This question frequently comes up on the forum. Unfortunately, it’s one of those topics that’s harder to find because of how the question is phrased. But here’s a summary of advice that has been offered.
— Sell each item individually or as lots on eBay, which you can also use to find past auctions to help you determine the going price.
— Find an auction house, such as Stout Auctions, to help sell the entire collection. Stout will suggest the expected sale price as part of the listing, but bidders determine the actual final price.
— Sell the collection to a local hobby shop that sells used toy trains. Note, you’ll get roughly 25 to 35 percent of the value for those items collectively to give the dealer room to make enough money to make the acquisition worthwhile.
— Contact Trainz.com about acquiring or help in selling the collection. Same scenarios. If Trainz buys it all, the price you get will be in the 25 percent range. If it is your sale, you can set the price for each item, from which Trainz takes a cut, but the process will be slower. (Note, Trainz has gone to a buy-it-now format now, so it doesn’t truly auction items on its eBay store anymore.)
There have been other ideas, but the above covers the more practical ones, as far as I can recall.