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How much is your collection worth?
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Started by MutantKeys,

How much is your collection worth?  

11 members have voted

  1. 1. How much is your collection worth?

    • 12069
    • 12068
    • 12076
    • 12071
    • 12074
    • 12068
    • 12069
    • 12071
    • 12073

154 posts in this topic

Waylander

Waylander

Posted
Posted
Still, I'm not sure the poll in this thread really reflects members of the Registry - although members of these Chat Boards of course my be different hm (in the Registry you walk the walk - here you can talk the talk lol And of course an entire collection may be much more than comics)

 

Regarding the Registry I started this thread some time ago:

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=7869591&fpart=1

 

And made an update with this post:

 

"So what has changed during the last year? Here's an overview:

 

Registry2015_zps1zdwnc9t.jpg

"Points needed to be in [...]" refers to the minimum number of points needed to be part of a category

 

Forgot to include the top 10 % :sorry: - To fit in that category, today you need 38,091 points or more.

 

The number of Registry members increased 11 % the last year making it slightly easier to reach for example the top 5 %, 25 % and 50 % (indicating that most new members did not register large collections). And it shows that the Registry is expanding. (If the Registry expands another 11 % the next year, then there will be about 5000 members.)

 

Even though Cheetah lost a lot of Registry points the last year, it's probably not a trend of high end collections having reduced their Registry points, because today it requires more points to be among the top 1 % than last year (even though the number of members in the top 1 % high-end club also increased 11 % - from 41 to 46).

 

As written in an earlier post, using average values are not a good idea due to the enormous difference between the lowest and highest amount of Registry points (nearly 3,000,000 to 1). For example, if we (as a thought experiment) include the two highest collections and set all other collections to just 1 point, we can calculate that the average member has a collection worth about 1200 points. So the largest collections introduce a severe bias to an average value, and using average values may be quite misleading. As shown 50 % of all members have less than 1500 points, and every 4th member has less than 250 points. Guess we could say that a normal (IQR) collection now has between 250 and 8300 points."

 

So I'm betting that 50 % of all Registry members have CGC comic collections worth less than $2k :sumo: And that extremely few persons (less than 1%, probably close to 0.003 %, of current Registry members) have CGC comic collections (made public in the Registry) worth more than $ 1 mill. Well, something like that :)

 

 

All those charts go to sh-t if you can't figure in collections that are mostly raw.Then again I personally don't care about points on a chart. That's when you know you have an extensive collection.

 

Not to mention points and dollars may or may not correlate closely. One of my favorite sets has four books in it which total a whopping 77 points. If I were to sell them I would expect to get around $4000 for them.

 

Yeah these chart guys are funny. If you add all my comics,toys and artwork, mine would be close to 750K conservatively.

 

What about that lovely car of yours - any movement on the project?

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oakman29

oakman29

Posted
Posted
Still, I'm not sure the poll in this thread really reflects members of the Registry - although members of these Chat Boards of course my be different hm (in the Registry you walk the walk - here you can talk the talk lol And of course an entire collection may be much more than comics)

 

Regarding the Registry I started this thread some time ago:

 

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=7869591&fpart=1

 

And made an update with this post:

 

"So what has changed during the last year? Here's an overview:

 

Registry2015_zps1zdwnc9t.jpg

"Points needed to be in [...]" refers to the minimum number of points needed to be part of a category

 

Forgot to include the top 10 % :sorry: - To fit in that category, today you need 38,091 points or more.

 

The number of Registry members increased 11 % the last year making it slightly easier to reach for example the top 5 %, 25 % and 50 % (indicating that most new members did not register large collections). And it shows that the Registry is expanding. (If the Registry expands another 11 % the next year, then there will be about 5000 members.)

 

Even though Cheetah lost a lot of Registry points the last year, it's probably not a trend of high end collections having reduced their Registry points, because today it requires more points to be among the top 1 % than last year (even though the number of members in the top 1 % high-end club also increased 11 % - from 41 to 46).

 

As written in an earlier post, using average values are not a good idea due to the enormous difference between the lowest and highest amount of Registry points (nearly 3,000,000 to 1). For example, if we (as a thought experiment) include the two highest collections and set all other collections to just 1 point, we can calculate that the average member has a collection worth about 1200 points. So the largest collections introduce a severe bias to an average value, and using average values may be quite misleading. As shown 50 % of all members have less than 1500 points, and every 4th member has less than 250 points. Guess we could say that a normal (IQR) collection now has between 250 and 8300 points."

 

So I'm betting that 50 % of all Registry members have CGC comic collections worth less than $2k :sumo: And that extremely few persons (less than 1%, probably close to 0.003 %, of current Registry members) have CGC comic collections (made public in the Registry) worth more than $ 1 mill. Well, something like that :)

 

 

All those charts go to sh-t if you can't figure in collections that are mostly raw.Then again I personally don't care about points on a chart. That's when you know you have an extensive collection.

 

Not to mention points and dollars may or may not correlate closely. One of my favorite sets has four books in it which total a whopping 77 points. If I were to sell them I would expect to get around $4000 for them.

 

Yeah these chart guys are funny. If you add all my comics,toys and artwork, mine would be close to 750K conservatively.

 

What about that lovely car of yours - any movement on the project?

 

Engine is being worked on now.

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Greenlama

Greenlama

Posted
Posted

It comes down to what someone is willing to pay for it. That's a prime reason I began collecting original art. One of a kind, original, signed, some commissioned and some gifts; rather than mass produced items. I got into collecting comics and amassed nine by 1963 and over 60,000 by the mid-1980's. I probably have less than 10,000 now. I collect because I like the medium and most of the creators. I currently only collect Silver and Golden age books, unless something strikes my fancy.

