curtisports2
The companies that sold these items are successful marketers in product. They have created an image in the minds of buyers that their 'limited edition' collectibles will be worth a lot of money some day, when the reality is that 99% of it will bring pennies on the dollar in the secondary market. That 1% of items that for some reason had the right mix of desirability and scarcity to the aftermarket collector is by far the exception. I learned this myself, the hard way. My parents were antique dealers, and they learned their trade well, over years of study and buying and selling. But they were only moderately successful, because they started out as collectors, and even as they became more learned and experienced, they still tended to buy things that they liked that were not antiques, hoping - not knowing, not having any proven track record - that the stuff would actually grow in value. One such thing they bought was Bradford Exchange collector plates. And they bought a lot of them. They were doing this in the 1970s, right when I was getting started, got married, bought a house, and had a little discretionary income. They convinced me that the plates were a good investment, because they had seen the value of their 'Gone With the Wind' plates go up substantially. It was true, at the time, those plates had, and a few of them I think are still worth more than what they cost. But those were gone with the wind by the time I got started so I had to find something else. I really liked the Wizard of Oz plates, so I bought each in the series. They cost $20 each in the late '70s, except for the finale, a bigger plate, which cost $28. Today, I can get maybe $100 for the whole set. The rest of what I bought, about 90 more plates, some individual and some sets or near-sets, many of which cost more than $20. I figured out that I put about $3000 into plates between 1978 and 1983. That $3000, adjusted for inflation only, forget about what it would have done in the stock market, is worth close to $8000 today. If I take the time to sell them on eBay, the only place I know of outside of a flea market, I'll be lucky to realize $800. The flea market or other local venue is probably the better place to sell. It just takes longer and requires moving all that stuff around, with the risk of damage. The problem with eBay is the shipping. Usually, complete sets are worth more broken up, the total of the individual pieces is higher tha the set price. This is true with coins, sports cards, and many other sets of collectibles. It may be true with some of the other things you have, and doing the eBay research is a good idea. With plates, though, if you have a set, sell it as a set. The Oz set of 8, at $100, is $12.50 per plate. Even at $85, the lowest set price I saw, that's $10 each. With the buyer paying shipping. Well, the individual plates were selling for far less than that, because of the high shipping cost per individual plate. So if you've got that individual piece that you can sell locally for $10, because it is worth $10, no one is going to pay $10 online and have to pay another $6-$10 for shipping. They take the shipping off of what they'll pay in total, leaving you with $4. Again, some of what you have may not suffer from this shipping expense issue and you'll do OK with eBay. Especially Franklin Mint silver coins and medals. If you have any of that, you may do very well with it compared to what your parents paid for it. Other Franklin Mint items, like porcelain figurines and plates and cars and such, you will not get close to the original cost, and you may face the same problems with cost of shipping eating into what you can sell for. Finding exactly what you have may take more time. The thing to do is enter the specific keywords for what you have and save those searches, so you're notified when something comes up. Beyond that, I have not found any credible source for determining true value of collector stuff. You can buy the various Franklin Mint guides. I bought one on eBay, from 1981, because it included a majority of the silver items that I track, from the 1960s and '70s. It's useless as far as value, but it's pretty good at giving information on issue size, which you need to determine scarcity. Any searches I've done on Bradford or BRADEX turn up what they're pushing now, nothing on older stuff. You will definitely get more selling by yourself, except for that truly rare item, which needs professional exposure to the right group of buyers. If you don't want to sell by yourself, consult several local auctioneers. See how knowledgeable they are. Judge how interested they seem. My gut feeling is that most of them won't see Bradford Exchange as anything more than items to be sold by the lot. Best of luck with it.