How to Sell a Large Collection (need your advice, please)

[SassyGirl18]

Hi Everyone, 

I am new here and am hoping to find some guidance.  My dad was really into classic toy trains - mostly Lionel.  He passed away a few years ago and my elderly mom has put me in charge of liquidating his collection as she is downsizing and moving in with my brother and no longer can keep them (and none of her kids has room for the collection either).  I hired a knowledgable "train guy" to go through the collection with me and inventory everything and I've created a spreadsheet.  I've also photographed most of the items and put the photos into a google drive dedicated to the collection.  There are about 350 items in his collection which consists of a good deal of Lionel standard gauge as well as O gauge - combination of pre and post war.  He also has a smaller number of non-Lionel items - mostly MTH.  I have researched the values using the Greenberg Guide and Ebay (sold items).  So now I know what we have and roughly what the value is. 

My question to you is:  if you were in my shoes, how would you go about selling the collection?  I definitely DON'T want to sell piecemeal on Ebay or anything that will require an extraordinary amount of time/work (I've already spent about 50 hours on this project as you can imagine!)

The "train guy" said that if he were me, he would give the collection to an auction house to sell, but my understanding is that you can't set a reserve, so we could potentially end up giving the collection away.

My thinking is that the most sensible option would be to contact local train dealers and send them the inventory list and access to the google drive (photos) and ask them to make an offer if they are interested, compare offers and choose the best one.  What do you think?  Do you think this is the way to go or are do you have other suggestions that you think would be better?  Obviously, my primary objective is to get the most money for my mom so she can live out the remainder of her life benefitting from my dad's investment in the trains.

Also, if you know of any reputable dealers or train buyers who like to buy entire collections, please let me know.  

Appreciate any help you can provide!  Thanks!

[Steven Otte]

A reminder to Forum members: Advice is welcome, but buying and selling items via the Forums is prohibited. 

[pennytrains]

Contact one of the buyers that advertise in Classic Toy Trains.  The 4 most prominent are Scott Griggs of Trainz.com, Atlanta, Georgia, Charles P Siegel of Choo Choo Auctions, Cape Canaveral, Florida, TandKHobby.com of Bridgeport, Ohio, and Texas Trains (txtrains.com).

There are of course many more buyers out there interested in buying large lots, but I would recommend contacting one of these 4 first.  Some will travel if warranted but just about everybody is going to want a full inventory.  Or at least the highlights of the collection in order to get the conversation going.

aboard!

[El Fixes Things]

One thing I will advise, which is prefaced in my old Greenberg guide, is that if you go the route of selling the whole collection to someone who plans to resell it (like the people Becky has mentioned), you will not be able to get the prices shown in the guidebooks you've referred to- these people need to turn a profit, and that means that if an engine is worth, for example, $250, the seller may only be able to give you a maximum of $175 for it to be worth their while to re-sell it, possibly more or less depending on the profit margin they're trying to meet.

If you want to maximize profit, then selling to someone who's business is re-selling trains isn't going to be the answer. That said, in exchange, you vastly simplify the process, since everything is taken care of in one sale. It's a tradeoff, so think carefully about it and understand that you will have to make compromises. Selling a big train collection is a big job, in order for someone to do that hard work for you, it has to be worth their while. In return, it's less hassle turning your trains into cash.

-Ellie

[Dave45681]

pennytrains

.........Charles P Siegel of Choo Choo Auctions, Cape Canaveral, Florida......

According to an announcement from the end of last year, it seems this business has closed due to the owner's retirement:

https://www.trains.com/ctt/news-reviews/news/train-city-inc-closing-its-doors/

As to the general question, it is of course a compromise whichever path you pursue.

Selling piece by piece yourself, of course (assuming there is public interest in each item, which there may not be for some items) will most likely bring you the most money, but it will take forever, and there is a risk some items may not sell at all, depending on condition, etc (while you mention photographing items, you don't really say what condition the trains were in...  as an example "oh, it only has 2 or 3 places where the rust went all the way through the metal" does not equate with condition most people would be interested in today.  Hopefully the train guy helped you when organizing to understand conditions somewhat).  You certainly don't want to do this if you'd like to be done with this project in a reasonable amount of time.

Anyone giving you money for the whole collection will result in it all gone in one action with nothing more to worry about, but you will probably get much less money for it.  While they may make a good profit on some of your items, they also may end up having some of them stuck in their inventory for quite some time for any which end up with little or no public interest.  You are effectively paying (by taking their offer that may be quite a bit lower that what could potentially be realized with individual sales) for their risk in exchange for them buying it all as a collection.

As mentioned above, the guides are not realistic in terms of what you can expect to recover when selling a collection these days.  The ebay sold listings are probably more realistic, but you've already said you are not interested in doing that due to the time/effort involved.  Assuming half of what you might see even in sold ebay listings if trying to sell as a single collection is probably overly optimistic.

