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Dealers!? How do you figure out what goes in the dollar box?
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106 posts in this topic

11 minutes ago, jaeldubyoo said:

I don't understand how people won't think twice about spending a few bucks for a cup of coffee, yet waver in a decision to buy a comic for a dollar. I'd rather forgo the coffee and spend it on comics. 

Sometimes I try to speed up the process by telling them I sold one just like that on ebay for $15. probably a lie, but he's slowing me down.

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50 minutes ago, jaeldubyoo said:

I don't understand how people won't think twice about spending a few bucks for a cup of coffee, yet waver in a decision to buy a comic for a dollar. I'd rather forgo the coffee and spend it on comics. 

I've had people him and haw over a 50 center book and also a book from my $2 box (remember silver bronze mostly marvel/dc)  But usually they already have a few books and if they're really torn I just give it to them. 

Here's a great story: Guy walks down the hall wearing a mister miracle shirt.  I say to him, "hey I got a bunch of mister miracles from the first series $2 each!"

Yup, great series, I love it!  (keeps on walking).  Here I was thinking, uber surcharge time, special price of $5 for this guy!  Nope.  lol

And I know there's guys that want to rummage through the cheapies to maybe get a $10 book, but to do that on a regular basis really is a negative sum gain when you factor in time/travel.  It's one thing if you want to pickup other books (or are already there), but to go to shows on a regular basis to spend 2-4 hours of your time to find $30 worth of books that cost you $5 - no thanks.....

And any time I see kids (assuming it's not the little peckers playing hockey in the hallway) I tell them to go grab a cheap book for free (parents love that).

Edited by spreads
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6 hours ago, 1Cool said:

I'll translate - most of the time he buys books from people who give some good to great deals in their $1 boxes.  Sounds like people did not like it when he said this in the past.

Sorry, I don't make sense in the morning.  Essentially, yes, if I get a good deal on a wall book, or I'm finding books in your dollar bin that I would've paid more for, I'll reward the seller by picking up stuff that I need, but pass over because it's in everyone's dollar bins (Namor, Quasar, All Star Squadron).

Question to the dealers: how many times do you salt your dollar bins before you decide to give up, and sell the rest as bulk?

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From the other side (not a dealer, but I buy a lot out of these boxes at cons because that's where a lot of my run needs have been), I don't really look for deals/seeded books, because I'm looking for specific titles; I just look for high grade versions of the non-key issues I need to fill my run (UXM and What If? v1, the latter of which I finished a few years back). I think I found a semi-key in one of these kinds of boxes once, the dealer claimed it was mis-filed (likely), and we settled on something in-between the box price and the sticker price. But if the issues I need are there in good condition, I may easily pick up 20-30+ books. For me, that means I prefer the $1 boxes and maybe trying to make a bulk deal over the $2-3 boxes with the same stuff, for obvious reasons (double-triple cost, heh). But I usually see a few other people always picking through these at the same time, usually also pulling out large stacks.

I don't know...for me, I like sifting $1 boxes for the run filler that has no real value to anyone but run collectors (which I know are rarer and rarer these days), and that's what I hope to see in them. From a higher-priced box ($3-5), I'd personally rather pull out reader copies of SA stuff. I mean, yeah, that 9.6+ copy of UXM 444 (or some other random issue) might technically book for like $8-10, but nobody's going to want that other than someone trying to fill a run...but I'd pay $5 for a beat-up 2.0-3.0ish copy of X-Men 31.

I don't know...just my perspective. Obviously, there are business constraints that have to dictate these box contents more than anything else, and I understand that. Even if I get sadder every NYCC when I see fewer and fewer $1 boxes and more and more $2/$3 boxes with the same things.

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My question is what does a person expect to find from a comic in a dollar box organizational and presentation wise? Do you expect the books to be in alphanumerical order? New bags and boards? 

I find for myself that the labor cost to put your dollar books in complete alphanumerical and not just sections is just not cost effective let alone put them in new bags and boards. 

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53 minutes ago, Pike's Comics said:

My question is what does a person expect to find from a comic in a dollar box organizational and presentation wise? Do you expect the books to be in alphanumerical order? New bags and boards? 

I find for myself that the labor cost to put your dollar books in complete alphanumerical and not just sections is just not cost effective let alone put them in new bags and boards. 

Agree on both counts, definitely not worth bagging/boarding...

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1 hour ago, Pike's Comics said:

My question is what does a person expect to find from a comic in a dollar box organizational and presentation wise? Do you expect the books to be in alphanumerical order? New bags and boards? 

