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I've wondered about the asymmetry of information someone finding a bunch of cards in the garage. Maybe worth a lot, but would cost a lot just to find out. A collector could just bid on bulk cards, but how would they know it's not picked clean of the good ones?

So is the value essentially zero?

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> A collector could just bid on bulk cards, but how would they know it's not picked clean of the good ones?

Lots of trust. A good collector will glance through it and determine if it's something they want to take on. Those bulk sets are usually sold cheap enough that it's worth the risk.

I've sold a few sets and made clear each time that I'd an eBay seller and glanced through them but didn't have time to really dig in.

If you're just blinding buying lots online though you're gonna get screwed.

To describe a microcosm of this line of thinking, let’s take Pokémon cards. Packs containing a (foil/holo) card weigh more. A sealed box of packs is theoretically a gold mine. But how do you establish that the presealed box wasn’t raided and resealed? A whole system of trusty discoverers and buyers play hand in hand.

Individual packs will always be looked at with doubt, since they’ve probably been weighed and sorted.

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