Comic Shops when they have to break the news that comics aren't worth squat. 2 2

[FineCollector]

1 minute ago, thehumantorch said:

Went to look at a collection about 6 months ago.  About 20 boxes of 12 to 20 cent cover price Dells and Charltons, a few DCs, all the worst titles like Twilight Zone, Korak, etc.  They were trashed.  All we could see was work.  Offered him $800 and he was crushed, he wanted 20k.  This is a collection that he's built for 40 years and a collection he loved.  When I got home I sent him a long email explaining why our offer was so low and telling him I wished we could value his books higher.  In the email I included links to sold items on ebay that were similar to what he had.  I explained that if we took all of his stuff to a show we wouldn't sell enough to pay for the space it took up.  He never replied and I'm sure he's still angry and upset.

He got a fair and professional opinion for free because you chose to educate, rather than ignore.  You did good.

[thehumantorch]

1 minute ago, FineCollector said:

He got a fair and professional opinion for free because you chose to educate, rather than ignore.  You did good.

Don't worry, had no problem sleeping that night.  We got the lead from a regular customer who cherry picked the three good books in the collection, mid grade Conan 1 was his best book.

[01TheDude]

The easiest thing to do when in doubt is to hang on to your books and let time go by.

Edited April 25, 2017 by 01TheDude

[thehumantorch]

25 minutes ago, porcupine48 said:

the odd family holed up in the apt building..the whole of it really.Just made me curious.

My mistake, I was leaning to 'I don't want one of his billy bob sons to club me over the head and skin me for being too nosey.'

[kav]

Remember the guy with the trashed wonder woman famous first ed that just would not accept that it wan't worth like $20,000 no matter how we tried to explain it...once someone gets dollar signs in their head-that's it-the brain is stuck on TILT

[shadroch]

Just came back from another such fruitless trip. Drove 50 miles roundtrip because a women I met at a 51s game told me she had a stack of board games from before she was old enough to play them. She looked to be in her upper 60s and said there were about a dozen board games. Said there was a Monopoly set that had wooden pieces, not plastic and the thing might be from the thirties, definitely before WW@2.

So I drive over and she has a box of board games, including a Classic Monopoly Game that clearly states its a 50th Anniversary Edition, and a replica of the original. She did have three Remco games I'd never heard of that were from the 1950s, but a quick ebay search showed numerous unsold copies.  Complete waste of an afternoon.

[kav]

yep that's how it usually goes

[Moondog]

The response I use  to let people know that what they have isn't worth anything goes like this.  "Everything has value, but not everything is valuable.  If a dealer had your small stack of books at a swap meet or convention he would probably ask $1.00 each.  That's value - but at one dollar it's not valuable.  And because it sells for a dollar, a dealer would not be interested at any price.  Now you know that your comics have no value.  That information in itself is VERY valuable.  You can recycle them knowing you're not throwing out a million dollars." 

People get this.

[Fan Boy]

My favourite LCS had gotten some of these people like that. They told me they had to explain why their books weren't worth much time to time. In the few exemptions, they did get some nice minor copies from the late 1960s/70s. I had picked few ones from them for good prices. 

Anyway, I had and still do check Craigslist for any new listings. There is one listing to my amusement... the seller had relisted his ads so many times to no end for 3 years. His prices varies at ridiculously high levels  !   I see many other listings with '90s Dreks with full prices. It amazes me how people think they are worth that or this whatever.  With internet aviable, they could find the true value and save their time. Yet, are blind or not wanting to know their books are worthless?  

It boggles my mind sometimes...  

[kav]

After 3 years without a bite you would think they would see the light but nope.  Reminds me of this guy-been up on ebay for like 8 years at least-hasn't lowered the price by a penny in all that time-never stops to think wait-if those 3 guys sigs together were worth 18K why would they screw around doings sigs at cons???:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/SPIDER-MAN-ORIGINAL-ART-VINNY-ROMITA-SIGNED-BY-JOHN-ROMITA-SR-JR-STAN-LEE-/370691265517?hash=item564eebd3ed:m:mWlnhFjEC4odHN7qRpecZTQ

 

[oakman29]

I can't imagine going to an LCS and getting Penny's on the dollar for my books.

[shadroch]

That's one of the reasons I offer my comic pawn business. Life happens and sometimes people need cash that day. Not everyone here is financially set.

[rjrjr]

18 hours ago, kav said:

Also, cherry pick a book, pay, then run off laughing and going OMG son-I just paid for your college!!!!

http://www.superdickery.com/category/superdickery/

[Quicksilver Signs]

19 hours ago, kav said:

like which keys are we talking about?    I think a sign saying we are not interested in books with cover price 40 cents or greater would be ok.

