Need some advice...

[Nollster]

My best friend past away suddenly back in November. While not officially a WRXer, he was definitely one at heart. He was a collector of many things, not the least of which was golf equipment. His daughter is working on settling his estate, which will include liquidating his golf collection. What's the best way to try to assign a value to used clubs? I've been looking at a lot of the trade in sites, but those values are very low and his stuff is in really good condition. He was obsessive about it. I don't know that Ebay is the best place since you lose so much in fees. I don't think she's looking to maximize profit as she really just wants it gone. Unfortunately, I just don't know how this process works.

[Bogeyman_MD]

Sorry about your friend. I’m pretty sure the PGA lists used club value and they’re like the KBB of golf clubs.

 

Also go to a site like 2nd Swing and just search the inventory for the clubs in question and see what they are selling them for.

 

Edited January 9, 2024 by Mike412

[Nard_S]

Completes/sold listing on eBay is a solid barometer of what people will pay. Fees are on seller end so then deduct that too. 

[jimb6golf]

Check the PGA Value Guide for club costs. It's the best reference for determining used club costs.

[jda]

Actual sold prices on eBay - check "completed items" on advanced search.  Pay attention to condition, grips, etc.  Most modifications other than regrip can lower prices, not raise them.

 

I have sold many sets of older blades and some putters.  They will sell on eBay for MUCH more than what value guide said.  Had 2-PW of Titleist 681 and PGA told me like $80 and I got almost $900 on eBay.

 

Of course, if he has any old carbon steel Cameron putters, then you PM me first.  🙂

 

eBay charges 12-13%, so if you sell locally, you can deduct that if you want.

 

As an example, I attached the first bit of actual sold items for Mizuno mp33 irons from eBay in the 300-500 range.  PGA value guide said like $57 for 3-PW.

 

Edited January 9, 2024 by jda

[EdY]

If u have a local Play it Again shop nearby, they may do a consignment deal. Worth a shot. Step 1, inventory list and pics. 

[EdY]

Whether eBay, Facebook marketplace, or Play it again, if you get help selling it, they want some cut. Craigslist is the exception but you are doing the catalogue, pics, delivery or pick up, and collecting cash. 
 

You could post it all here, set a price at 75% of retail OBO and see what u get.  After that, list the rest on eBay as a no reserve auction and whittle that down and if it doesn’t sell, donate what’s left at whatever value u claim to offset the tax bill. Or donate all of it at whatever value you set to offset the tax bill. 

[PJE]

It depends upon the contents of the collection.  Most older golf equipment, even in good condition,  is not worth much. Value generally decreases with age but there are exceptions for collector items and cult classics. 

The PGA Tour Value Guide is a good place to start for values.

If the goal is disposing of run of the mill equipment, 2nd Swing is a good option. 2nd Swing trade ins are convenient and straightforward. But, you won't get much money for most stuff. 

Do you know the brands that are in the collection?

 

Edited January 9, 2024 by PJE

[Nollster]

Thanks, all. It is a lot of older stuff, but some newer putters, drivers, hybrids. The PGA value guide was really giving me low numbers, which I assumed were for trade in even though I was clicking on the Check Value button. Using that and Ebay will give me a set of numbers to give her and I can let her choose from there. She doesn't live in the area, so I'm trying to help her out as much as I can between trips.

[TwistedSister]

1 hour ago, jimb6golf said:

Check the PGA Value Guide for club costs. It's the best reference for determining used club costs.

CAn you please show me how to get retail value on the Valueguide? All I see is wholesale value.

[Pudgelewis]

1 hour ago, Nollster said:

Thanks, all. It is a lot of older stuff, but some newer putters, drivers, hybrids. The PGA value guide was really giving me low numbers, which I assumed were for trade in even though I was clicking on the Check Value button. Using that and Ebay will give me a set of numbers to give her and I can let her choose from there. She doesn't live in the area, so I'm trying to help her out as much as I can between trips.

