What Is Clean Sweep Auctions?

Clean Sweep Auctions is a sports card and memorabilia auction house that runs online catalog sales covering vintage and modern cards alongside game-used and autographed memorabilia. Its two best-known formats are the "Double Play" auction — a broad, two-day-closing catalog built for consignors with large, varied collections — and $5 Reserve Auctions, which open every lot at a flat five-dollar starting bid. The house is also notable for a buyer's premium that increases in steps for bids placed late at night on closing day, a mechanic most other major auction houses don't use.

• Double Play catalog auctions— a two-day closing format built to hold large, mixed-lot consignments (thousands of cards and memorabilia pieces in a single sale), similar in scale to the broad catalog sales run by Heritage Auctions.
• $5 Reserve Auctions— every lot opens at a flat five-dollar bid rather than a seller-set reserve or estimate, a low-barrier entry point meant to generate early bidding activity on each item.
• Vetted consignment intake— Clean Sweep does not accept unsolicited mail-in consignments; sellers contact the house first so items can be reviewed before acceptance, the same gatekeeping step used across major sports card auction houses.

Clean Sweep charges bidders a standard 20% buyer's premium on top of the winning bid, in the range typical for the industry. What sets it apart is a time-based escalation on the final day of closing: bids placed after 1:30 AM Eastern add an extra 5% to the buyer's premium, and bids placed after 2:30 AM Eastern add a further 10% on top of that. In practice, that means the effective cost of winning a lot can depend on exactly when your bid lands in the closing overnight window, not just how much you bid — worth planning around if you're bidding on the final night of a sale. As with any house, confirm the current premium schedule listed on the specific auction before bidding; see how sports card auction houses work for the general fee mechanics used across the space.

• vs. Pristine Auction — Pristine runs a rolling weekly-style calendar positioned around a lower flat buyer's premium. Clean Sweep's premium instead escalates during the final overnight hours of a closing, a mechanic Pristine doesn't run.
• vs. Just Collect — Just Collect's standout feature is buying entire vintage collections outright for cash in addition to running auctions. Clean Sweep is a catalog-auction house first, without that buy-outright option.
• vs. Hunt Auctions — Hunt is known for official on-site auctions embedded in MLB and Hall of Fame events. Clean Sweep runs purely online catalog sales, with its Double Play and $5 Reserve formats as the differentiators instead of an on-site event presence.

• Know the closing-night premium schedule.If you're bidding late on the final day, check whether the 1:30 AM or 2:30 AM Eastern step-ups apply to that specific auction before placing a last-minute bid.
• A $5 opening bid isn't a value signal on its own. Every lot in a $5 Reserve Auction starts the same way regardless of the card's actual market value — price off sold comps, not the opening bid. See How Much Are My Sports Cards Worth?
• Contact the house before shipping a consignment. Unsolicited mail-in items aren't accepted — reach out first so the collection can be reviewed.
• Factor in the full buyer's premiumwhen setting a maximum bid, not just the hammer price you're watching climb.

Confirm the exact card with Identify & Research — free-path first (on-device OCR, catalog match, and fingerprints). For the mechanics that apply across every auction platform — reserve prices, buyer's premiums, and how the major houses compare — see How Sports Card Auction Houses Work. For turning cards into cash through channels beyond auction houses, see How to Sell Sports Cards Online, or open the full guides library.