manetteska Posted February 10, 2015 Share Posted February 10, 2015 I know they're long gone; wasn't looking to get prices from 2 years ago. I thought you put that link in to show the average condition of the comics you were able to buy from the seller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ft88 Posted February 10, 2015 Author Share Posted February 10, 2015 Sorry just a fun little piece of the past. I typically delete the photos after I have completed a sale it helps me manage my inventory so I don't list something twice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ft88 Posted February 22, 2015 Author Share Posted February 22, 2015 (edited) Just bought a collection. 50 long boxes of 80s - 90s. 3 short boxes of 60s marvel. 5-10 of 70s early 80s. Back to renting a storage unit. Pics and details later. Edited February 22, 2015 by ft88 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ft88 Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 (edited) Here are the photos Iron Man Submainer x3 Ironman 2-10 and Tales of Suspense 40-99 mulitple copies Only 1 issue each of 52 and 57 but some nice multiples of the early issues. No 39 though. Typical low grade early issues, VG after that and then sporadic VF and better as you get into the 60s but still mostly VG to F. Love the dozen issues of 54 and 6 issues of 58 Edited March 1, 2015 by ft88 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ft88 Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 (edited) Some keys. Spiderman 1 is taped on the spine as is the Avengers 1. The later is really low grade. TOS is signed by Jack Kirby (Marvin Taylor collection). And why not - 10 copies ASM 361. Edited February 23, 2015 by ft88 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ft88 Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 More Silver ASM 129 is lower grade. 148 is signed by Gil Kane, kindof cool. Minimal Hulks and Thors, sporadic Spiderman FF and Xmen. Also a long box of Ironman 9-175 about 2 copies each +/- some nice, some not so much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ft88 Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 Story: Guy calls me with some decent stuff. As we chat he tells me that the guy he buys from has a huge collection and is looking to sell. Call the first guy John and the guy with the big collection Dave. John says that he has an Avengers 1 and Spiderman and tons of stuff. John gives me Daves email and I ask for a list after giving my pleasantries via email. It is really tough to "meet" someone over email for the first time. He sends me a list of comics and its a bunch of 80s and 90s stuff. Some good some not so much. Batman Wolverine Web of Spiderman is good. Image I can do without. I reply kindly telling Dave that I am more interested in the older stuff. He tells me he has it but hasn't made a list of it yet. I kind of find that hard to believe. You send me a list of every comic in 30 long boxes but you can't put toghether a list of a couple hundred 60 centers?? And I've seen collections like this before. Box after box of 1990s with a sprinkle of a 12 center and a Spiderman 1 GRR to fool everybody. So as I travel down to Baltimore airport I visit him to look at his good stuff. Needless to say what is see if the above. Yes yes yes I am very interested. If you sold me just these 6 small boxes how much? Well he only wants to buy everything....... I have an idea I will cull through his boxes and buy 2/3 of it all. OK he says - his target $$$$ is XXXX. I know its bad form to discuss buy price but it was upwards of $10,000 and I'll run the numbers. To be discussed in the next post a bit OK I do a little math the next day and it really makes sense. And for ease of making the deal I hit his number and simply buy them all. The fantasy of parcing through his collection and pulling runs that are good is unworkable. It took me an hour to tranfer the 80 boxes from his storage unit to my Uhaul van ($150 all in - accountant Arnie) and another hour to transfer it to my storage unit ($50 a month - accountant Arnie). If I had spent the time to go through each box it would have been 12 hours of work. No thanks. So yeah, there's 20 long boxes of really bad stuff but still 40-50 or decent to good. Xfactor run? Xmen run (modern)? How about Marvel Comics Presents w Wolverine? Sure there's Batman and Detectives but there's also Shadow of the Bat and a half box of Robin. Got hyped up seeing mulitples of Batman Adventures 11 then multiples of 13. Weird. Not that those got cherry picked but that other stuff didn't. My storage unit is 2 rows of 15 x 4 long boxes and some short boxes on top. Crazy. Yes there will be a clearance sale. Maybe a topic for later on how I plan to sell in bulk efficiently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ft88 Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 Story by the numbers Here's the math I used before I bought them. I had gone through the 6 short boxes of 60s pictured in person in about an hour or so. I also had a list of 30 long boxes (about half) that I wasn't that impressed with. This isn't what they are worth but my estimates, again, before I went to negotiate and talk serious offers. I made sure to give myself some leeway to make sure my offer wouldn't bite me later. Lots of keys and comics aren't included but the point is to get to his number and give