 

Sorry to hear about your buddy.  Good on you for trying to help. I agree the PGA value guide and similar ones don't do justice to the older stuff. Especially if it's still in really good shape. Maybe their valuation for newer stuff is better. I agree using eBay sold listings for comps would be best and then account for other factors such as selling locally, selling to a shop/store, etc. from there.

 

As a little tip, if something is showing sold on eBay using a best offer, you can use websites like 130point. com to search eBay listings and see what the best offer that was accepted was. Might be useful for something unusual that doesn't have a lot of sold listings. Best of luck. 

[PJE]

1 hour ago, Nollster said:

Thanks, all. It is a lot of older stuff, but some newer putters, drivers, hybrids. The PGA value guide was really giving me low numbers, which I assumed were for trade in even though I was clicking on the Check Value button. Using that and Ebay will give me a set of numbers to give her and I can let her choose from there. She doesn't live in the area, so I'm trying to help her out as much as I can between trips.

PGA Value Guide used to have a feature which included sell yourself values. It looks like they now have partnered with 2nd Swing and deleted that feature in favor of trade in only offers.

2nd Swing usually sells for double what they paid for the clubs.  They will sell current or newer stuff for close to full retail, maybe 10% off.

But you can look to see the clubs 2nd Swing is  selling to get an idea of what you could sell clubs yourself or check E Bay.  E Bay is probably  a better  way  to check for older stuff prices because 2nd Swing makes really low offers to sellers for most older stuff.  I mean ridiculously low offers. But, if  you are clearing out an estate, the advantage to 2nd Swing is that it's convenient and fast. 

[PJE]

1 hour ago, TwistedSister said:

CAn you please show me how to get retail value on the Valueguide? All I see is wholesale value.

It looks like they deleted the values other than wholesale. 

[caniac6]

If the values are low, I’d tell her to consider a donation to First Tee.

[TwistedSister]

59 minutes ago, PJE said:

It looks like they deleted the values other than wholesale. 

So basically it is useless!

[dashanks]

Agree with the posters who said sold value on Ebay was a lot better indication than PGA Value Guide.   

[LBB]

Sorry for the loss of your friend.

 

I know ultimately it is up to the family members in charge of the estate, but if it were me that passed and I had a vast collection of quality clubs, I would want the clubs donated to a youth organization or a high school where kids that can't typically afford modern equipment can use them.

 

If we were talking about a collection of Rolex watches, rare whiskey, or antique cars I could understand attempting to sell for fair value.  

 

Generally all my old clubs I give away rather than trying to sell used.  A lot of my friends have kids in their teens which is perfect.  I usually get beer in exchange.

[betarhoalphadelta]

5 hours ago, Nollster said:

Thanks, all. It is a lot of older stuff, but some newer putters, drivers, hybrids. The PGA value guide was really giving me low numbers, which I assumed were for trade in even though I was clicking on the Check Value button. Using that and Ebay will give me a set of numbers to give her and I can let her choose from there. She doesn't live in the area, so I'm trying to help her out as much as I can between trips.

 

I think there's something missing here. If she was just trying to liquidate it, I'd say put it all up on eBay, sell it, and distribute the proceeds equally between the inheritors. 

 

I get the sense that the situation is more that the golf equipment is being handed down to one of the inheritors, and she's trying to assign appropriate values so that there is an equitable split of assets. 

 

I went through a similar thing in 2016. That wasn't due to a death; it was divorce. We had to figure out the various values of household assets to figure out how to split the household items such that we had an equitable split of assets. As it stands, I had a lot of money tied up in grills, expensive homebrewing equipment, golf clubs, etc. Then there was a fair bit of furniture that was starting to get aged and depreciated. So we both walked away; her with the ability to fully furnish a house and me with the ability to make beer, play golf, and grill lots of things 😉 

 

Can you let us know whether this is about a liquidation vs fairly valuing assets for the inheritors? 

[kiwigolf72]

Sorry for your loss.

As with anything for sale, its worth what the next person wants to pay for it.

Really hard when it comes to things that hold sentimental value because although there may be perceived value from memories for the seller, the buyer does not have these memories.

