Dealers!? How do you figure out what goes in the dollar box? 2 2

[spreads]

1 hour ago, Jimbo749 said:

I asked the owner of my go-to LCS about the dollar bin and the method is pretty similar. Books that sit and don't sell go into the $3 bin, then if they still don't sell they go into the $1 bin. 

Stores have to be MUCH PICKIER.  Many of them don't have the space to waste on product that doesn't move....you need to start factoring in some accounting to determine how well your inventory is moving, and I imagine with a store that has regular subs the inventory is continually-building.

[Jimbo749]

4 minutes ago, spreads said:

Stores have to be MUCH PICKIER.  Many of them don't have the space to waste on product that doesn't move....you need to start factoring in some accounting to determine how well your inventory is moving, and I imagine with a store that has regular subs the inventory is continually-building.

That makes sense, especially when the store still actively buys collections. 

[the blob]

On 2/4/2018 at 8:51 AM, 1Cool said:

There does seem to a slightly disturbing trend forming where previously common $5 books like Silver Age mid grades (especially DCs) are finding their way to the$1 bins.  90s books in $1 bins is a given, 80s books in non high grade are common in there but 60s books in $1 bins is just scary.  

I need to go to a show where dealers aren't paying NYCC rent I suppose. I get free passes so it winds up being my show for the year. I had a bunch of guys who used to do dollar boxes say it just isn't worth it to bring stuff for $1 and they now have $2 boxes. Sure, NYCC still had a few of their usual dollar guys, but I wonder how they survive and other than the mistake, there is very little in terms of $10-$15 guide books to be found (of course, maybe now everything is $10-$15..I haven't looked at a guide in 5 years). I did snag like 12 copies of MCP 72 from one dollar guy 2 years ago. That probably has some silly value in OPG now.

Edited February 5, 2018 by the blob

[the blob]

On 2/4/2018 at 8:51 AM, 1Cool said:

There does seem to a slightly disturbing trend forming where previously common $5 books like Silver Age mid grades (especially DCs) are finding their way to the$1 bins.  90s books in $1 bins is a given, 80s books in non high grade are common in there but 60s books in $1 bins is just scary.  

Buy it all and then you will have an Ohio monopoly on that stuff! Frankly, if we are talking about decent DC silver age books for $1 I have to wonder how any of these dealers keep that in stock. I know they're a slow sale, but I'm still a collector too, and I wouldn't be able to stop myself from buying a short box of them if they were available. Even Jimmy Olsen needs to be pretty rough for me to not buy a 12 cent cover price book for a buck. I see these books in $2 boxes here with severe flaws like rusty staples and I take a pass.

[spreads]

45 minutes ago, the blob said:

Buy it all and then you will have an Ohio monopoly on that stuff! Frankly, if we are talking about decent DC silver age books for $1 I have to wonder how any of these dealers keep that in stock. I know they're a slow sale, but I'm still a collector too, and I wouldn't be able to stop myself from buying a short box of them if they were available. Even Jimmy Olsen needs to be pretty rough for me to not buy a 12 cent cover price book for a buck. I see these books in $2 boxes here with severe flaws like rusty staples and I take a pass.

There's definitely a bit of a 'collector' mindset of selling these type of books too cheap, which would depend on the individual and some of their personal collecting tastes.

Definitely the venue depends on where the cheap stuff can be had, I can attend a monthly show very cheaply which allows me to have 50 cent boxes.  The bigger the venue (more cost associated with it going up) the higher the floor is for minimum prices/book. 

[1Cool]

46 minutes ago, the blob said:

Buy it all and then you will have an Ohio monopoly on that stuff! Frankly, if we are talking about decent DC silver age books for $1 I have to wonder how any of these dealers keep that in stock. I know they're a slow sale, but I'm still a collector too, and I wouldn't be able to stop myself from buying a short box of them if they were available. Even Jimmy Olsen needs to be pretty rough for me to not buy a 12 cent cover price book for a buck. I see these books in $2 boxes here with severe flaws like rusty staples and I take a pass.

I did grab the nicest one's I saw but I'm kicking myself for passing on a short box or so.  Selling DC fillers is such a pain on E-Bay that I tend to pass but there has been some very successful sales threads on the boards of DC fillers so maybe the guy will still have some next year or maybe even got in some new stuff.

