Is Half-Priced Books a good place to score comics or have they jumped the shark? 0

[F For Fake]

5 minutes ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

I posted in the Garage Sale thread, but the HPB near me has their calendar coupons for next year going now. Spend $30 and get the calendar free, which gives you 10% off a purchase once a month for 8 months in 2019.... I think it's worth it....

I'm surprised that no one in this thread has pointed to the recent gains with HPB stickers in the Garage/Antique thread, which is where I put the HPB's stuff  

It is worth noting as well that I saw a NM+ copy of "Vengeance of Bane #1" for $75  (too expensive), I didn't check to see if it was 1st print, but I'd assume so. They have some good stuff sometimes, and after going so often to find nothing, it is hard to keep going to see if they do. I learned this year that there were several key's that I would have bought if I had a coupon, so I'm prepared for 2019  

The coupons make it pretty sweet. I usually end up with a couple of calendars each year, plus they will often give out coupons when you sell them stuff, and run a few good sales throughout the year as well. HPB has paid off for me many, many times, so I'll keep going back. You just never know if you're going to be the one who gets there right after they put some cool stuff out. Or it could be the same old junk sitting there for a couple of weeks. It's all ebb and flow, depending on what people bring in, just like the LCS. But it's always fun to look.

[BabaLament]

I've done extremely well at HPB. Every three months I take a weekend and go on a tour of Houston; hitting every LCS & HPB in town. If you're willing to take the time and dig, the back issue bins at HPB can produce fantastic results. I've pulled a ton of #1's out of there; Conan (1st series), Ultimate Spider-Man, Judge Dredd (Eagle), Terminator (Now), X-O (Gold and Standard), Bloodshot, and full set of Teen Titans (1st series). Lots of runs can be found, it just takes time to dig through everything. On more than one occasion I've stopped by HPB first, cleaned out the bins, and if I find any high dollar books, I'll bag/board in my truck, and go to sell them at my LCS down the street.

 Not all stores are created equal, some of the staff are comics people, and have things organized & (unfortunately) have an idea of what prices are, others just dump the comics into the bin. If you get to know the people working the store and become a regular, after cleaning out the bins, ask if they'll let you look in the back. They usually have a couple of huge packing boxes full of comics on standby to refill the bins up front. That's where you can really find good stuff; before it gets picked over & abused by the general public.

The only things to be wary of are that they don't bag/board, they load the books into the binds in the same condition they purchase them in. So if someone offloads a ton of books on bag/board, they're generally ok. Also, these aren't comic collectors handling the books. HPB books are mostly handled by kids, so condition can take quite a hit. Regardless, I consider HPB to be a ready source of "I can't believe I found this!"

[F For Fake]

14 hours ago, BabaLament said:

I've done extremely well at HPB. Every three months I take a weekend and go on a tour of Houston; hitting every LCS & HPB in town. If you're willing to take the time and dig, the back issue bins at HPB can produce fantastic results. I've pulled a ton of #1's out of there; Conan (1st series), Ultimate Spider-Man, Judge Dredd (Eagle), Terminator (Now), X-O (Gold and Standard), Bloodshot, and full set of Teen Titans (1st series). Lots of runs can be found, it just takes time to dig through everything. On more than one occasion I've stopped by HPB first, cleaned out the bins, and if I find any high dollar books, I'll bag/board in my truck, and go to sell them at my LCS down the street.

 Not all stores are created equal, some of the staff are comics people, and have things organized & (unfortunately) have an idea of what prices are, others just dump the comics into the bin. If you get to know the people working the store and become a regular, after cleaning out the bins, ask if they'll let you look in the back. They usually have a couple of huge packing boxes full of comics on standby to refill the bins up front. That's where you can really find good stuff; before it gets picked over & abused by the general public.

The only things to be wary of are that they don't bag/board, they load the books into the binds in the same condition they purchase them in. So if someone offloads a ton of books on bag/board, they're generally ok. Also, these aren't comic collectors handling the books. HPB books are mostly handled by kids, so condition can take quite a hit. Regardless, I consider HPB to be a ready source of "I can't believe I found this!"

It's interesting how HPBs vary from location to location. One of mine seems to re-bag and board every single book in their own bags and boards, and the other store seems to leave them in the bags and boards they arrived in, and then uses a super cheap bag/board combo for the stuff they have to bag themselves. But the only books that aren't bagged and boarded are the stuff they dump in the 25 cent bin.

[BabaLament]

4 hours ago, F For Fake said:

It's interesting how HPBs vary from location to location. One of mine seems to re-bag and board every single book in their own bags and boards, and the other store seems to leave them in the bags and boards they arrived in, and then uses a super cheap bag/board combo for the stuff they have to bag themselves. But the only books that aren't bagged and boarded are the stuff they dump in the 25 cent bin.

Agreed. What gets me is that the store where the manager is a comics guy is the store that consistently has really weird bag/board issues. Like, the board will be located in the middle of the comic, or mixed into the pages somewhere. Always very odd to come across.

[kilowatt]

My HPB store used to be really great. That changed about a year or so ago. I would go in there once or twice a month and pick up some really nice books. Usually I`d pay $1.00 a book and the selection was decent. There were always new additions and the overflow books or one`s not yet sorted were next to the front counter. I`d ask the girl working if I could look through them and it was never a problem. That`s where I found the stuff that wasn`t picked through. I did this for a couple of years. I guess nobody had the courage to just ask. Anyway, I walked in one day and there was a locked cabinet with some harder to find books that were priced way above what they were worth. The stuff in the $1.00 bins were now all individually priced and the junk was the stuff now marked a buck. I was informed that a "Comic Guru" was hired and he felt that the store was losing money on these books that they paid 9 cents a piece for, and he will take over pricing each issue. This spread to the 2 other stores in the area and now they do it. No more bargains, no more looking behind the counter, no more of my money being spent there. I guess i was lucky while it lasted. Did nab some really good books over the years. The store has to keep the lights on somehow.