You say your mom wants to sell the house and move in with your brother.  Assuming she wants to do this in the near term, you are not realistically going to be able to do this in a timely manner without selling in bulk to a dealer or going the auction house route.

You mention "local train dealers", but that you are new to this world (but did already hire the local train guy to help you for the cataloging you've already done).  Do you know for sure that there are even multiple local train dealers where you are located?  Many train stores have closed over the years.  If you do really have multiple local dealers, you should probably take your list/photos to one or two and see what their level of interest is.

As to the auction houses, I dont want to list other names, since I don't know if they are CTT advertisers or not, but there are a few others not mentioned above.  A big part of that equation is where you are located vs where each auction house is.  If one happens to be truly local (within maybe a partial day's drive), you may be able to do best at that route if you can bring the collection yourself (sounds like it would fit in a small rental van) to one of them.  While most of them will pick up, they will probably also charge you a different percentage of the final selling price of your lot if they have to send out people with a truck to your location to pick the train up.

If you do consider the auction houses, most would agree that you should go with one that runs it's auctions on-line (or a combination of on-line and in-person).  In addition to ebay, you can try to see what similar items sell for at these on-line auctions, just don't forget to apply a reduction for some percentage that the auction house will charge you for the sale.  (which now that I think about it, you also should be accounting for when you review ebay sold listings, since as a seller you would be paying ebay fees on both the auction's sale price and also for the shipping charged to the buyer)

Unfortunately there is no magic answer that results in the most money, in the least amount of time, also with relatively low investment of your own effort and time to prepare for an attempt to sell.

As painful as it is to think if "giving the collection away", any alternatives can easily more quickly eat away at whatever money you are trying to get out of the colleciton (from paying for storage, delaying selling of the home, etc).

It's unfortunate, but the "investment" many people thought they were making in trains is less than so, as the demand has seriously decreased from what it was 20-30-40 years ago.

The last unfortunate and sad part is that the market has lots of product from the glorious pre and post war train days right now due to the natural cycle of life.  There are far more trains coming available than new people deciding they must have these older trains. 

It is true that if you have these older trains in absolutely PERFECT (known as Mint/Like New) condition, there are still some serious buyers with both deep pockets and interest.  Particularly if there are decent condition boxes to go with them (that's one aspect f the collection you didn't specify).  Far fewer boxes survived from the pre and post war years than the comparatively rugged trains themselves.

 

[Flintlock76]

Can you tell us what part of the country you live in?  It might help us to steer you in the right and easiest direction for disposing of the collection. 

[BigAl 956]

All  the advice here is good so here is my opinion based on similar experience.

You have done the hard work of inventory and researching value. You now have a 'Book Value Dollar' figure to work with.

The more work you are willing to do at this point will earn you the highest % of BVD.

Selling yourself on eBay or Marketplace, up to 80% BVD. If you can net* 50% you've done well. Lots of fees to take into account so I use the word Net for what you will ultimately get.

Auction House, You will net 30-40% BVD.

Turning it over en-masse to a reseller will net you 10-30%.

Worst alternative is to let a local collector Cherry-Pick a few pieces. This may net you 50-80% BVD for a few items but you will be stuck with the rest.

There are exceptions for extremely rare or near-mint condition postwar items. In my case I opted to go the eBay Marketplace route and it was almost 3 years of effort. Unfortunately lots and lots of collectors passing on leaving their collections for their heirs to deal with. This has created an imbalance of high supply vs demand.

Good luck and best wishes.

[Flintlock76]

BigAl 956

Unfortunately lots and lots of collectors passing on leaving their collections for their heirs to deal with. This has created an imbalance of high supply vs demand.

Al's touched on something I've mentioned in the past and see no harm in bringing up again.  

All of us at some point or another have to realize we're not getting any younger and rather than leave your family with a massive collection to deal with when the inevitable happens why not be realistic and unload most of it yourself now?  Sure, keep a few pieces and a small layout to have fun with and remember the good times.  But remember, you can't take it with you when the curtain finally comes down.  

I've seen massive collections on YouTube videos and have visited a few myself and let me tell you, I pity the collector's families when the Reaper comes for the owner.  Personally I wouldn't WANT to own that much stuff!  

As the song says:

"You bring nothin' with you and you can't take nothin' back, I ain't never seen a hearse with a luggage rack!"

[BigAl 956]

Flintlock76

"You bring nothin' with you and you can't take nothin' back, I ain't never seen a hearse with a luggage rack!"

Well said. 

[Flintlock76]

Thanks Al!

I wonder what's happened to the original poster?  We haven't heard a thing back. 

[Rene Schweitzer]

Perhaps this article will help: https://www.trains.com/ctt/how-to/how-to-sell-toy-trains/