A very different way to sell a colllection. 1 1

[Readcomix]

On November 15, 2017 at 9:48 AM, MustEatBrains said:

That idea is just cray cray IMO.  I would tell him flat out how ridiculous this is and wish him luck... He might come to his senses once he sits on these for a period of time with his scheme with 0 sales.

If you are really interested just tell him to allow you to look and everything and that you realize it's an all or nothing deal but need to see the collection in it's entirety to make an informed decision.  He obviously has a price in mind so I see no harm in having him just spit that out, let you review and you say yes, no or counter.

There will always be other opportunities that come along with better terms than this nutso proposition.  If you do happen to go, please let us know how it turns out. 

 

This.

The seller sounds to me mildly sociopathic, frankly, wanting to play some control game. I'd simply reply with my own terms, likely, similar to what MustEatBrains laid out, and if he declined I would politely welcome him to keep my number but assure him I won't be doing business that way. (Let's say box 1 of the 30 is the only one you don't want. His way, you both never know. The conventional way, you might well buy 1 unwanted box along with 29 you do want. Maybe that hypothetical would help him understand.)

I have heard of one other guy doing this, but he was a long-time collector, known to the dealer who was doing the buying, and the dealer knew it was all going to be Golden Age horror and war in nice shape, so it was fairly known quantity in comparison. I also do not think he was adamant about closing down the relationship if the dealer passed on anything, but then again they both knew  he would want pretty much all of it, so that tactic may not have been applicable. But it was very much a "this is what I am ready to sell now" kind of approach.

[Chip Cataldo]

No pics yet? Did you go back for Round 2, Shad?

[shadroch]

Dancer is the best VP instructor out there, but that software is pretty dated. Lots of very popular games didn't exist back then.

[justafan]

what was in the other 4 random boxes you bought for $150? 

I thought his strategy was going to be him picking box #1 which would be sprinkled with some goodies and offer you a borderline decent price that he knew you'd accept then hand you box #2 with more drek but still a bit of goodies at a less favorable price but still tantalizing you into a 3rd and 4th box.  However, his actual method seemed better: let you go though boxes, let you pick out the box you were interested in and make you a decent offer on the box that you'd accept and then after he had you hooked on 2 solid boxes, go in for the kill with a bulk purchase for a set price.  If he's willing to do $37.50 per box at a random amount he's probably just trying to get more than $20-25/long box at this point.  Which means he probably already made $40 and $30 profit (or acceptable margin) on the initial 2 boxes and tested your interest at a $50/box price point but found it at $37.50 per box.  If you want to proceed and think the rest are worth it I wonder if he'd take $30-37.50/box for the rest. If the other 4 boxes you bought were nearly all drek then you can see where his strategy was.

Not bad.  Great way to get rid of drek along with your good stuff.

[1Cool]

1 hour ago, justafan said:

what was in the other 4 random boxes you bought for $150? 

I thought his strategy was going to be him picking box #1 which would be sprinkled with some goodies and offer you a borderline decent price that he knew you'd accept then hand you box #2 with more drek but still a bit of goodies at a less favorable price but still tantalizing you into a 3rd and 4th box.  However, his actual method seemed better: let you go though boxes, let you pick out the box you were interested in and make you a decent offer on the box that you'd accept and then after he had you hooked on 2 solid boxes, go in for the kill with a bulk purchase for a set price.  If he's willing to do $37.50 per box at a random amount he's probably just trying to get more than $20-25/long box at this point.  Which means he probably already made $40 and $30 profit (or acceptable margin) on the initial 2 boxes and tested your interest at a $50/box price point but found it at $37.50 per box.  If you want to proceed and think the rest are worth it I wonder if he'd take $30-37.50/box for the rest. If the other 4 boxes you bought were nearly all drek then you can see where his strategy was.

Not bad.  Great way to get rid of drek along with your good stuff.

There has to be a lot of drek for him to feel happy with $70 a long box especially if there is nice stuff like Wolverine Limited issues sprinkled into the mix.

[shadroch]

First off ,they are short boxes, loosely packed. about 140 books in them. The six boxes yielded 850 books. 

About half is total . Three for a dollar fodder.  I'm happy with the results, but won't buy the entire lot for the same price as it mostly duplicated stuff I already own. 

On the plus side, I got six brand new BCW short boxes, about fifty mylar4s that I will repurpose and at least 200 mylite2s I'll find use for. 

Bad side is it took about four hours to loosely organize it.  If it is still there in six months, I'll buy again but first I need to move the stuff.