selling to mycomicshop.com 1 1

[crazyhips]

I have recently had the experience of buying VF comics from them that were 9.4 or better. On the other side of the coin, I have purchased some NM comics from them that were VF. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of mycomicshop. Just sharing my experience. I believe their grading to be accurate from a buying standpoint over many books when factoring in both under and over graded books.

Edited July 3, 2018 by crazyhips

[Ryan.]

1 hour ago, mycomicshop said:

Or in our case, grade tightly, and sell at that same grade. Every book that we buy at a particular grade will be sold at the same grade. This has always been the case and can be verified by watching books you sold pop up later on our new in stock page.

We recommend that first time sellers send us a smallish sample of books before committing a larger group. So you commit more books in a second transaction only if you're happy with the initial results. If you're not happy with how we graded your books, our system allows you to easily request the return of anything that we graded lower than you did. We would much rather create somebody who's pleased with the offer they got for their comics than somebody who thinks we treated them unfairly and they never sell to us again. We can't please everybody, but we've got tons of happy repeat sellers and we continue to buy over 150,000 comics a month, with a big chunk of that coming through the online want list system being discussed here, so it's working for somebody.

I encourage sellers to focus on this: if you didn't know that we graded something lower than you did, and all you had was our total offer for your comics, would you be happy with the offer, and is it a higher offer for less work than you could get for the comics elsewhere? If so, then grading disagreement aside perhaps you'd still consider it a good offer. If you think you'd get more elsewhere, then by all means go for that, whether that means listing them yourself on eBay or going with a different buyer.

The transparency of the reported grades when selling to us via our online want list system is both a strength of the system and a source of conflict. It's a strength because it lets you see per-grade offer prices up front, but that same transparency invites disagreement about grading. Would be nice if we could design a new version that keeps the strengths and reduces the opportunities to disagree on grade.

Is there a way to increase the exposure on your weekly auctions? The returns I usually get via the weekly auctions are less than stellar.

[JollyComics]

3 hours ago, Martin Sinescu said:

Yup, exact same here. I have maybe a 15% success rate where they agree with my grades. Like you, I've also sent stuff back that I bought from them originally (some Miracleman later issues) in the NM range that got knocked down into VF. Never removed them from the bag and still had their stickers on the back. That really cost me a good bit of money. Their selling tool is great though and it's a good way to dump random issues that are taking up valuable space. I haven't sold anything to them for a few years, I think, but if I were going to send stuff at this point, it wouldn't be anything worth more than a few bucks each just to minimize the hit I would take on the grades.

I don't buy raw books from them too often as it seems they rarely have anything I want above VF/NM or NM-, but several folks on here have said they thought the books they received were undergraded, so that's a win if you're buying. If that's the case, they may just be harsh across the board and, of course, they have a nice page on their site which shows their grading standards and that isn't necessarily going to correspond with CGC's standards.

With all that said, I still buy from them once every few months and the site is one of the best out there in terms of information (I use it almost daily), so I'm happy to support some aspects of their business.

 

I won Spectacular Spider-man #64 off the auction. They graded it 9.6 and I got 9.8 from CGC.  Also I bought DCCP #47 9.4 from MSC. It came back from CGC and I got 9.8.

[mycomicshop]

33 minutes ago, Ryan. said:

Is there a way to increase the exposure on your weekly auctions? The returns I usually get via the weekly auctions are less than stellar.

I'd first want to know some examples of what items you're talking about, so I can look at those specifically before providing feedback. If you'd like to send me a PM I will review with you there.

[revat]

For buying, I've bought plenty of chaff raws for $10 or less (non-auction, non-consignment).  I would agree the range is a bit more inconsistent than I would expect, but over a large sample size I think generally the books I've bought have been undergraded, which means I end up on the plus side of things (yay).  They're fine, generally better than some sites who consistently overgrade raws, like metropolis. 

Also pretty accurate is worldwide, who I think are more consistent on the whole, with less variation in grade.

[01TheDude]

I found it interesting that they decided to respond to my flippant remark. To be fair-- I've never dealt with them at all and was only making a goofy remark based on what I read in the thread. Just wanted that to be clear-- I know nothing about how they operate personally.

[Martin Sinescu]

2 hours ago, mycomicshop said:

Or in our case, grade tightly, and sell at that same grade. Every book that we buy at a particular grade will be sold at the same grade. This has always been the case and can be verified by watching books you sold pop up later on our new in stock page.

The experiences of buyers on the boards seem to back this up. MCS may buy on a tight grading scale, but they apparently turn them on the same scale, so at least it's across the board. It's just up to a seller to decide if the convenience is worth leaving that money on the table (as is the case pretty much anytime you sell to a dealer).

[mycomicshop]

4 minutes ago, 01TheDude said:

I found it interesting that they decided to respond to my flippant remark. To be fair-- I've never dealt with them at all and was only making a goofy remark based on what I read in the thread. Just wanted that to be clear-- I know nothing about how they operate personally.

Yours was the last message in the thread when I started my reply--my reply was more to the thread as a whole than you specifically.   And replying to your message gave me a good opportunity to make the point that we do sell at the same grade we reported when buying, since I feel like that's always an important distinction to make at the top whenever this kind of discussion comes up.

 

[Joosh]

I haven’t sold anything through MCS, only bought. I just want to say kudos on the MCS web design. It’s intuitive and I love that can search for a single issue or series.

 The books I’ve bought are late bronze and copper Spider-Man, graded on the conservative side but nothing crazy. I’ve also disagreed on some slabbed books’ grades from CGC and their former neighbors. That’s comics for you.

