Knife buyers, collection dispersal

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OlMrJD

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This is long, but I know this is the place with the knowledge and experience.
It's time to disperse most of my collection, and I'm looking for advice on my options.
I have somewhere between 75 and 100 "good" knives, maybe more benchmade, spyderco and customs.
I know this is a great place, but I'm not too excited about the work it takes to deal with shipping, photos, etc. Similarly with ebay.
Accurate pricing is more important on non auction sales too.

I've learned 1099s will have a lower threshold than previous years. That could be a factor with PayPal.
I'm retired, and selling individually seems like another job.
I've looked at consignment sites. Turning over all the work to someone else is appealing and likely worth somewhere near the commission.
Downside there is waiting for the money.

Are there good "We'll buy your collection and send you a check" buyers?

My guess is their offers could be a lower than a consignment less fees, but even small groups of similar type and kind seems better than single transactions.

As you can see, I have lots of questions. Don't feel like you have to address all of them for your info to be useful.

I am keenly aware of what I learned in the cow business.
"If you want the middle man's money, you have to do the middle man's work".
I'm not willing to do ALL that work, but I don't want to give up any more money than I need to.

Thanks for your time
 
I’m sorry but your best chance is probably to sell them singularly. I personally wouldn’t spend a whole lot of money on a collection of items picked by somebody else, let alone of used items. Sell them singularly, at least that’s what I did. It’s really not that big of a deal, it’s just a whole lot of taking pictures of your knives, but that’s really the main bulk of the work, if you post them at reasonable prices, on multiple websites, people will buy them.
 
There are several online sites that buy knife collections (one-time payment, not consignment sellers). But you're going to take a loss. I saw one that flat-out says if you want full value that you need to sell them yourself.

As far as which sites are "good", that might require further investigation on your part. You have nothing to lose by contacting them and asking how they do things. One I was looking at, just out of curiosity, says that they don't report to the IRS (no 1099), and in some cases they will make an offer based off of photos, as opposed to the owner having to ship the knives to them for appraisal.

I found such sites by doing a Google search for "we buy knife collections".
 
You can sell one at at time at your pace and specify PPFF, Zelle, etc. to make sure there's at least no automatic 1099 form that will be triggered by the payments you collect. Many of the consignment sellers will also pay you with a paper check so there won't be a tax record there. I've sold quite a few with Arizona Custom Knives, I believe they take 25% off the top and generally are working at the higher end of stuff (your Benchmades and Spydercos would be okay likely but nothing below those in value). As you correctly mentioned it will take some time before you see that money since they need to sell the knife first. I personally have no experience with a seller that would outright buy your collection, but I have to assume you'd take a pretty huge hit there.

You can take a mixed approach, maybe send a batch off for consignment for longer term money, and sell one at a time here for shorter term payout. It's a super friendly forum you've found here, so as long as the prices you ask are reasonable, you provide honest descriptions and good quality photos, and you're willing to negotiate in some cases, you'll have no troubles here. The shipping gets a lot easier with experience, it's really not much work at all, maybe 5 minutes packing up a knife and printing a label (do all that at home yourself, cheaper and easier), and off it goes!
 
I have similar number - about 70-80 knives - and started taking photos and posting 5 knives at a time in eBay this week. managed to sell 2 Bokers in 2 days.

I know if i continue posting 5 knives every fews day and price them well, i will get most of the money back in few weeks or months.
it was one of 2023 goals :)
hope this is helpful.
 
Nordic Knives is a good one for the customs and they will buy a whole collection. That could leave you with selling the other half on here, guys love the production knives and they seem to sell fast when priced right.
 
Take the time and do it singly, and on Ebay or through the forums. It will be work, but by the time you use any of the good consignment dealers, you're going to be down 30-50% on the "book" value of the knives.

Listing 2-3 a week isn't that hard, and you'd probably clear them out by the end of the year if you started soon.
 
Thanks!
Good advice.
Especially just a few a week.
I'm sure it'll be easier as it goes along.
It's really daunting to look at them spread out on the table, already spilling out of the 3 fourteen by twelve plastic storage containers I just got.
"How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."

It took over 20 years to accumulate them, but the buying has been easy.
 
Even if you could find someone to buy them all, you'd get maybe 50% of what you think they are worth. And by going through them all and figuring out condition and value and taking photos, you will have done half the work already.

You could try listing them at a good bundle price here, in bundles of 5 or more; some people sometimes have success with that.

But your best bet is to post up say 10 at a time, once per week, with at least 2 group photos (showing one side open and the other side closed) with individual prices and good accurate descriptions of condition and centering and lockup of each. You may need to sell some cheaper ones first to build a reputation before people will spring for pricier knives from a new seller.
 
Why not try selling them here, one at a time?

Buy the Gold Membership and pick 5 knives to post, one per week. You might find you enjoy it. There’s some gratification in buying/selling knives from one Knife Knut to the next. Almost like finding them a new home ;)

If you hate it you’re out $30, which is probably going to be made up in the netback from the knives you actually sell.

Some sellers will request a USPS money order which is fully anonymous and old skool. You probably can’t do that right off the bat as you have no forum feedback.

Good luck.
 
Hackenslash said:
Why not try selling them here, one at a time?

