reason is due to commisions. Since I’ve had a easy time selling stuff privately on Instagram, ive haven’t needed to go out and have someone do it for me.
I’d say the biggest joy of selling privately on your own is you start to build a network of people that you can reach out to if you run into something you know they collect or vice versa.
Trying to grow a business / ebay store is in itself a fun hobby to me. I don’t think it’d be as fun if I was just passing cards to someone else to sell.
I don’t have enough high end cards to sell via consignment. Most of the high end cards I have are for my PC, so most of anything I sell is in the $5-50 range. Most of my eBay store is stuff I have listed and forgotten about, and if it sells, yippie!
