For the seller

Where to sell a collection

A shelf of vintage cameras from one collection

There are four ways to sell a collection, whatever it is a collection of: sell it yourself piece by piece, send the best pieces to auction, take it to a dealer in that field, or pass the whole thing to one buyer. The first three take the collection apart. Only the last one keeps it, and its story, together.

We buy whole collections at Unseend: cameras, watches, audio and hi-fi, consoles and games, figures and designer toys, Lego and building sets, design objects, prints and posters, and the collections that are several of these at once, from the same house. This page is the honest overview; each category has its own guide below.

The four routes, whatever the collection

Selling it yourself asks the most of your time: identifying, photographing, describing, listing, answering, packing, shipping. The sought-after pieces go quickly, the ordinary ones sit, and a part of every collection never sells at all.

Auction suits single exceptional pieces with a story that can be proven. The house takes what fits its catalogue and leaves the rest with you, and the whole process runs months.

A dealer in that field is quick, and takes what sells this month: the popular, the working, the current. Everything unusual, broken or slow is turned away, and unusual is usually what a collection is made of.

One buyer for all of it is what we do. One person looks at the whole collection and takes everything: the remarkable pieces and everything around them, including what will never be listed anywhere. Nothing is left behind to deal with, it is done in one go, and the collection goes on with its story and the collector's name. Pass it on explains it in full.

Why keeping it together matters

A collection is years of somebody deciding what was worth keeping. The best pieces are the reason the rest makes sense, and the reason a buyer of whole collections is interested at all. Sold off separately, the remarkable pieces lose their company and the ordinary ones lose their meaning, and what remains is a box of things nobody chose.

That is also why we do not take collections that have already been picked through, and why mixed is better than pure: cameras next to watches next to figures from one house is a life, not a warehouse.

What we buy, and the guide for each

Funko and other modern mass-made lines are welcome as part of a wider collection; on their own they are usually better served by the platforms made for them. Everything is sold on as the collector's pieces they are, never as toys.

What one collection looks like to us

Whole, in any condition: broken, incomplete, boxed, unboxed, untested. Roughly twenty objects and up, or fewer if they are exceptional. And inherited more often than not, which is why inherited a collection is its own guide.

Wherever it is

Unseend is in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and we buy anywhere in the world. When a collection is worth the journey we come to it, record its story where it lives, and pack everything ourselves. Smaller collections can be sent, insured and arranged by us. Tell us what you have, and a person replies within two days.

Short answers

Who buys whole collections?

We do: Unseend, in Rotterdam, buying worldwide. One person, everything at once, and the story recorded with the collector's name on every object.

Do you buy mixed collections?

They are the ones we like best. Five kinds of thing in one house is the ideal.

What do you not buy?

Single objects, anything too large or fragile to move sensibly, and collections already listed piece by piece somewhere else.

Why we keep the story

A collection is not a pile of objects.

It is years of somebody deciding what was worth keeping, and sold off piece by piece that is the first thing to go. So before anything is sold, we sit down with you and record it: how it started, what the best of it was, the piece that got away. That story stays on every object with the collector's name, and goes with it to whoever keeps it next. You get a page where you can see where each piece ended up.

Three ways the story gets recorded

On camera, where it lives. We travel to the collection and film it properly: you talking about how it started, the room and the shelves as they are, the objects in your hands. Wherever in the world the collection happens to be.

On a call. If the collection is sent to us rather than collected, we have the same conversation over a video call and write it up, with one photograph of the shelf as it stood.

In writing. If you would rather not talk at all, answer a handful of questions in your own time and in your own words. It goes on the objects exactly as you wrote it.

It never changes anything else, and you can always say no to it. Some conversations run ten minutes, some an afternoon. Read the collections we have taken on

If it is a whole collection

We buy whole collections, not single pieces: one person takes all of it, and the story is kept with every object. Tell us what you have and a person replies within two days.

How passing it on works, in full

1The collection
What is in it
Pick everything that applies. Something else opens a line to tell us.
Roughly how many pieces
A guess is fine. Nobody has counted.
How would you describe it
There is no wrong answer here, and a lot of ordinary is a normal collection.
One or two sentences. This is the question we care about most.
2Where it is, and how it could reach us
Town and country is enough.
How could it reach us
Unseend is in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Sending and bringing are as welcome as a visit; if it is sent, we pay the freight and insure it.
When does it need to be gone
No hurry is a good answer. It lets us plan a visit properly.
3Condition and photographs
In your own words. Broken, incomplete or untested is fine and is normal; it only needs saying.
Photographs
Three to ten photographs The room and the shelves as they stand. Phone photographs are fine, and a slow walk round on video says more than any of them.Send them to hello@unseend.com
Or attach them to the reply that comes back within two days. Any of them works, and nothing is looked at until a person reads it. Do not clean up first — the shelves as they stand tell us more than a tidy arrangement.
4The number, and the story
A number or a range, whatever you have in mind. You will get an honest answer either way.
Would you tell the story of it
Filmed at the collection wherever it is, on a video call, or written in your own time. It never changes the price.
5How to reach you
The reply comes here, from a person, within two days.
Only if you would rather be called.

Answered within two days, by the person who would come, and by email at every step after that. Nothing you send is shared with anyone, and your photographs are deleted if we do not go ahead.

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