[the blob]

38 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

I did grab the nicest one's I saw but I'm kicking myself for passing on a short box or so.  Selling DC fillers is such a pain on E-Bay that I tend to pass but there has been some very successful sales threads on the boards of DC fillers so maybe the guy will still have some next year or maybe even got in some new stuff.

Honestly, they'd probably sell for $2 each really easily at my annual yard sale.  When I put anything remotely old looking out (like 30 cent or earlier cover price), even in lousy shape, people scoop them up for $1 each

[the blob]

41 minutes ago, spreads said:

There's definitely a bit of a 'collector' mindset of selling these type of books too cheap, which would depend on the individual and some of their personal collecting tastes.

Definitely the venue depends on where the cheap stuff can be had, I can attend a monthly show very cheaply which allows me to have 50 cent boxes.  The bigger the venue (more cost associated with it going up) the higher the floor is for minimum prices/book. 

I think the guys I deal with are mainly just merging their old $1 and $2 box books and making them all $2, so you have to spend more time sifting through books to find the stuff that warrants the $2 price. I think one of my usual $1 guys went to 50 cents late saturday rather than waiting for sunday. I was a little surprised. He generally doesn't have anything "valuable" in there, but it is pretty good stuff for that price. bought a nice run of DHP Concretes, for example.

[spreads]

17 hours ago, the blob said:

Honestly, they'd probably sell for $2 each really easily at my annual yard sale.  When I put anything remotely old looking out (like 30 cent or earlier cover price), even in lousy shape, people scoop them up for $1 each

That's what my $2 box is; Silver Gold Key, Charlton;  Bronze (70s only) Marvel/DC.  They are steady sellers because there aren't many people that offer them at that price (where else can you get them) and there's a lot of titles in that era where the series only had 20-50 books, so if you're able to knock off a big run of the series cheap it's even more attractive to buyers. 

Really at the end of the day you need to know your market, each place is different.  Although it's great to be able to solicit information from people that are/have done this, you need some trial-and-error to determine what works for you. 

 

[the blob]

If i had access to a good supply of 15-25/30 center cover price monster/superhero/war books at 20 cents each with covers i am semi confident i could sell a couple hundred at $1 each at my neighborhood annual yard sale. But i don't and probably won't.

 

 

[1Cool]

15 minutes ago, spreads said:

That's what my $2 box is; Silver Gold Key, Charlton;  Bronze (70s only) Marvel/DC.  They are steady sellers because there aren't many people that offer them at that price (where else can you get them) and there's a lot of titles in that era where the series only had 20-50 books, so if you're able to knock off a big run of the series cheap it's even more attractive to buyers. 

Really at the end of the day you need to know your market, each place is different.  Although it's great to be able to solicit information from people that are/have done this, you need some trial-and-error to determine what works for you. 

 

I also see a vastly different batch of books in the $1 boxes in the first few Cons of the year compared to the last couple Cons of the year.  Books that have sat around for the whole summer quickly get moved from the $5 boxes to the $1 bins just to clear up space for a winters worth of purchases.  There really is no tried and true format that I can see expect every dealer wants to make the most they can for each book but they only have a finite amount of time they will take to sell most lower cost books.

[the blob]

5 hours ago, 1Cool said:

I also see a vastly different batch of books in the $1 boxes in the first few Cons of the year compared to the last couple Cons of the year.  Books that have sat around for the whole summer quickly get moved from the $5 boxes to the $1 bins just to clear up space for a winters worth of purchases.  There really is no tried and true format that I can see expect every dealer wants to make the most they can for each book but they only have a finite amount of time they will take to sell most lower cost books.

It's surprising to me that dealers are able to re-stock the older stuff so readily that they feel the need to blow it out at the end of con season.  On the other hand, I look at myself in the mirror and I am a heart attack waiting to happen (nearly got there already a while back) and that will be 10-15,000 or so GA/SA/BA books (and another 10-15,000 copper/modern) that someone will get their hands on unless my kids decide to become comic dealers (I am getting my 12 year old thinking about it as a side gig).

[spreads]

18 hours ago, the blob said:

It's surprising to me that dealers are able to re-stock the older stuff so readily that they feel the need to blow it out at the end of con season.  On the other hand, I look at myself in the mirror and I am a heart attack waiting to happen (nearly got there already a while back) and that will be 10-15,000 or so GA/SA/BA books (and another 10-15,000 copper/modern) that someone will get their hands on unless my kids decide to become comic dealers (I am getting my 12 year old thinking about it as a side gig).

