This is a
continuation of a series based on the acquisition of one seriously huge lot of
cards. Here is Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, if you’re so inclined.
Hark! the
evening glow gives way to dark’ning sky. As the creatures of the earth nest in
their dens to make way for the creeping dark, the night-serpent slithers across
the world, casting deathly shadow on the very soul of man.
I’m going to
sell Griffeys tonight.
I’ll be
honest – I’m only about 60% sure I even want to do this. It’s kind of awesome
having so many Griffey cards, but that wasn’t the deal. The deal was to buy the
box, take out what I need, put in a whole lot more, and sell it back to the
Interwebs from whence it came.
But I can’t
keep them all, and now comes the long, difficult Sophie’s Junkie’s Choice
moment of choosing which Griffeys will live in the collection….or die (by
living in someone else’s collection).
The Great Griffey Reckoning is upon us.
This is the
Griffey Overflow Box in its current state. It includes the bulk of the 2,777
cards from the Adelanto Lot merged with thousands of my own duplicates.
As you
can see the Griffey Overflow Box now has its own overflow box on the left there
which I call the Griffey Overflow Box Overflow Box. No worries, though. I
expect that I’ll be removing more than enough cards that we can go back to the
one-box system lest my emotions or propensity to hoard get the best of me. I
am, after all, hella-fragile right now, y’all.
This step
will be done “open binder,” meaning I’ll be able to see precisely how many of
each card I have before a decision is made. I’m not assigning any hard-and-fast
rules, though. I’m just going to feel it. I like to think I’ll know when I have
enough of whatever card I’m looking at. I also need to be sure I’m giving the
buyer his money’s worth with plenty of fun inserts, oddballs, promos, and
parallels.
The line must be drawn here! This far, no further! |
Ugh. FINE.
Let’s do this.
That done,
now it’s time to pick out a nice cross-section of what's in there for the auction
photography. This won’t be too hard as there are ton of quality Griffeys here.
The rookies
are excellent for this – they look amazing in a group photo. The other cards
are a different story. I
need variety - lots of different inserts and parallels, oddballs, colors, shiny
bits, that sort of thing.
Yeah, that’s
the ticket.
Now I’ll add
a few neat items from my collection that I don’t necessarily need. This includes a clutch of slabbed and graded numbers, a sealed Front Row Hologram set, and a couple more Griffey cards that I suspect the buyer will enjoy.
The lot is
complete. Now we can crunch some final numbers.
The quantity
of Griffeys removed was a whopping 4,204, well below my pre-sort estimate of
5,000. We can calculate updated, accurate counts across the board.
Fingers crossed…
Official
counts: 6,635 total, 3,445 unique, 1.926 duplicate ratio.
Holy crap.
This is it, folks. This right here was the end goal the Adelanto lot was meant
to help accomplish. Not just fewer overall duplicates but better duplicates and
less clutter. So fresh and so clean, clean. It’s a whole new world today.
Back to the
dark task at hand.
OK, price.
I’m a little lot torn on what to charge for this thing. A dime per card is
fair, but there are just so many - I’m thinking I should start it off with a
built-in quantity discount.
Then what about
shipping? The original auction charged me $25.00. I’m thinking about doing free
shipping and just including the expected cost in the price. It’s much more
appealing that way and effective at this price level.
The bidding will begin at $400 with a BIN of $520. That's just over 9 1/2 cents per card which is a steal with the free shipping (which would otherwise cost the buyer considerably - 4,000 cards weighs a lot). The BIN would put it just over 12 cents per card. Ebay requires the BIN to be at least 30% higher than the starting price.
Okay,
auction is ready to go up. By clicking “List Item” I agree to the terms and
conditions set forth in the eBay user agreement, yada yada yada. Dare I? I
should. Nay. I must.
<click>
It is done.
The Kenner Lot has been born. God Save the Kid.
I’ve listed
the auction, but I will not be linking to it here. You should be able to find
it pretty easily on the ‘Bay.
One more
thing – if a reader of this blog wins the auction, be sure to comment on this
post when it’s over. I’ll throw in something Junior Junkiesian as a bonus.
Nothing big, but you deserve something for being such a big Griffey fan.
Good luck.
To us all.
That's a lot of Griffeys! Whoever buys it is getting a heck of a deal!
ReplyDeleteAlso, the current state of the Overflow Box makes me feel a little bit sad.
DeleteI know. Part of me hopes it doesn't sell because if it doesn't I'm going to keep them all.
DeleteYou did pull out all the ChiSox Griffeys for me, right?
ReplyDeleteRIGHT?????????????? Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!
Actually I did but sadly they were very very few white sox.
Deletecan't seem to find the auction yet...but awesome lot ! I'd jump on it (ok, maybe I'd count my money first), but S&H would be a bitch (probably around $200)
ReplyDeletehighly impressive, really enjoyed these series of posts
ReplyDeleteBest of luck on your sale. That kind of $$$ should be able to buy you a bunch of new Griffeys for your PC.
ReplyDeleteThis is awesome, hope you make as much as possible. Your photos look good (better than the original listing)...hopefully someone bites.
ReplyDeleteIt's gotta be hard to sell it all off, but then again, counting off dolla' bills aint such a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteWait, you sold your doubles? This makes no sense to me. Can you explain it again.
ReplyDelete