Most people meet their first card buyer with no way to tell a fair offer from a bad one, so they judge it on how confident the buyer sounds. That is exactly what a bad offer is optimised for. Here is what is actually happening on the other side of the table.

What a buyer is pricing

A buyer is not paying you what your cards are worth. A buyer is paying you a number that leaves room for everything between today and the day the cards are gone:

• What the cards actually sell for — recent sold prices, not asking prices, and not a price guide.
• Marketplace and payment fees taken off every single sale.
• Shipping and supplies on however many separate sales it takes.
• The hours. Identifying, photographing, listing, packing, answering messages. On a large collection this is weeks of real work.
• The risk. Some cards won't sell, some sell for less than expected, some come back as returns, and the money is tied up the whole time.

That is the honest structure of every offer you will ever get for a collection. A buyer who pretends otherwise is managing you.

Why it isn't a percentage of a price guide

There is no single percentage, and anyone quoting one is guessing. The mix is what moves the number, not a formula:

• A few high-value, easily-sold cards carry very little overhead per dollar.
• Thousands of common cards carry enormous overhead per dollar — the work is the same as the good cards, and the return isn't.
• Graded cards are quick to price and quick to sell, so they price close to their market.
• Sealed product is its own market and is usually the strongest part of a collection.

The five questions to ask any buyer

1. 1"Can you show me the sold comps you used?" A fair buyer has them open already. *Good answer:* they show you actual completed sales. *Bad answer:* "I've been doing this twenty years."
2. 2"What in here is driving the number?" They should be able to name the specific cards. If they can't tell you what's good in your own collection, they haven't priced it — they've estimated it.
3. 3"What did you value the bulk at, separately?" Bulk and hits should be two numbers, not one wave of the hand.
4. 4"Is there anything here I'd do better selling myself?" The answer is sometimes yes, and a buyer willing to say so is the one to deal with.
5. 5"Is this number good if I think about it for a day?" An offer that expires in ten minutes is a pressure tactic, not an offer.

Red flags

The renegotiate-at-the-meet move is the most common one, and it works because you have already driven there and mentally sold the cards. Decide before you go what your walk-away number is. Then leaving is easy.

How to get the best number

1. 1Send a lot of photos. Binder pages laid flat, every box, and a clear shot of every graded card's label. Five minutes of photos gets you a far better number than a paragraph of description.
2. 2Don't sort, clean or reorganise anything. It damages cards and it doesn't raise offers.
3. 3Say what you have, including the boring parts. Undisclosed bulk discovered at the meet is where offers get revised downward legitimately.
4. 4Get a second offer on anything significant.
5. 5Know your walk-away number before you meet anyone.

How we do it

You send photos, we price it against recent sold comps and show you those comps on anything significant, then we meet somewhere public in the Tampa Bay area — or come to you for larger collections — go through it together, and you get cash the same visit. No consignment, no waiting on someone else's sale. And if something in your collection would do better sold elsewhere, we say so.