Buy the Gold Membership and pick 5 knives to post, one per week. You might find you enjoy it. There’s some gratification in buying/selling knives from one Knife Knut to the next. Almost like finding them a new home ;)

If you hate it you’re out $30, which is probably going to be made up in the netback from the knives you actually sell.

Some sellers will request a USPS money order which is fully anonymous and old skool. You probably can’t do that right off the bat as you have no forum feedback.

Good luck.
Click to expand...
In this day and age..... Ive wondered just how "anonymous" the USPS money order Really is?
I don't think I used one yet, but I'm curious
 
Crag the Brewer said:
In this day and age..... Ive wondered just how "anonymous" the USPS money order Really is?
I don't think I used one yet, but I'm curious
Click to expand...
I'm sure that things have changed in the interim, but back when I still conducted criminal investigations as a fed, information was not freely shared (without cause) between agencies, and oftentimes, not without underlying paperwork.

There's no way in hell that I'm going to lose sleep over whether the USPS is sharing information with duly authorized law enforcement or appropriate authority over my piddling money orders.

Hey, I hate overreach at least as much as most, and probably a lot more...but c'mon. At a certain point, the time expended on nothing burgers cannot be justified. (That said, "Crag" I'm making a phone call tonight. 🤣 )
 
Crag the Brewer said:
Ive wondered just how "anonymous" the USPS money order Really is?
Click to expand...

Slightly off-topic, but in terms of data collection, the USPS photographs all first class mail (source). A decade ago, that data took effort to actually use (as Blues alludes to). I don't know if they put in the work to do this, but today it would be fairly routine to build a system to OCR the from/to and build a network map ("friends list") of the nation's physical correspondence. If that hasn't been built yet, it is only getting cheaper to do so.

As far as money orders, I don't know what they do. But my assumption is any financial instrument more exotic than cash that could be used to launder money or by drugs is at least theoretically traceable.
 
snuffle said:
Slightly off-topic, but in terms of data collection, the USPS photographs all first class mail (source). A decade ago, that data took effort to actually use (as Blues alludes to). I don't know if they put in the work to do this, but today it would be fairly routine to build a system to OCR the from/to and build a network map ("friends list") of the nation's physical correspondence. If that hasn't been built yet, it is only getting cheaper to do so.

As far as money orders, I don't know what they do. But my assumption is any financial instrument more exotic than cash that could be used to launder money or by drugs is at least theoretically traceable.
Click to expand...
I am somewhat of a subject matter expert on money laundering and associated activity, whether narcotics or weapons, or the trade in arms at the international level.

If you think that your money order for a Chris Reeve "Sebenza" is going to land you in the jackpot, well...fine. But I can tell you from firsthand experience that there is only so much manpower available...and there are many factors that go into accepting a matter for further investigation, let alone prosecution.

I've been at this game for a long time...and have dealt with members of the knife industry, custom as well as production, on where they stand with the law and gov't, more than once. Even got a bruise or two along the way...but that's a separate issue.

My advice...don't worry. It's not worth the aggravation.
 
Blues said:
f you think that your money order for a Chris Reeve "Sebenza" is going to land you in the jackpot
Click to expand...

Oh, to be clear, I'm personally not worried in the least, for multiple reasons. I'm a bit of a subject matter expert on building large systems to collate and correlate information like that. So thinking about how and what other folks do with huge piles of data is a bit of an occupational hazard for me.
 
snuffle said:
Oh, to be clear, I'm personally not worried in the least, for multiple reasons. I'm a bit of a subject matter expert on building large systems to collate and correlate information like that. So thinking about how and what other folks do with huge piles of data is a bit of an occupational hazard for me.
Click to expand...
Understood. I'll leave it at that. Suffice it to say that I've conducted these sorts of investigations in the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Britain...and have had an investigation showcased on "60 Minutes".

Knife purchases / transactions are not moving the needle, PayPal and 1099's notwithstanding.

'Nuff said.
 
Don't remember exactly which transaction it was, but I bought a usps money order for a purchase, finished filling it out.
(If you aren't familiar with them "Pay to" and and signature are blank) and sent photo of it to the seller.

I have to laugh at the folks who complain about gold membership cost.

You make that back on $120 of sales, compared to the 25% consignment commission of the outfit I'm looking at.

I know y'all know that. Just a small rant.
 
Apologies in advance if this has been mentioned, this is one of those threads where I want to respond to help the OP, but not particularly interested in other responses...

Of course your highest return is going to come from individually selling, but that's a lot of work especially because you are going to get a lot of trade offers regardless of what you say to the contrary, a lot of window shoppers that want to see pics, and a lot of lowball offers by people looking to flip for a profit.

The largest consignment sites are going to take about 1/3rd after all is done, but you don't have to worry about taking the photos. You also can't sell anything that's worth under about $200.
The consignment sellers on social media take a bit less of a bite, but they are selling mostly at shows and through social media. I don't know the rules about sharing their info, but I found a few that had dozens of references and if it's kosher to pass along their info in a PM, I will pass it along.

I think your best bet is here to be honest, list them in lots of 10 by maker or however it makes sense to you. This is the only place (along with a few other forums) that I would trust a FF PayPal, and not worry about "imperial entanglements" with the tax man
 
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