me room to play. To allow for missed water damage or missing pages etc. And make it worth my while. I also have rental van and storage expenses to consider. ASM 1 - $800 Avengers 1 $400 TOS 40-42 x 8 - $1000 TOS 43-51 x 15 - $600 TOS 52 57 - $300 TOS 53-56 - $300 TOS 58-66 - $500 TOS 67-99 - $500 Ironman Sub 1 - $100 Ironman 1 - $300 TTA all $500 Strange Tales, Dr Strange $600 Cap Thor Hulk Fury - $300 FF - $200 ASM - $400 ASM 129 $200 Xmen $300 Ironman 2-150 - $1000 DD - $200 Modern keys $1000 I could go on, there is more bronze, keys, runs and duplicates . The point is that if his number is around $10,000 it starts to make sense. There's $9500 listed above. Sure I'm high on the early TOS as they are lower grade than I remembered but I'm sure to get more than $200 for the FF's. I also estimated low on the number of copies for those early TOS. I guess I could have taken copious notes (are there any other kind) but that sends up flags I think and makes you look desperate. Plus I'm lazy and think my memory is better than it is. The point is that there's more flex than not. This is still a lot of work. But I do believe the delta is there. The moderns are a PITA$$ but I have found those add up too. I don't collect those so am somewhat ignorant on whats what. So I still do enjoy learning about whats hot and what's not and why. If it weren't for collections like these I'd never really know. Again, look forward to the old clearance sale. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uchiha101 Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Congrats you make this look easy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manetteska Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Good story and thanks for diving into how you calculate what's a good deal and what is not. Had a similar situation (on a much, much smaller scale) this weekend. Made out OK and found some cool (low-priced) stuff to boot. If he sent you a list of the modern stuff (80's-90's), you can forward it my way and I could check for anything that has gotten hot of late. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ft88 Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 Long Boxes of Moderns Whether you are in my shoes with a new collection or you have your own collection of 20+ long boxes of Moderns there are various methods to selling them. I am basically knowledgeable but do not know every hot book from 1990 to 2015. It goes without saying that the more you lot together the less money you will sell them for. It is a legitimate method to simply post a Craigslist ad with the expectation that you might get $40-$50 a box. Other methods that do not work for me but work for others is to set up at shows and have 50 cents a book that folks can rummage through. That gets you about $100 a box. Or you can take the time to list them individually through an ebay store or online store (or physical store I suppose) Another method is to sell mystery boxes, either full mystery or break it up into Marvel, DC and Independent mystery. The method that works for me is to break them up in sensible lots and sell them that way. Here's an old thread where I did that with 8 long boxes and sold about 2/3 of them. The rest I think I sold at $60 a box or something like that. http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=335268&Number=7563600#Post7563600 Unless I go mystery or sell-it-all I have to put the time in. Easy enough - sort by publisher, character, title, and collecting era. Write down the list, grade where the effort makes sense and take pictures. Then sell them for 10-20% less than ebay and off you go. So with 20 long boxes a blow out or mystery might get $1200. putting about 12-20 hours of work or so should get 50 cents to $2 per book which should equal out to maybe $3000. All inventory dependent. I think that's worth the time and its fun to deal with comics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revat Posted February 23, 2015 Share Posted February 23, 2015 Congrats you make this look easy This sounds easy to you? 1. You have to talk to strangers who may or may not have anything. And these strangers are often either COMIC NERDS or people who've just had a loved one die, or insufficiently_thoughtful_persons (or all 3). 2. You have figure out what they have is worth your time to even look. 3. You have to drive to meet a stranger in a private place, carrying at least SOME money. 4. You have to be able to go through someones collection, FAST, doing cataloging what they have and recognizing keys and values of not just super keys, but even run of the mill stuff. 5. You have to do some crazy maths and keep everything straight. 6. You have to be able to access $10K+, and bring it to said stranger. 7. You have to rent a van/truck. Drive it around (not everyone can drive a Uhaul well). 8. You have to load/unload 80 boxes (while the meter is running on your rental van/truck). 9. You have to rent storage. (and possibly have insurance) 10. You have to spend time going through your collection and inventory AND decide the best way to sell it AND look up values while you're doing all of it. And account for price changes in the market. 10.5 You might have to get new bags and boards or boxes for some or all of them. Which takes money and time. 11. You have to take pics and put things up for sale in whatever venue(s) you choose. 