Edited January 10, 2024 by kiwigolf72

[MtlJeff]

2 hours ago, caniac6 said:

If the values are low, I’d tell her to consider a donation to First Tee.

 

I agree with this---if it's truly not about the money, this is a great option. It may make her feel good that her dad's stuff is going towards kids getting into the game he loved. This is what i have mostly done with my clubs the last 4-5 years and it feels nice knowing some kid out there has nice clubs

[DoughBack18]

Sorry about your friend… I’m quite sure that if his daughter were to get you pictures of the items some of the folks on here could at least get you a rough idea of where they’d be. There lots of guys on here who have incredible knowledge of older clubs, and obviously all the gear heads with new stuff. Best of luck and wishing you all well.

[st1800e]

Sorry for your loss.

 

I’ve been through this a few times.   Not sure what vintage the clubs are you’re dealing with are. I have a collection of clubs, including my dads Titleist irons, and a few others, not worth much.  He passed in 2007.  
 

Cleaned out a couple of estates, so much stuff.   At the end of the day it’s all not worth much.   
 

But all that stuff gave someone some pleasure, so it’s served it’s purpose.  
 

Sure you can sell them on eBay , with all the work of taking pictures, putting up a listing, answering questions, packing and shipping, dealing with questions and dissatisfied buyers.  For a few bucks.  
 

I attempted to donate a number of clubs to a charity for reuse , some won’t take anything older than 5 years.  
 

So in the end up I’ve donated a lot of things to goodwill.  I’m just happy that someone will get them and enjoy them.   
 

All the things we acquire in our life , we don’t really own, we just get to use them for a period of time.  
 

 

[Greenie]

If you are trying to place a value on something I would look at Ebay completed sold listings to get an idea. 

 

If you want to get the most for the items I would list them on Ebay and take what they sell for. Of course there is some work involved in creating, selling and shipping the sold items.

 

Selling these items at an estate sale probably will bring a little more than trade in values.

 

Trade in values would most likely bring you the least amount liquidating the golf items.

 

I find trade in values to be very low. I know these companies accepting trade ins are in the business to make money and are assuming the risk to resell your items but when accepting the trade in values it hardly seems worth it unless you don't want to be bothered selling your items. I recently thought about trading in three Cobra hybrids when purchasing two wedges. I was surprised when the person said $9  a hybrid. I looked them up on their site and they had the same model listed for sale for $99 a club. To me that hardly seemed fair.  

[Nollster]

Wow! Completely overwhelmed with the responses. Thank you all. She has to fairly valuate the assets for a split with her sister. She would just give it away if it weren't for that. There are quite a few pieces that have sentimental value for me -- we had a routine when we got something new to see if the other would notice it in the bag. He blamed me for all of his recent acquisitions. He never realized you could get a new club to send a message to one that was misbehaving. A lot of his putters misbehaved!🤣

[LBB]

9 hours ago, Nollster said:

She has to fairly valuate the assets for a split with her sister. She would just give it away if it weren't for that.

Yuck...

 

If I were her (or her sister), I'd just mutually agree to donate everything and call the value at zero, so nothing to split.  I just hate the hassle of trying to resell something, especially if you have the pressure to hit a valuation mark without going too high or too low.  Would hate to call the valuation $5000, give the other party $2500, only to realize the actual sell value is $2000.  Or the actual sell value is $7000, and you get into a dispute where a correction needs to be made.

 

It's just not worth the effort in my opinion given there seems to be so many items that will take so many individual sales.

Edited January 10, 2024 by LBB

[jda]

I sold a few trashcans full of used stuff from the 1990s and 2000s and got about $9k out of it.  Most of it was pretty sought after blades and stuff, but there were some DCI, Black Cat, Eye 2, Parallax sets that brought more than $150 for full sets - the sets with 2i, SW and/or LW sold for even more.  Early AP2s brought a bit more.  I got almost $200 just for a few 2 irons alone.  The folks got these were REALLY happy.  I did not sell any of my old putters, but we all know that some of these can be worth a lot too.

