The Estate Sale Simulator
You just inherited a collection. A dusty box. 15 cards, some junk, some gems. The estate has to settle. How do you liquidate — quick-sell to a dealer, list online, consign to Heritage? Every path has a trade-off. Get your Executor Grade.
Frequently Asked Questions
▶What is the Estate Sale Simulator?
A decision-flow simulator for what actually happens when you inherit a card collection. You receive 15 cards discovered in a late collector's basement. For each card, you pick one of four liquidation paths: Quick Sell to a dealer (cash today, ~50% of fair market value), List Online on eBay/COMC (70-85% FMV but 6-8 weeks and fees), Consign to a major auction house (85-95% FMV but 12-16 weeks and premium), or Keep. At the end you see your total recovered, time-weighted yield, and Executor Grade A-F.
▶Why are the quick-sale percentages so low?
They match reality. A local card shop dealer has to flip the card, pay grading fees, wait for it to sell, and absorb risk. They typically offer 40-55% of fair market value on a raw card. An auction house gets near-retail but takes 20% buyer premium + 12% seller fee and takes months to pay out. Online self-selling gets 70-85% but takes weeks and costs 13%+ in eBay/PayPal fees. The simulator models these real trade-offs — speed vs recovery.
▶Is the Executor Grade based on max cash only?
No. The grade is a composite: 60% recovery rate (cash as % of FMV), 30% time-to-cash (faster is better when estate must settle), 10% judgment (did you consign the right cards vs quick-sell the right cards — auction houses maximize return on high-value unique pieces, quick sale is fine for commons). An executor who dumped everything quickly gets a C. One who consigned the grails and quick-sold the bulk gets an A.
▶Are the cards real?
Yes. Cards are drawn from CardVault's 9,800+ sports card database — real cards, real estimated FMV ranges. The collection is seeded by a date + random seed so the same set of 15 cards appears across replays if you use the same seed (useful for retrying strategy).
▶Why include "Keep" as an option?
Because in real estates, not every card should be sold. Sentimental cards (birth-year rookies, hometown-team cards) and aspirational grails (the Wagner, the Jordan Fleer) are often kept by heirs who become collectors themselves. The simulator rewards keeping cards that fit a coherent personal collection — though every kept card is $0 in the cash total, so there is a real trade-off. Many collectors get their start this way.
See also: Consignment Simulator, Pawn Shop, Liquidation Tool, Loan Office, Bulk Sale, Flip Calculator.