This is actually a decision that needs to be determined by the seller. 1 I believe you would make more selling piece by piece unless you have a lot of low value items. 2 is it worth selling piece by piece and then shipping it piece by piece.
I see some being sold for thousands but to me then they shoot themselves in the leg by stating local pick-up only. I'm not going to travel hundreds of miles to pick-up trains, It has never made sense to me to list items on ebay but then put local pick-up only. I have seen where they will list a single train set ( about 5 items total ) and then local pick-up only. They normally get very little money ( as the just shot down about 90% of there bidders) .
Then you see $10 - 15 thousand and more on ebay and it's priced about 75% or better of value and pick-up only.
To me if I was going to sell my trains, I probably pack them all up and take them to a auction house that would advertise them and let it go from there. If they advertise, they have a large collection to sell, that will bring folks in, even here in the south where you don't have the following like you do up north. ( I have witness it. ) This way I can also put reserve on certain things. ( I would do about 50% of there value just to be sure they were not given away ( like some of my complete post war sets, with all there boxes.)
I have a fair size collection of prewar 810 - 820 series cars that are not collector quality but runner quality ( some more nicked up than that also ) that I plan to put out at my yard sale in April. I will advertise in the local paper that I have lionel trains in the yard sale. I'm also going to have others I don't really want and see if I can get a least a fair offer.
