Huge Sticker Album Collection - Best way to sell?

[RicherSwan]

Hi, I hope people don't mind me asking this question. I'm struggling to find examples of people selling a whole collection, rather than individual albums.

I know this forum is mainly about football, and my football collection is very big - but I also have hundreds of non-sport sticker albums too. Basically anything that's been for sale in the UK shops. Over the years I've collected them all, at least it feels like! I have around 400 albums in total across the board - all complete [it's a rule], mostly in good condition as they've been well stored in plastic sleeves, hard card backing and in airtight plastic boxes. Lots but not all have at least one sealed packet of stickers with them.

I wouldn't say my love is dwindling, I still love them and have collected up until this day with UCL 2021/22, Premier League 2022, and others such as Marvel Versus and Encanto sticker books.

But, it is now reaching the point I may prefer to sell them on and stop the addiction. If I were to sell them, I wouldn't want to do it individually. I will be honest that the main driver for that is it would be very very time-consuming! Although also, I rather like the idea of selling the entire lot to somebody who wanted to house the collection themselves, and perhaps continue where I've left off...

If selling individually, many I am sure would go for not much money or I'd struggle to sell, whereas others would demand high prices and be snapped up.

Is there a market for this sort of thing, an auction house anywhere, where I could sell the collection as a job lot knowing they would be going to a good home? Or is it just a case of photograph and value everything individually and list on eBay and drip-feed it off that way? If the latter, I think the decision would be to keep it and either just stop collecting at this point, or wake up tomorrow and decide to keep going

 

[dantzig]

Well, I think you basically narrowed the best ways to sell all of that... pretty sure there are some evaluators there in UK for everything you have, but of course it'll take time and probably expensive to do so... still, I'll tag @LeicesterRob as he may know something.

I would still take some time off to, at least, assess what you're really willing to sell first... unless you're desperate for some quick bucks, which the best way should be to place ebay auctions with a low initial value (and it doesn't seem you're like that), then split the albums into sales phases... what should go first, then if those sells, another batch and so on... let's say you prefer to keep more the football albums and sell first those from animation or movies themes, therefore saving time by not checking football albums... and you also prefer to sell the loose sets (if you have it) than complete albums with stickers inside... you get the idea, right? This way I'd say it's far less time consuming and straight to the point.

 

[LeicesterRob]

Hi @RicherSwan and @dantzig apologies for my late reply as I've been out of the sticker loop for a week but back in it again now.

Oh gosh it's tricky to advise best route for an individual, but easy to say what I think will happen

I've seen a lot of jobbers willing to buy full collections but at a low cost as they do it to sell on.

I sell spares as it frees up space and I really don't need multiple stickers of the same one anymore. I've seen the UK market rocket this past year with sealed packets going for £50+ from the mid 80s

What I'm not seeing is non-UK stuff do very well at all here and if you do have something outside of internationals and UK you're best to list at a higher price in an auction first or it might only go for the first price you set.

Anything 80s and even Merlin's/Topps pL is getting a premium now, you'll sell no problem at all. As Topps missing sticker service is a little light on missing stickers, people are filling their recent albums still and any loose stickers you have may well sell for a good price.

If it's time to end a hobby I'd say now is best time to get good prices as I think the bubble will deflate over time.

I think there are auction houses but you'll not get enough collectors that will raise the price enough so I'd say eBay is really the best place to get in front of 1000s of people.

A good listing over 7-10 days will see a few hundred views and some of my spares I've been selling get 20+ watchers and multiple bids

Hope this helps a bit and I can answer more questions of course!