 

I sold the rest/leftovers in one shot for close to $1000 on here to a guy with a shop.

 

Old wedges and some drivers won't sell at all and are good to donate.  Knock off clubs are GoodWill items.

 

I had a shipping account for discounted rates. Dicks Sports let me have all of the golf club boxes that I wanted - they were going to just toss them.  It took a bit of time to photo and put on eBay - ebay charges 13%.

 

I don't know what this stuff is, but if it is name brand, it is likely worth the time to check out it.  Old golf clubs are not always worthless.  If the dude had a good eye, there might be enough there to buy a used car - I bought a MotoCaddy with some of my sales money.

 

See if they will send you photos and make an inventory.  Maybe you can trade your time for a few things that you want.

[jimb6golf]

On 1/9/2024 at 4:00 PM, PJE said:

PGA Value Guide used to have a feature which included sell yourself values. It looks like they now have partnered with 2nd Swing and deleted that feature in favor of trade in only offers.

2nd Swing usually sells for double what they paid for the clubs.  They will sell current or newer stuff for close to full retail, maybe 10% off.

But you can look to see the clubs 2nd Swing is  selling to get an idea of what you could sell clubs yourself or check E Bay.  E Bay is probably  a better  way  to check for older stuff prices because 2nd Swing makes really low offers to sellers for most older stuff.  I mean ridiculously low offers. But, if  you are clearing out an estate, the advantage to 2nd Swing is that it's convenient and fast. 

I would agree with this statement, as it seems the site has changed to to showing only trade in costs for clubs.  The site used to be created/ run by Joe and Leighs but apparently 2nd Swing has taken it over and it's more focused to their needs rather than providing true costs for clubs.  I'd suggest looking at various sites to determine similar costs for your clubs (re:  2nd swing, 3balls, global golf, etc.) on a retail level.  Unfortunate that they changed their site.

[storm3]

9 hours ago, jimb6golf said:

I would agree with this statement, as it seems the site has changed to to showing only trade in costs for clubs.  The site used to be created/ run by Joe and Leighs but apparently 2nd Swing has taken it over and it's more focused to their needs rather than providing true costs for clubs.  I'd suggest looking at various sites to determine similar costs for your clubs (re:  2nd swing, 3balls, global golf, etc.) on a retail level.  Unfortunate that they changed their site.

The domain is owned by the PGA of America, this simply looks like they licensed it to another party last October (GolfStix dba 2nd Swing). The original site (Joe & Leigh’s Discount Golf/3Balls Golf) retail values were based on completed eBay auctions with trade in values being a percentage of that. It now appears to simply be the GolfStix value guide/trade in site. Shame that the golf equipment no longer has a simple KBB equivalent.

[Nollster]

On 1/22/2024 at 10:15 PM, storm319 said:

The domain is owned by the PGA of America, this simply looks like they licensed it to another party last October (GolfStix dba 2nd Swing). The original site (Joe & Leigh’s Discount Golf/3Balls Golf) retail values were based on completed eBay auctions with trade in values being a percentage of that. It now appears to simply be the GolfStix value guide/trade in site. Shame that the golf equipment no longer has a simple KBB equivalent.

I ended up using the Terapeak function on Ebay to help get the Lo/Hi/Avg numbers along with the trade-in values, tweaking some things to keep multiple clubs/tour issue/high end shafts/etc. out of the mix, then let her decide how she wanted to proceed. It's all in really nice condition, but, for the most part older. Some relatively recent drivers, a Scotty, a Betti, a couple Toulons and some Stroke Lab Odysseys. But the golf balls...Thousands of golf balls in paint buckets!

[jda]

The best thing to do with used balls is to find a local HS and donate them to the girls and boys golf teams.  You can sell them for a bit, but the profit is not likely worth the effort.  Once you take the time to figure out the right years for the nice balls, they are not worth much - don't just assume that any good used ProV1 is worth $3 like the recent model is... a 8 year old ProV1 is not worth the money to sort it.  🙂