I find for myself that the labor cost to put your dollar books in complete alphanumerical and not just sections is just not cost effective let alone put them in new bags and boards. 

It really depends on the show.  There is a big dealer (comics4less?) at Baltimore last year that had multiple booths full of $1 books and they are all bagged and boarded and in order.  I do have to say I kind of expect $1 books to be bagged and boarded but not necessarily in order. 

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I will say, as a regular dollar box diver, that while I don't EXPECT the books to be bagged and boarded, it does make browsing easier. If you're a dealer with several dozen dollar boxes, no, it wouldn't make any sense to go back and bag and board a lot of the books, considering that most of them are completely worthless. But when flipping through, I will carefully flip over every bagged and boarded book, whereas the "raw" books tend to clump together, get damaged, are yellowed, etc so it's easier to just pass them by. Sometimes it'll be nicer stuff and it's worth the time to look at each book, but for the most part it's not worth the time.

As for ordering them, no, I see no purpose in that. The whole point of dollar diving (aside from the cheapness, naturally) is the thrill of discovery. It's panning for gold. I actually really enjoy the random nature of having no idea what to expect in each box.

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I will also say that it is my experience that most of these collections are being put out for sale exactly as they were received. So if the dealer bought a collection that was bagged and boarded and sorted, that's how they go out. If they were all "raw", that's how they go out. The entire point of buying and selling bulk is to buy cheap and turn the junk over quickly. Putting time and money into bagging and boarding and sorting a box of drek you probably paid $20 for is counterproductive. It's worth taking a flip through to make sure you didn't overlook any gems, for sure, but that's about all the time that's worth it. I would be surprised if a dealer piped in and said they noticed they made better dollar bin sales when they bagged and sorted the books, though I could be wrong.

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45 minutes ago, F For Fake said:

I will also say that it is my experience that most of these collections are being put out for sale exactly as they were received. So if the dealer bought a collection that was bagged and boarded and sorted, that's how they go out. If they were all "raw", that's how they go out. The entire point of buying and selling bulk is to buy cheap and turn the junk over quickly. Putting time and money into bagging and boarding and sorting a box of drek you probably paid $20 for is counterproductive. It's worth taking a flip through to make sure you didn't overlook any gems, for sure, but that's about all the time that's worth it. I would be surprised if a dealer piped in and said they noticed they made better dollar bin sales when they bagged and sorted the books, though I could be wrong.

I see a lot of people looking thru $1 boxes with want lists so I'd think those people would be more inclined to grab a stack of books if they are in order.  

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12 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

I see a lot of people looking thru $1 boxes with want lists so I'd think those people would be more inclined to grab a stack of books if they are in order.  

I do the same, just like digging for stuff. They don't need to be in order,  but a high level sorting (Marvel - DC- Others) is a nice touch.

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34 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

I see a lot of people looking thru $1 boxes with want lists so I'd think those people would be more inclined to grab a stack of books if they are in order.  

I'm sure you're right about a lot of folks, it's just not relevant to my experience.

PS to add: The question is whether those additional run-fillers are making enough to sales to offset the time and expense of bagging and boarding. It's interesting to me, but I don't have the answer.

Edited by F For Fake
still running my mouth
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1 hour ago, F For Fake said:

I will say, as a regular dollar box diver, that while I don't EXPECT the books to be bagged and boarded, it does make browsing easier. If you're a dealer with several dozen dollar boxes, no, it wouldn't make any sense to go back and bag and board a lot of the books, considering that most of them are completely worthless. But when flipping through, I will carefully flip over every bagged and boarded book, whereas the "raw" books tend to clump together, get damaged, are yellowed, etc so it's easier to just pass them by. Sometimes it'll be nicer stuff and it's worth the time to look at each book, but for the most part it's not worth the time.

As for ordering them, no, I see no purpose in that. The whole point of dollar diving (aside from the cheapness, naturally) is the thrill of discovery. It's panning for gold. I actually really enjoy the random nature of having no idea what to expect in each box.

50 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

I see a lot of people looking thru $1 boxes with want lists so I'd think those people would be more inclined to grab a stack of books if they are in order.  

