Sports Card and Memorabilia Stores – There are various stores throughout New Jersey that are dedicated to buying, selling, and trading sports cards and other memorabilia. Some of the largest and most reliable chains include Sports Cards Plus, Sport Cards Direct, and Mile High Card Company. These stores employ card experts who can properly evaluate collections and provide fair cash offers or help facilitate trades. They have the largest customer base of potential buyers looking for cards. Most major stores will buy collections of a few thousand cards or more to then resell.
Card Shows and Conventions – Periodically throughout the year, especially on weekends, various card shows and conventions are held at venues like hotel banquet halls and convention centers across NJ. These events bring together hundreds of dealers, collectors, and vendors all focused around sports cards and memorabilia. It’s a great opportunity to display your collection and try to make individual sales to many interested buyers in one location. Shows in areas like Edison, Cherry Hill, and Atlantic City tend to get the biggest turnouts.
Online Auction Sites – Websites like eBay and Amazon provide the ability to sell cards individually or in lots to a worldwide buyer base. Taking high quality photos and providing detailed descriptions will help items sell for the best prices. The major downside is auction sites take a relatively large commission percentage of final sale prices. Shipping and handling also introduces added costs versus local in-person sales.
Facebook Groups and Forums – Dozens of Facebook groups exist catering to collectors within New Jersey and its surrounding regions. These communities have thousands of members always actively buying and selling. Administrators of the largest groups will sometimes help facilitate larger collection trades or sales. Similar sports card trading forum websites online also give access to interested buyers.
Local Card Shops – Small independently owned shops devoted purely to cards can still be found scattered throughout NJ. While they may not have the customer volume of big chains, the owners usually have decades of experience evaluating collections. They maintain close relationships with regional collectors who frequent their stores regularly.
Online Classifieds – Sites such as craigslist.org and OfferUp allow posting photos and details of complete collections or teams being sold locally to attract buyers in the immediate area. Communication is all electronic, so it’s best to only consider meeting potential buyers in a public space. The audience is smaller than national websites.
Auction Houses – For truly valuable rare collections with graded vintage stars worth thousands or more, working with a licensed auction house could make sense. They have the best channels for reaching serious card investors but will also demand much larger consignment percentages of final sales prices.
Ultimately, the safest and most direct way to sell cards in NJ is through established local stores that have experience vetting customers and facilitating transactions securely. Larger collections over 10,000 cards would benefit most from the traffic of card shows, while individual items under $50 may find the fastest buyers through local online classifieds postings. Proper research into recent estimated market values is critical before accepting any offers. With diligence, collectors have many great options available within New Jersey to sell their sports card collections.
