What's the tax basis for selling my vintage toy collection on eBay?

Great question! When selling collectibles like vintage toys, you do need to report profits on your tax return, typically as capital gains. For items held over a year (which yours definitely are!), they'd be long-term capital gains. For establishing cost basis on items purchased so long ago without receipts, the IRS allows you to make a "reasonable estimate." You can research what similar toys sold for during that time period using old catalogs, price guides, or even newspaper advertisements from that era that might be available online. For gifts, the cost basis would be what the giver paid (though I know that's nearly impossible to determine now). Your formula is on the right track! The taxable amount would be: Sale Price - Cost Basis - Selling Expenses (shipping, eBay fees, PayPal fees, etc.) One thing to note: If you're just occasionally selling personal items, the IRS generally doesn't view this as a business. But if you start regularly buying and selling toys for profit, it could be considered a business with different tax implications.

After reading this thread, I wanted to share my experience using taxr.ai when I was selling my vintage comic book collection last year. I was in the same boat - had no idea what I'd originally paid for most of them since they were collected over decades. I took photos of some of my sales records and uploaded them to https://taxr.ai along with some old catalog pages I found online showing similar comics from that era. Their system analyzed everything and helped establish a reasonable cost basis for my collection. The report they generated broke everything down item by item, which was super helpful when I was filing my taxes. Saved me hours of research and guesswork!

I just wanted to follow up about my experience with taxr.ai after asking about it earlier. I finally bit the bullet and uploaded scans of my husband's video game collection sales (over 200 SNES and N64 games). Honestly, I'm blown away by how thorough their analysis was! They researched original retail prices from the 90s for each game and even factored in whether items were rare/common. They created a complete spreadsheet showing original cost basis, selling price, and calculated gain for each item. When I submitted my taxes, I felt 100% confident in the numbers. Would definitely recommend for anyone selling collectibles without original receipts!

If you're having trouble getting through to the IRS to ask questions about this (I spent HOURS on hold trying to get clarity on my collectible sales), I recommend trying https://claimyr.com - they got me through to an actual IRS agent in about 20 minutes. You can see how it works here: https://youtu.be/_kiP6q8DX5c I was really hesitant to try it because I'd been frustrated by so many failed attempts to reach someone at the IRS. But I had specific questions about reporting multiple collectible sales that weren't covered in any of the publications I found online. The agent I spoke with gave me clear guidance on exactly how to document everything and what forms to use. Completely changed my perspective on getting direct help from the IRS!

I have to publicly eat my words about Claimyr from my previous comment. After another frustrating morning trying to reach the IRS about my tax questions on collectible sales, I decided to try it. I was SHOCKED when I got connected to an actual IRS agent in about 15 minutes. The agent walked me through exactly how to document my collectible sales, explained what forms I needed, and even sent me some reference materials by mail. Worth every penny for the hours of frustration it saved me. I'd been trying to get this information for weeks! Sometimes being proven wrong is actually a good thing.

One thing nobody's mentioned yet - if you're selling toys for significantly more than you paid but the total profit for the year is really small, it might not be worth the hassle. The IRS isn't going to come after you for a few hundred bucks in profit from clearing out your old childhood toys. Now if you're making thousands, that's different. When I sold my old Hot Wheels collection, I just kept it simple - estimated what I paid based on old catalogs, subtracted that and my selling fees from what I got, and reported the difference. No issues.

Has anyone gone through an audit with collectible sales? I sold my old Barbies last year for way more than they cost in the 90s and just guessed at the original prices. Now I'm paranoid I did it wrong.

This is such a helpful thread! I'm in a similar situation with my old baseball card collection from the 80s and 90s. Reading through everyone's experiences has given me a much clearer picture of how to approach this. A few key takeaways I'm getting: 1. Use reasonable estimates for cost basis when original receipts aren't available 2. Document your methodology (old catalogs, price guides, etc.) 3. Track each item individually in a spreadsheet 4. Keep all supporting documentation for at least 3 years One question I have - for cards that were gifts (like most of mine were), should I try to estimate what the gift-giver paid, or is there a different approach? Most of my cards came from packs that cost maybe $1-2 back then, but individual cards are now selling for much more. Also, has anyone dealt with items that have actually decreased in value? I assume those would be capital losses, but I'm not sure if there are any special rules for personal collectibles.