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Marty Mann

Marty Mann

Posted
Posted

This is a very interesting thread...not really sure of the value of my collection of around

750 comics running from 1942 until 1954...all bought by me off the newsstand or assorted

stores. I know my favorite two, SUPERBOY #1 CGC graded at 5.0 and FLASH COMICS #104

graded at 4.0, according to Overstreet are listed at about $4,000 combined.

As my entire collection seems to grade at around the 4.0 average it offers up a challenge for me

to sit down and try to arrive at a dollar amount.

This too could be interesting endeavor...thanks!

 

mm

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Proteus126

Proteus126

Posted
Posted

Short answer: $8,000 for my collection of approximately 500 comic books. Collection core was/is mid-high grade X-Men 94-350 + GS #1. Also Wolverine related books, all Frank Miller Daredevil, early (and worthless) Alpha Flight, and smatterings of Copper Age Spider Man, Thor, Hulk and FF. I did have a few random keys in Hulk 181, ASM 121, Secret Wars 8.

 

If you want to read about the process, see below:

 

------

 

I'm selling my entire collection, and started actually selling on eBay two months ago. Most of the valuable stuff is gone and the total sales price on eBay so far is $6,500 with another $1,500 to go.

 

Final accounting estimate: $8,000 gross - (eBay and PayPal 13%) - $1,700 CGC grading fees and misc expenses means I'm netting about $5,200, or about 2/3 of sale price. It is a very modest collection in terms of both size and value compared to some of you here. It has been a fun experience. I am glad I took my time to prepare.

 

My process in general was:

1. Find websites that seemed useful to get educated. Found this forum, GPAforCGC, and learned about the CGC process this way.

2. Re-educated myself on grading. I hadn't even looked at my collection since finishing it in 1999 or so.

3. Catalogued and graded my books.

4. Selected a subset for CGC submission based on grade and GPA value. Anything $50 or over went to CGC, about 60 books out of a total of 500 books.

5. Set myself up as a seller on eBay, linked my Paypal account, etc.

6. LEARNED TO PROPERLY PACK COMICS FOR SHIPPING. Bought mailers for raw lots. Bought bubble wrap, popcorn.

7. Learned about the USPS shipping options, and which were best for slabs or raw books. Ordered medium flat rate boxes and legal flat rate envelopes from USPS (free).

 

This all took me seemingly forever, from December 2015 through February 2016, when I sent off my 60 books to CGC for grading. Used this to fine tune my grading eye. Frankly, it stunk.

 

Selling:

1. Slabs first, to establish a good seller rep. Got basically what the GPA guide suggested. Hulk 181 (7.5) $1,630, GS X-Men #1 (9.0) $1,200, X-Men 101 (9.6) $580, GS X-Men #1 (4.0) $390, X-Men 98 (9.6) $350, X-Men 102 (9.6) $230, and quite a few $100+ books.

2. Low value but still desirable raw lots (usually of 10 books) for X-Men 142-353. $350 for the bunch, average grade 8.0 before X-Men 200, 9.2 for 200-350. Gained faith in my grading, ready to move onto the more interesting raw books.

3. Raw lots for X-Men 115-140. Did fine. The shocker was $100 for X-Men 115-121 in average 7.0 condition. Way more than I expected.

(all X-Men before 115 went to CGC - some shouldn't have)

4. Now moving on to the last batch submitted to CGC. Some nice ones, include X-Men 110-112 in 9.4, Secret Wars #8 in 9.8 and 9.6. Should move fairly well.

5. Figuring out what to do with the really worthless stuff. Who wants two sets of Alpha Flight 1-34? Anyone? Bueller? Elektra Saga? Ronin? Contest of Champions? I'll whittle those down in lots, and probably give some of the stuff I liked best to my nephew.

 

Almost exclusively putting them out there for Auction, with no buy-it-now, with an initial price of 75% of what I hope to get. I want to move these books, not get every last dollar possible for them. Seems to work. A few disappointments and a few awesome surprises. In the end a wash and I got fair value IMO.

 

Lessons learned (or affirmed): Be a good seller - pack very well - communicate - don't bite off more than you can chew and don't list more books than you can reasonably pack and ship in a prompt and careful manner. I listed about 10 slabs and/or lots per week and that was manageable. About 6 of the books I shouldn't have bothered having graded - I wish I had used the pre-screen service but somehow missed learning about it. Well, at least I didn't sell overgraded raw books.

 

Guess what? I'm now starting to go to yard sales and flea markets, and my enthusiasm for collecting has been rekindled. But more from a standpoint of treasure hunting, not from holding onto books.

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Greenlama

Greenlama

Posted
Posted

As a follow up to my original post. I've catalogued 5300 books so far at $62,000 with at least another 25 long boxes to go. This does not include a few hundred pieces of original art.

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Bomber-Bob

Bomber-Bob

Posted
Posted
As a follow up to my original post. I've catalogued 5300 books so far at $62,000 with at least another 25 long boxes to go. This does not include a few hundred pieces of original art.

 

Speaking from experience, the unfortunate thing about having volume is you are lucky if you can actually sell the stuff for even close to 50% of FMV, probably less. Quality is much preferred over Quantity.

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Peter G

Peter G

Posted
Posted
As a follow up to my original post. I've catalogued 5300 books so far at $62,000 with at least another 25 long boxes to go. This does not include a few hundred pieces of original art.

 

Speaking from experience, the unfortunate thing about having volume is you are lucky if you can actually sell the stuff for even close to 50% of FMV, probably less. Quality is much preferred over Quantity.

 

Bingo !

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