[miraclemet]

I've sold plenty to them (though last time I did it was a few years ago). Always been happy, but then again Im sending things in the 7.0-8.0 range (bronze, copper stuff worth $3-10/ea retail). I've always been within a grade with them on these...  Also found it nice to be able to list books on their application and then only sell them once the price is right, or I need some $$> 

[01TheDude]

Is this a case of people being unhappy that selling through a quasi-dealer system are having to take less for their books, same as if they had done this at a LCS?

[AllStar-Comics]

7 hours ago, 01TheDude said:

Is this a case of people being unhappy that selling through a quasi-dealer system are having to take less for their books, same as if they had done this at a LCS?

Its not taking  about less money   Its being told unread 9.6/9.8 books are VF  Advertising a buy price but then downgrading almost everything sent it is what bothers me. What is the probability that you sent in 40 copies of the same comics that were new/bagged/boarded from day 1 and and 40 get downgraded to VF  I could see a handful at worst had some printing defect or maybe got dinged in bulk shipping.

[oakman29]

19 hours ago, Jerkfro said:

I truly believe this is an overreaction to past times when their grading reputation was not good. I look at raw comics on their site and at times it's obvious that the comic is undergraded. Great for buyers. Not so great if you want to sell them raw comics.

Thats my opinion as well. I love buying from them, because I know I'm going to get better than the grade they gave it.Kinda how I feel about DeadOnes sales threads come think of it.

[Not A Clone]

Never sold to MCS, but bought plenty of books from them. Nothing but positive results. Love their website too. I actually got my ASM 667 Dell'Otto through them so thanks!

[Von Cichlid]

I don't know how great for the buyer their strict grading actually is though.  I always manage to find a better deal elsewhere.  

Case in point:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/Uncanny-X-Men-1st-Series-266-1990-VF-NM-9-0/312152530972?hash=item48adbda01c:g:yrEAAOSw-VtbFmXh

Here we have an X-Men 266 assigned a 9.0 that is not a consignment as far as I can tell.  They want $265.00.  Naturally, the book is still available.

I would be a whole lot more impressed with their strict grading if the pricing on the books actually reflected the grade they were giving it.  If you take an 8.0, grade it as a 6.5, but then price it as an 8.0, then that 6.5 grade you are assigning is totally an empty gesture.  That is just my opinion though. 

Edited July 4, 2018 by Von Cichlid

[Mmehdy]

under grading the book when buying and selling it under graded does the original  seller a disservice and that seller is the one to bear the reduced sales price,  to be fair, grading should be accurate as possible for everybody   and 9.4 is not a VF under any circumstances.

Edited July 4, 2018 by Mmehdy

[mycomicshop]

1 hour ago, Von Cichlid said:

I don't know how great for the buyer their strict grading actually is though.  I always manage to find a better deal elsewhere.  

Case in point:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/Uncanny-X-Men-1st-Series-266-1990-VF-NM-9-0/312152530972?hash=item48adbda01c:g:yrEAAOSw-VtbFmXh

Here we have an X-Men 266 assigned a 9.0 that is not a consignment as far as I can tell.  They want $265.00.  Naturally, the book is still available.

I would be a whole lot more impressed with their strict grading if the pricing on the books actually reflected the grade they were giving it.  If you take an 8.0, grade it as a 6.5, but then price it as an 8.0, then that 6.5 grade you are assigning is totally an empty gesture.  That is just my opinion though. 

I agree that one is overpriced and will look at it, but that has more to do with us not getting our pricing parameters right on that book than being part of an intentional strategy. We have hundreds of thousands of issues in stock to price, and sometimes we get things wrong. If the example you provided was representative of most of our inventory, we wouldn't be selling anything. There's also always going to be survivorship bias at play--the books we've gotten the pricing wrong and overpriced are going to be the ones that stick around and you keep seeing in stock. The ones priced reasonably or even underpriced get snapped up and don't last long. Some buyers trawl our new in stock inventory page every single day ready to pounce on books like that.

[shadroch]

Since the subject has been raised, I hate your weekly auctions. The time and energy spent on them could be better used elsewhere.

[kav]

57 minutes ago, mycomicshop said:

I agree that one is overpriced and will look at it, but that has more to do with us not getting our pricing parameters right on that book than being part of an intentional strategy. We have hundreds of thousands of issues in stock to price, and sometimes we get things wrong. If the example you provided was representative of most of our inventory, we wouldn't be selling anything. There's also always going to be survivorship bias at play--the books we've gotten the pricing wrong and overpriced are going to be the ones that stick around and you keep seeing in stock. The ones priced reasonably or even underpriced get snapped up and don't last long. Some buyers trawl our new in stock inventory page every single day ready to pounce on books like that.

I have to say I regularly get books at prices a couple grades below what I actually receive.  MCS is my go to when I need a run of books.  This example appears to be an anomaly.

[nocutename]

Here's my experience trading with MCS.  They are the only dealer that I know of that will buy a large range of comics.  They take books that I could not sell on a forum or ebay for that matter.   I have sold individual comics to them as well as a full runs.  Almost every time, the total amount I receive is just slightly more that the submitted amount.  I don't get caught up in what they downgraded or upgraded, I just focus on I want x amount for this lot.  I love selling books to MCS and when I did, more often than not, I took the credit to order more.  Everything was processed fairly quickly.  What sucks now is the shipping expense doesn't make sense unless I have an expensive book to put into the lot. 

My current experience with a popular semi-local dealer that is known to purchase large collections was a complete waste of time.  I was willing to sell him two highly sought after runs along with two other runs.  He would not give me an idea of what price point he would be willing to pay even though I gave him a grade range via email.  Nor was he willing to take the other two runs which really wasn't a lot of books either.  I like that dealer and have purchased from him in the past when I was actively collecting but I probably would never purchase from him again. 

Edited July 4, 2018 by nocutename