Am I a sleazeball of the comic book sub-culture? The used car salesman of our hobby? Maybe, but I'm having a good time and making a little money.

I seem to be an anomaly in the world of comic book collecting. A broker and a collector in one? What kind of twisted creature am I? I know collectors who will have their books buried with them if it is allowed and I know brokers who buy only to sell for profit (seems to be a safer gamble than the stock market at the moment), but is it possible to be both. If so, can you be both and be happy? Will you be shunned by the collecting community for buying books you don't really want or care for, only because it was a good deal, to mark it up and sell it to someone who genuinely cares about that book who could have found the deal i took? I don't know, but I do know that I am a broker and a collector.

I started collecting again as an adult about 3 years ago as someone who would never pay book value for a book I wanted. I was always willing to wait for the right deal to come along and buy below market value and figured everyone else had the same mentality, but once i realized that there were apparently a lot of people in the world that would pay book value or more for books they wanted just to get them right then and there a light bulb went on in my head. Rather than just scouring conventions and stores for only the deals I wanted why not pick up other popular books when I find an unbelievable deal and sell it to fund my collection or bank account. I have found myself walking this line for almost a year now. I have bought hundreds of books over the past year, but have less than 100 comics in my personal collection (mostly I only collect key issues and stay away from modern books except for a select few as I don't want the size of my collection to get out of hand) and only a third of those are cgc graded. The values of my books dictate that I should get more of them graded as most of my raw books are valued/currently selling for $75+ easy, but for the time being I know their condition is not going to degrade in my possession (in a dark, cool, place in my media room with a de-humidifier) and i am content with that thought.

I hunt for and buy up cheap, yet valuable/sought after, books that I find and 3-5 times a year I put up a batch for auction and let'em ride! My most recent batch in May 2011 was with 31 slabbed books of various publishers and titles (mostly modern and bronze with a few silver age) that I picked up over the course of a couple of months for a combined total cost to me of about $835. I placed these books in an online auction (not ebay) and, after seller/auction fees, i am looking at a check for a little over $1520. So, I paid an average of $27 per book and sold them for an average of $49 per book. The hunt for deals and the excitement of placing them in auctions really get my adrenaline pumping.

Now, do I spend all $1520 on that one silver age key book I've had my eye on, or do I get several $300-$500 high grade bronze key books I want? Or maybe half of it on one key book and the other half on more books to flip? Maybe half on books to flip and the other half just stays in my bank? Also, there is this pretty sweet home theater system I've been meaning to upgrade to... Dang it, this is the hardest part of my process every time.

Hi my name is James and, love it or hate it, I am both a collector and broker.

Thanks for reading.

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