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Comic Prices?
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21 posts in this topic

Unfortunately there is no go-to source so you have to "do your homework" so-to-speak. 

Most agree that completed sales results such as eBay sold listings, GPA, and auction house completed sales are the best source of prices. This is fine if you are looking up individual sales of a specific comic. 

If you are looking up sales for entire runs of books, grab an Overstreet and find which books in the runs are the outliers. Price the outliers off completed sales listings. Take a sample of the run fillers and look up completed sales of those books and assume the other run filler books surrounding those are the same price. 

Generally speaking, 90something% of comics are worth $1 or less. Most collectible books are worth $1 plus shipping.

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2 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

ebay sold items, heritage has 600,000 unique auctions archived, mycomicshop has a deep inventory with a well priced inventory, dealer sites.  Depends what you're pricing out 

If you use listings on MCS DO NOT use the books listed as "consignment" books for reference.

These books are listed at 2-3 times their actual value, not MCS's fault, they only list them at what the consignor's asking price is.

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5 hours ago, FN-2199 said:

Most agree that completed sales results such as eBay sold listings, GPA, and auction house completed sales are the best source of prices. This is fine if you are looking up individual sales of a specific comic. 

If you are looking up sales for entire runs of books, grab an Overstreet and find which books in the runs are the outliers. Price the outliers off completed sales listings. Take a sample of the run fillers and look up completed sales of those books and assume the other run filler books surrounding those are the same price. 

Generally speaking, 90something% of comics are worth $1 or less. Most collectible books are worth $1 plus shipping.

This is a good approach. 

DO USE

  • completed eBay sales (especially auctions), but if you see an outlier, look at the listing. Condition matters, and undergraded books go for more than their listed grade, and overgraded books go for less. 
  • GPA (https://www.gpanalysis.com/) which tracks completed sales/auctions from a wide range of outlets (including eBay) but limits their scope to CGCed books. 
  • Heritage Auctions has a long history and good search engine if you are looking for big key books. 
  • Watch the auction houses that dont list with GPA (Comiclink and ComicConnect) and track books you are interested in to see what they go for compared to what you thought they would go for. 
  • our marketplace (use the search engine and see what books have had takers and at what price)

Dont Use

  • Overstreet for actual price expectations (it's a good overview, and gives some relative value assessment, but OPG has it's blind spots, and its overvalued spots (where the market has dropped, but the guide hasnt caught up)
  • eBay listings (Im talking about Buy It Now listings) many of them are over inflated asking prices, and have sat for years....
  • Mile High Comics. Just dont.

In general be leery of asking prices, and accepting of selling prices...

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I've been doing this for a little while now myself.  Mostly through ebay sold listings, but those can be tricky because running the same search different days or times sometimes delivers different results.  So I'll get an average sold price, then look up the book again, and I can't even find one of the sold listings I found the previous attempt.

The other thing to be wary of, is that the prices you'll find are entirely based on the condition of the book, and if you haven't scrutinized a comic before, you may be starting with an inflated number compared to your actual book.  If they aren't really old, then they need to be just about perfect.

FN-2199 had a good suggestion using the Overstreet price guide just to identify the one book out of a run of 100 that might be worth more than the rest.  That price probably won't be the going rate, but at least you'll know which ones to start checking.

Edited by SteppinRazor
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3 hours ago, SteppinRazor said:

I've been doing this for a little while now myself.  Mostly through ebay sold listings, but those can be tricky because running the same search different days or times sometimes delivers different results.  So I'll get an average sold price, then look up the book again, and I can't even find one of the sold listings I found the previous attempt.

The other thing to be wary of, is that the prices you'll find are entirely based on the condition of the book, and if you haven't scrutinized a comic before, you may be starting with an inflated number compared to your actual book.  If they aren't really old, then they need to be just about perfect.

FN-2199 had a good suggestion using the Overstreet price guide just to identify the one book out of a run of 100 that might be worth more than the rest.  That price probably won't be the going rate, but at least you'll know which ones to start checking.

That is a terrible suggestion in general, and especially if your runs are post-1980. Use a site like mycomicshop.com to do that, since they actually have an interest in properly pricing their books that are worth more than the surrounding issues.

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I use comicspriceguide.com as a starting point for quick search of books by issue or title.  Gives a good reference that is easily searchable from your phone once you set up the free account.  If i'm looking to buy or sell something specific then i would use ebay or other sites referenced to get a better feel for current market.

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For slabs you can use go collect, they have sales in all grades and include BIN and auction listings from eBay.

Its a fast simply way to see what comics have sold for over the last 24 months or so.

Edited by grayzr
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5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

That is a terrible suggestion in general, and especially if your runs are post-1980. Use a site like mycomicshop.com to do that, since they actually have an interest in properly pricing their books that are worth more than the surrounding issues.

Not to use for the price, just to ID the wheat from the chaff.  Maybe I'm just old, but I find running my finger down a list off all the numbers easier than searching on mycomicshop.  Pricing-wise, ebay makes the most sense

Edited by SteppinRazor
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5 minutes ago, SteppinRazor said:

Not to use for the price, just to ID the wheat from the chaff.  Maybe I'm just old, but I find running my finger down a list off all the numbers easier than searching on mycomicshop.  Pricing-wise, ebay makes the most sense

Yeah it can be very helpful to pull out all the books that might be winners.  Then you can do further research.

Edited by kav
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5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

That is a terrible suggestion in general, and especially if your runs are post-1980. Use a site like mycomicshop.com to do that, since they actually have an interest in properly pricing their books that are worth more than the surrounding issues.

When looking for a valuable book or hot variant in a run I find it quickest to search the title name, ranked highest selling price to lowest selling price on ebay

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12 hours ago, marvelmaniac said:

If you use listings on MCS DO NOT use the books listed as "consignment" books for reference.

These books are listed at 2-3 times their actual value, not MCS's fault, they only list them at what the consignor's asking price is.

Agreed, not all their prices are accurate but I don't use any one site in isolation.   I find my comicshop useful because their database is large and includes a cover image and information on the issue.  

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8 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

Agreed, not all their prices are accurate but I don't use any one site in isolation.   I find my comicshop useful because their database is large and includes a cover image and information on the issue.  

and those mcs cover images can help with various print/variants that I usually am not aware of. But yes, using any one site in isolation is not my preferred method

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12 minutes ago, Bird said:

and those mcs cover images can help with various print/variants that I usually am not aware of. But yes, using any one site in isolation is not my preferred method

After buying a huge modern collection with 15 boxes of variants I found MCS very helpful.

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58 minutes ago, SteppinRazor said:

Not to use for the price, just to ID the wheat from the chaff.  Maybe I'm just old, but I find running my finger down a list off all the numbers easier than searching on mycomicshop.  Pricing-wise, ebay makes the most sense

No, to see which books are actually worth something, rather than waiting a decade for the worthless OPG to break out the $20 #116 from the "101-149 ..... $3" run.

10 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

When looking for a valuable book or hot variant in a run I find it quickest to search the title name, ranked highest selling price to lowest selling price on ebay. 

That's okay for short runs with unique names, but not so great for longer runs, reused titles or common words. Try figuring out which issues of the 90s adjective-less Spider-Man title are worth something using that method (not that anything from that title is worth much). O.o

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