I'm definitely somewhere on this spectrum. If I see dollar boxes that're bagged and boarded, I'll probably look through most or all of it. If it isn't, but it's sorted at least by title or letter, I'll go through just for my want list, so just 1-2 titles/letters. If it's totally unsorted or sorted at too high a level, though (like company), I'll probably pass them by unless it's just a single box or two, or in a situation where there may be anything in there (i.e., flea market or garage sale). I understand that it may not be worth the time/return to bag and board dollar books, but I already see them as more likely to have condition issues if they're loose, and to sort through 10+ boxes of loose, unsorted books just to find non-key run filler, or worse, to find out that there aren't any for the title(s) I want, or not any of the ones I need...I find myself more likely to just keep walking. But that's just me.

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2 hours ago, F For Fake said:

I will also say that it is my experience that most of these collections are being put out for sale exactly as they were received. So if the dealer bought a collection that was bagged and boarded and sorted, that's how they go out. If they were all "raw", that's how they go out. The entire point of buying and selling bulk is to buy cheap and turn the junk over quickly. Putting time and money into bagging and boarding and sorting a box of drek you probably paid $20 for is counterproductive. It's worth taking a flip through to make sure you didn't overlook any gems, for sure, but that's about all the time that's worth it. I would be surprised if a dealer piped in and said they noticed they made better dollar bin sales when they bagged and sorted the books, though I could be wrong.

Agreed, putting a bag and board on a book at a cost of what, 9 -12 cents, even if you buy them by the 1000, you're selling for $1, and likely giving a discount on beyond that late in the show or if someone buys a bunch, probably doesn't make a ton of sense. It's a shame though, because a lot of stuff gets trashed. Of course, I don't really understand putting a bag on these books either, and many dealers do that. Sure, you're spending 7-8 or whatever cents less, but you're going through the time and effort to put the book in there, tape it up, etc. You might as well go all the way. One of my usual NYCC stops did that for a long time with his $1 books (last show he said he wasn't bringing $1 books anymore), often BA books in really nice shape I would like to put a board in, but opening up the taped up bag and trying to do that makes damage highly likely and takes time. I wind up keeping the bag on and just sliding the books into SA bags/boards, resulting in double bagged books.

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9 hours ago, Pike's Comics said:

My question is what does a person expect to find from a comic in a dollar box organizational and presentation wise? Do you expect the books to be in alphanumerical order? New bags and boards? 

I find for myself that the labor cost to put your dollar books in complete alphanumerical and not just sections is just not cost effective let alone put them in new bags and boards. 

If you don't bag and board your dollar books, they aren't going to be in sellable condition after a convention or two. 

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2 hours ago, F For Fake said:

I'm sure you're right about a lot of folks, it's just not relevant to my experience.

PS to add: The question is whether those additional run-fillers are making enough to sales to offset the time and expense of bagging and boarding. It's interesting to me, but I don't have the answer.

I usually only bring low end books when I do 4+ booths at a show (400sf). I've mostly switched to doing $2 books but I have them all in order and bagged and boarded making sure all older bags have been replaced to give a uniform presentation. Victory Comics does a great set up using this methology. 

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I have a friend that has owned a store near me for about 25 years now.  He hasn’t done shows for at least 10 years.  He bags all of his dollar books using the resealable bags.  He does not put them in order, just puts a new box out whenever it’s ready.  Never in my life, have I seen someone sell more dollar books than him.  His customers can’t get enough.  This guy is known for buying and selling big books (at least a grand each) constantly.  But, he doesn’t even have to sell the big books from collections because he sells so many dollar books.  Maybe it’s just his customer base, I don’t know.  I do know one thing, it’s always a feeding frenzy every week when he freshens up the dollar boxes.  Many of his customers over the years have told me how much they like that his dollar books are bagged.

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We can simplify the answer with a perfect example of completed and current ebay sales to perfectly illustrate the type of dreck that belongs in $1.00 and less bargain boxes. The material that Tonfulle-84 and TurtleCrazyGirl1999 forge Stan Lee autographs on, which is worth even less when defaced with the worthless ink:

Current Stan Lee forged bargain box dreck:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/Tonfulle-84/m.html?_ipg=50&_sop=1&_rdc=1 

 

Past Stan Lee forged bargain box dreck:

https://www.ebay.com/csc/tonfulle-84/m.html?LH_Complete=1&_ipg=50&_since=15&_sop=13&_rdc=1 

https://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=tonfulle-84&ftab=AllFeedback

https://www.ebay.com/csc/turtlecrazygirl1999/m.html?LH_Complete=1&_ipg=50&_since=15&_sop=13&_rdc=1

https://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=turtlecrazygirl1999&ftab=AllFeedback

 

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