Selling 'old' Starting Lineups??

[earlywynnfan]

Turning the experts here...

I'm going to look at a collection in a few weeks, and one thing the seller has is a huge collection of Starting Lineups. I guess her husband bought them from the day they started, and never opened any.

My Q is: what would be the best way for her to sell these? I haven't even looked on ebay. Are they valuable, or did they go the Beanie Baby route? Does any auction house in particular seem to get good prices fore these?

Thanks, Ken

[abstractheory]

Re: Selling 'old' Starting Lineups??

Unfortunately, McFarlane kind of stomped out their value pretty quickly. I'm sure some might fetch some money, but I couldn't tell you which ones.

I would throw the lot on craiglist so she wouldn't have to ship. Never know....Could be worth millions!!

Matt

[commando]

Re: Selling 'old' Starting Lineups??

Ebay is a pretty good, current price guide. Some of the shortprinted 1988 figures go for decent money.... Most have declined in price the past 15 years, because like abstracttheory said, the demand for them is pretty low these days. I collect oddball regional and police sets from the same time period, and the same rule applies for them too -- I'm buying these cards for a fraction of what they sold for fifteen years ago.

[beaglegypsy003]

Re: Selling 'old' Starting Lineups??

My friend owns a card shop and the Starting Lineups he does have are heavily discounted and he still has a hard time selling them. There still might be a market for some of the rarer pieces. Like an earlier post said, McFarlane's killed the market. The McFarlane's have better detail and many people, including myself, buy them to customize their own pieces.

[mdube16]

Re: Selling 'old' Starting Lineups??

yes they are primarily worthless outside of some 1988 basketball and foodball regional pieces. You would be luck to get $1 for most

[Samets]

Re: Selling 'old' Starting Lineups??

I'd be interested to get the Chicago Bears pieces for more than the $1 quoted above...

[akrover]

Re: Selling 'old' Starting Lineups??

I remember from my junior/high school self in my beckett/tough stuff subscription days that the 88 Utah Jazz guys were the most valuable. Eaton used to sell around $400 I think. The Jordan/Bird 1 on 1 also used to sell for a bit too.

[commando]

Re: Selling 'old' Starting Lineups??

Tuff Stuff's SLU columnist was Jeff Clow, who wrote for the magazine from 1990 until 1996. Here's a page that has everything he wrote, if anyone wants to read some of the SLU news back in the day. I have many Tuff Stuff magazines in my reference library, and I always enjoy flipping to Clow's column.

http://www.slu.net/cgi-local/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000025;p=1#000002

[mdube16]

Re: Selling 'old' Starting Lineups??

Here is a message board for them.

http://www.slu.net/cgi-local/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi

[gingi79]

Re: Selling 'old' Starting Lineups??

I remember buying the Mantle (my grandfathers favorite player) and Dimaggio (My father's favorite player) Cooperstown two pack. I would love to find a carded version.

[CPuente57]

Re: Selling 'old' Starting Lineups??

Yeah, SLU's were a hobby of mine when I was kid. I got out before the crash, just started recently picking up some off EBay because they're really cheap. What kills the market on Ebay is the shipping costs. Most SLU's sit there because even if they start out at .99 people charge $5 or more shipping doesn't make it worth going after value wise. There are exceptions to the rule of course as many pointed out, older SLU's, some First Pieces also command decent prices, but for the most part you can get them pretty cheap. For example, I just bought a 96 Cal Ripken piece for $2.50 with free shipping. Seller probably lost money on that transaction just on shipping alone. I've been recently buying pieces I never owned as it brings back so many memories and it doesn't hurt that it doesn't really break the bank!

[trsent]

Re: Selling 'old' Starting Lineups??

Last collection of SLU's I bought as part of a larger deal about six years ago I ended up bundling them into lots of 12-20 and still not fetching more than a couple bucks each for them.

Except for a few exceptions, I compare them to comic books. They are not worth the time or the money as all the work involved in flipping them is not often profitable.