12. You have to pay fees for some venues, including paypal, ebay, translation fees, taxes, commission or auction fees, etc. 13. You have pack everything up to ship in a timely, organized way, which requires materials obviously, and way more time. 14. You have to deal with customers who don't pay, customers who do returns, other problem customers. 15. You have to do all of this AND still have enough CASH and TIME on hand to buy ANOTHER big collection at any point should the need arise. 16. You need to be doing all this while still living your life, with family, friends, health, fun, etc. 17. This kind of thing would be almost impossible to do unless you were doing it full time, so it implies that one is self employed, and therefore also means that health insurance is out of pocket. 18. AND THIS IS THE BEST CASE SCENARIO, which doesn't even include all the times when you see the seller and he's got trash, or charges too much, or tries to rob or murder you, or you buy the stuff and you can't sell it for as much as you hoped or it sits for a long time or both. 19. The above is only applicable if you don't go crazy combing through thousands of comic books at a time. A lot of people love love love comics AND money, but they just can't go through that many at a time, for days, weeks, months, years. Its not as simple as "Saw a dude today, paid him $10K. Cool, I'll sell it for $22K tomorrow" He might net $15K, but how long will it take and how many man hours, and how much more money might need to be spent? If a person loves it, then great. It does sound exciting and there are some great victories to be had. OP seems very organized and professional, with solid math, reasoning, logic, and recall, and financial management abilities. But I didn't read anything easy about it. This isn't a glamour job, its nearly impossible to budget for or estimate your income, there's no promotions, there's no raises or golden parachutes, there's only the hustle. And its hard, and its not for everyone. And a person can't do it unless they love it, and I truly respect anyone who makes a living doing what they love, because it ain't easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ft88 Posted February 23, 2015 Author Share Posted February 23, 2015 It's not quite that easy but also not quite that hard. But yeah if you don't enjoy the comics themselves all it would be is work. It would be a lot easier if I truly only stuck with Bronze and earlier but it sure is tough to turn down a long box of Uncanny Xmen 150-450 (no keys) for $50. I also enjoy the thrill of the buy and the satisfaction of a quality sale. Even the drop off at the post office is weirdly gratifying Lugging boxes or really anything dealing with boxes gets old fast. Grading and rebagging/boading is another tedious chore. But some can be done while watching TV. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uchiha101 Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 I see Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyNameIsLegion Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 Ed, I've thoroughly enjoyed you blog here- the topic I'm most eagerly waiting for is your grading/pricing philosophy- you've always priced your offerings very well and I'm curious about the short and long term strategy behind it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mysterio Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 It would be a lot easier if I truly only stuck with Bronze and earlier but it sure is tough to turn down a long box of Uncanny Xmen 150-450 (no keys) for $50. I also enjoy the thrill of the buy and the satisfaction of a quality sale. Even the drop off at the post office is weirdly gratifying I'd rather have that half long box of Robin you lamented about on the last page than any X-. Maybe it's just us, but we can go entire 3 day shows and not sell a single Uncanny out of our dollar boxes. Robin, on the other hand, is a very steady seller at $1 a book. And we could sell 2 long boxes of Wonder Woman in a weekend of work. Easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ft88 Posted February 24, 2015 Author Share Posted February 24, 2015 Mysterio, that makes a good point. I have no weekend time at all to do shows and even if I did, I don't enjoy them all that much. So I miss out on quite a bit of market information like that. It shows that quite a bit of biases enter the mix too. In the past 2 years I've seen multiple copies of Robin #1 (from the 5 part mini), upwards of 50 copies and that puts a damper on how I view the book and character. It really shouldn't. If it sells it sells. I did know that the female characters are selling and getting hot. Ms Marvel, Wonder Woman Harlequinn, among others have a definitive niche and truly are in tight supply not just GA SA or BA but the 80s 90s on up. Nearly all collections I come across have the typical stuff from Xmen Batman to Spiderman but typically misses the Horror, Westerns or Female titles. I'm certain that's universal so if demand picks up for any reason as we're seeing, prices could get out of control. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HighStakesComics Posted February 24, 2015 Share Posted February 24, 2015 It's not quite that easy but also not quite that hard. But yeah if you don't enjoy the comics themselves all it would be is work. It would be a lot easier if I truly only stuck with Bronze and earlier but it sure is tough to turn down a long box of Uncanny Xmen 150-450 (no keys) for $50. I also enjoy the thrill of the buy and the satisfaction of a quality sale. Even the drop off at the post office is weirdly gratifying Lugging boxes or really anything dealing with boxes gets old fast. Grading and rebagging/boading is another tedious chore. But some can be done while watching TV. This really is a terrific read and a great perspective piece. Thank you for taking the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ft88 Posted February 24, 2015 Author Share Posted February 24, 2015 Grading: An interesting and sensitive topic. As I do sell on the boards, I want to come across as the strictest grader out there. So full disclosure there. One of the easiest methods to grade is to simply compare books to either CGC or ebay or other images. If you would rather have your book (without any slant for owning it) it grades higher, otherwise lower or the same. NM+ or even grading raw NM/MT is a little more time consuming and difficult to make that call. So there's how to grade and then there's time grading. The issue is not a dozen VG 1960s Walt Disney's that you can spend 10 seconds on or the F/VF Hulk 181 where you've memorized every nook and cranny. The problem is the VF to NM+ bronze age commons and semi keys worth $1-$20 each. A Fine is worth $1, a VFNM $5 and a NM+ $20. And a 10 second glance doesn't cut it. This gets into returns as well. Once I've misgraded a book the probability of a return is obviously higher and returns are simply bad. Buyer feels bad for bringing it up or is pissed he has to deal with what he thought was a good deal now turned bad. I have to deal with the return inventory, retaking scans etc etc. Shipping damage probabilities now doubled and what happens when it gets damaged in a return, how does that get handled? There are also multiple biases that I have to be aware of. The obvious one is my books Mint, your books VF but there are others. I think where I most often go wrong when grading is dealing with collections. Take a 1000 book collection of late Bronze. If it truly ranges from F to NM my bias is to see a nice book and think of it as NM- or NM. Then the next collection, like the Potomacs I've been selling has 90% NM- to NM+. As I go through those I'm more now looking for books not to be NM-. See the difference. Average condition collections I tend to over grade. High end tight collections I tend to undergrade. Other biases I have are some condition things I let go but others don't and vice versa. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ft88 Posted February 24, 2015 Author Share Posted February 24, 2015 Grading II Books have been written on how to grade but here's how I do it wthout getting too much into the half grades Good 2.0 Low grade book with lots allowed., cover should be attached, minimal tape, minimal staining, minimal pieces missing. Generally a decent book with lots of wear. G/VG 3.0. Lots wrong lots right with a G/VG. Usually a nice book with one big flaw or a book with lots of wear but pretty much complete like a VG VG 4.0. Lots right but a couple creases or a really nice VFNM type book but one big thing. Small stain, rusty staples, piece missing still allowed. VG/F 5.0 Really nice but too many 1 inch type creases or mulitple spine creases to be a Fine. No more missing pieces or staining or big flaws F 6.0 A nice book, usually with 1 or two corner creases or multiple large spine ticks F/VF 7.0 A really nice book, maybe a small corner crease and only light spine ticks VF 8.0 A NM type book but just enough corner bumps and spine ticks. Should look way better than a Fine on your first look. VF+ 8.5 a VF just less so. VFNM 9.0 Nearly perfect but a few spine ticks or soft corners make a VFNM NM- 9.2 One or two spine ticks or a soft corner or two. I allow for production bindery tears here. NM 9.4 Same as NM- just less so. Spine needs to not have noticeable spine ticks but can have NCB NM+ 9.6 Spine and corners need to be tight. Only the smallest NCB bends on spine or corners. I still allow for 1 very small bindery tear from production but the rest of the book needs to be perfect. A 9.6 does not needs to be a Gem Mint baseball card but there really shouldn't be any obvious flaw even on close inspection. NM/MT 9.8 - basically perfect. Any flaw at all brings this out of play. So on a semi key, say Battlestar Gallactica 1 that looks NM. Its nice to be in a room with good lighting. Check spine, staple, staple, corner corner corner corner. As I look at back cover I check spine again from the side angle. Check color (of usually white or black back cover) do the same back as you did front. Open to centerfold to check staples. Check pinups or MVS on those I know have them. Like the rest of you I get hung up on reading or re-reading a story as I'm doing this. But that's the fun part Then when I list the scanned book I check the image and see if I agree with my own grade based on the image. Often that NCB (non color breaking) bend in hand shows up differently on the screen and I simply missed it. So lower the grade accordingly. An old poster on these boards used to say - "you are not your comics" I agree and take that to mean, grade objectively as if they were not owned by you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