This is not directed toward you, but don't you feel your health and overall lifestyle is more important than holding-onto this amount of comics?  I know of at least a few dealers that have this mentality of not letting-go, either wanting to sell a key comic or refusing to go below a certain dollar level ($3 a comic). 

[october]

1 hour ago, spreads said:

 I know of at least a few dealers that have this mentality of not letting-go, either wanting to sell a key comic or refusing to go below a certain dollar level ($3 a comic). 

It's why so many of them are also undercapitalized, and have to take out a loan, bring in another dealer, or do time payments when buying a new collection. 

Cutting loose of dead inventory and freeing up cash is part of running a good business; it doesn't matter if it's comics or something else. There's a reason why a cash flow statement is a basic part of financial reporting. 

[the blob]

2 hours ago, spreads said:

This is not directed toward you, but don't you feel your health and overall lifestyle is more important than holding-onto this amount of comics?  I know of at least a few dealers that have this mentality of not letting-go, either wanting to sell a key comic or refusing to go below a certain dollar level ($3 a comic). 

I am not a dealer holding on to inventory, I am a fat [government..so not making big bucks] lawyer who collects comics and sells a few. They're not impacting my physical health. I have a room for them we aren't using (I have a big house). I would like to get some cash flow out of them, but I have been very busy with work though and haven't been selling lately. I agree that for my mental health it would be good to get this down to a more manageable number and to get cash flow out of them, but I am not going to drag long boxes to a comic shop to get 5 cents a book. That really isn't worth the physical effort.

Edited February 7, 2018 by the blob

[1Cool]

1 hour ago, the blob said:

I am not a dealer holding on to inventory, I am a fat [government..so not making big bucks] lawyer who collects comics and sells a few. They're not impacting my physical health. I have a room for them we aren't using (I have a big house). I would like to get some cash flow out of them, but I have been very busy with work though and haven't been selling lately. I agree that for my mental health it would be good to get this down to a more manageable number and to get cash flow out of them, but I am not going to drag long boxes to a comic shop to get 5 cents a book. That really isn't worth the physical effort.

You a good long-standing board member with a good eye so I'd think people would come to you if you purged the long boxes of drek.  They may only pay $25 - $30 a long boxes for picked drek but it would give you some cash and clear out some unwanted boxes.  You live near New York, right?

[the blob]

3 hours ago, 1Cool said:

You a good long-standing board member with a good eye so I'd think people would come to you if you purged the long boxes of drek.  They may only pay $25 - $30 a long boxes for picked drek but it would give you some cash and clear out some unwanted boxes.  You live near New York, right?

Nooooo...my precious! (Fondles short box of comics...)

But honestly, depending on whether I am still itemizing my taxes after the change in the tax law, it probably makes more sense to box up a bunch of longies and donate them at a $2 per book figure to various thrift shops around me. I did it 2 years ago with about 80% of my early/mid 90s image garbage. I can probably get rid of 2-3 longies a year without getting audited. I probably got rid of a ton of newsstand versions that way....

 

Just to clarify, I don't think I am about to drop dead. I had a scare a while back that was more work stress than anything. Despite being a bit fatty I somehow have a BP of 120/80.

 

 

Edited February 7, 2018 by the blob

[1950's war comics]

6 minutes ago, the blob said:

Nooooo...my precious! (Fondles short box of comics...)

But honestly, depending on whether I am still itemizing my taxes after the change in the tax law, it probably makes more sense to box up a bunch of longies and donate them at a $2 per book figure to various thrift shops around me. I did it 2 years ago with about 80% of my early/mid 90s image garbage. I can probably get rid of 2-3 longies a year without getting audited. I probably got rid of a ton of newsstand versions that way....

 

Just to clarify, I don't think I am about to drop dead. I had a scare a while back that was more work stress than anything. Despite being a bit fatty I somehow have a BP of 120/80.

 

 

i pray you get the energy and motivation to start getting back in shape and eating healthy 

[the blob]

I will try. My lunch of Zingers and HoHos was not a good start.

[1Cool]

Zingers and HoHos