Bronze keys like every one still show up frequently - even if they're beater keys it's easy to move. I've found 3 Hulk 181's in random collections in the past few years and I'm not as obsessed about it as I was 10 years ago.

There are a ton of good sellers in the 80's era too - DK, Infinity stuff, Crisis, Killing Joke, yada yadda - even more common than bronze

[rjpb]

On 4/22/2017 at 3:53 AM, Bird said:

I met a lady in a parking lot with some early X-Men and Brave and the Bold. Prices were waaaay out of whack and I showed her some listings on mcs for many of the same comics and what they were asking for them. "I am selling them for my brother and he told me they were worth much more." I told her these were available and unsold so her brother was likely misinformed. Man she was angry but listened. They we both went home, I with my money and her with her comic bundles. I wondered why her brother wasn't selling them himself...prison is what I deduced!

If that was the case, then she might have been angry because her brother was going to be pissed if she doesn't sell them, and pissed if she does sell them for less than what he thinks they are worth. She realized she was in a lose-lose scenario.

[Bookery]

One of the problems is that the industry itself has over-promoted the idea that old comics are valuable... especially the OPG.  People don't get this false sense with used paperbacks or other modern-era items.  The paperback price guides over the years don't include last month's Stephen King novel.  Few expect their 1990s issues of Time Magazine to be worth a fortune.  Nobody complains when the hardback they spent $24.95 for is available next month at the used bookstore for a third of that or far less.  But there's this weird idea out there that all comics books will be worth cover-price or more down the road.  The OPG should remove any comic from its listings that's valued at less than $10 in NM (maybe then it could increase the font-size to a readable level for us oldsters)!

[rjpb]

On 4/23/2017 at 11:47 AM, ComicConnoisseur said:

+1

My uncle gave me a bunch of 78 rpm records to sell from the  1940s to 1960s. I looked them up. All worthless. He had none of the rare Jazz or Robert Johnson ones. I went around to shop after shop, and they all told me to throw them away.  I even offered them for free at one point,and still no takers. I decided to just donate them to a Goodwill. So old collectibles does not mean valuable as they like to think.

I know a guy who bought 300 old 78s at his neighbors yard sale for $75, a token amount for him, so really just on a whim. He knows nothing of collectable records  (he didn't even know they were called 78s, just that they were old). I don't know much about them either, but enough to tell him that unless they are old blues, jazz or country, they probably aren't even worth the quarter apiece he paid.

[ComicConnoisseur]

5 minutes ago, rjpb said:

I know a guy who bought 300 old 78s at his neighbors yard sale for $75, a token amount for him, so really just on a whim. He knows nothing of collectable records  (he didn't even know they were called 78s, just that they were old). I don't know much about them either, but enough to tell him that unless they are old blues, jazz or country, they probably aren't even worth the quarter apiece he paid.

Exactly. I guess like everything else in that 90 percent of collectibles are worthless,while the other 10 percent is where the money is.

Those Robert  Johnson 78s are like holy grails. I was hoping my uncle had a few. No luck,just junk. lol.

[ADAMANTIUM]

My parents have a late 1920's to early 1930's victrola with some 35's or something like that, maybe I should ask them if I could sell it and make a MINT ---jk

I wish it was worth something, but they just uses it to pile blankets and other cloth on top of it

Edited April 25, 2017 by ADAMANTIUM

[the blob]

1 hour ago, Bookery said:

One of the problems is that the industry itself has over-promoted the idea that old comics are valuable... especially the OPG.  People don't get this false sense with used paperbacks or other modern-era items.  The paperback price guides over the years don't include last month's Stephen King novel.  Few expect their 1990s issues of Time Magazine to be worth a fortune.  Nobody complains when the hardback they spent $24.95 for is available next month at the used bookstore for a third of that or far less.  But there's this weird idea out there that all comics books will be worth cover-price or more down the road.  The OPG should remove any comic from its listings that's valued at less than $10 in NM (maybe then it could increase the font-size to a readable level for us oldsters)!

People want to convince themselves of stuff, that they have a treasure or paid a great price.  I was working a friend's table at a pre-NYCC Javitz show (dunno if it was the only one) and a guy comes up and asks why we aren't "half price" like the other table, only 25% off, and he shows me some Dell he bought for $10, half of $20.  We had the same issue for like $15, pre-discount.  But his copy is trashed and our copy is about a VF.  I'm telling him our's is $1 more or whatever, but is a much better copy.  He just isn't getting it.