Question: Best months for selling/buying slabs? Answers inside. 3 3

[Dark Prime 0]

11 hours ago, Karl Liebl said:

Yes.  I wasted a lot of money doing things the wrong way.  Live and learn.  Did CGS cut me any slack? Heck no lol.  All books I sent in have been disappointing.  Its a great service for buyers but very disheartening for people with raw books to go through as your big money dreams will be slashed by 50 to 90 percent.  What is better truth or delusion?  That being said I did just buy a 1200 buck slabbed book, game on i guess lol...

look at raw gradeing as a game, sometimes you hit and sometimes you miss.  though if your going to play the game learn to grade better or at least be realistic in what you think they will get, the majority of my books were all bought raw and sometimes i miss and it's worse somtimes they come back better or close to what i thought they would..........point is you can't take it personaly or it sucks all the fun out of it.   never sell to a dealer, in fact make that the last thing you do not the 1st since there are so meny different optinons to selling so you reap the rewards and not them.

[valiantman]

20 hours ago, jsilverjanet said:

any chance we can remove under $50 dollar CGC books or see the data of sales under $50

[1Cool]

29 minutes ago, valiantman said:

That is kind of shocking.  More then 65,000 slabs per year have been sold less then $50.  I'd guess a large majority of these books are brand new moderns.  But if it only cost $20 - $23 a book to get a book slabbed then a $45 modern will make you $20 a book after fees.  You would have to press your own books (or not press moderns) and submit at Cons to avoid the shipping cost to CGC to get the average price down to $20 a book but it is definitely doable.  Even copper age books can be graded in bulk for a little over $20 a book.  I subbed 100 books recently and it cost me $100 to ship the large package to CGC (my comic book collectors insurance covered most of the insurance but i need that anyhow).  I do my own pressing so very little per book cost (bit of time but you can fit it in while doing other stuff) and grading was $18 per book (lets bump that to $20 to cover some rejects in a prescreen).  Return shipping is about $2 a book for lower price slabs so the total is only $23 per book for everything included.  Personally I'd think assuming the max price realized would be $45 is a bit of a waste of time but some people must be doing it for a part time living to get 65,000 per year.

Edited November 19, 2018 by 1Cool

[LordRahl]

5 hours ago, Ryan. said:

It jumps from $15 to $20? 

What I meant was the entire equation. Silver costs more to buy (either raw or already slabbed if you play the CPR game). Most slabbed silver will sell for far more than $200, at least at the high grade end of the spectrum where CPR mostly happens. Margins are going to be lower percentage for the most part but larger net dollars. And yes your pressing fees will be $5 bucks higher

[valiantman]

24 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

That is kind of shocking.  More then 65,000 slabs per year have been sold less then $50.  I'd guess a large majority of these books are brand new moderns.

Just for fun, here's a random sample of some of those recently-completed sales:

Amazing Spider-Man Giant Sized Annual #21 CGC 6.5 F+ White Pages 1987 $23.00
X-MEN #147 CGC 9.6 WHITE PAGES DR DOOM APPEARANCE $28.00
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN #26 CGC 9.6 WHITE PAGES DAREDEVIL $12.00
Punisher #1 Brand New Series CGC 9.8 NM/M Gorgeous Gem Legacy 229 Marvel WOW! $45.00
CHEW #3 9.8 PGX Graded Slab Image 1st Amelia Appearance 2009 SIGNED Layman $33.15
Supreme Blue Rose #1 1st Print Image Comics CGC 9.8 $31.99
X-Force # 1 CGC 9.4 1991 Newstand W/ X Force card & 2 NM Raw copies - 3 book lot $30.00
Catwoman #1 Joelle Jones DC Comics 1st Print CGC 9.8 $35.99
Spider-Man 2099 #1 CGC 9.8 (1992) DAVID LEONARDI (ORIGIN) $37.00
Watchmen 1 8.0 cgc $35.00
Ultimate X 1 Foil Edition CGC 9.2, Rare! 1st Appearance of Jimmy Hudson ! $50.00
Batman #44 (Origin of Mr. Bloom) CGC 9.8 $22.50
Venom 1st Host Dell Otto Variant Cgc 9.8 $41.00
Daredevil Annual 1 Dell Otto Virgin Cgc 9.6 $31.00
The Amazing Spider-Man #800 Dell Otto Cgc 9.8 $42.02
The Amazing Spider-Man #1 Dell Otto Cgc 9.8 $33.50
The Uncanny X-men 205 CGC 8.5 Origin Of Lady Death strike Wolverine $33.00
RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER CGC4.0 1960-61 EXTREMELY RARE***** #nn GÖºGÖº. $21.18
Infinity #4 CGC 9.8 Adam Kubert Cover $30.00
Ghost Rider #1 Robbie Reyes CBCS 9.6 $42.01
Wolverine (1st Series) Annual 1999 CGC 9.8 $49.99
Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows 1 Hastings Variant Edition CGC 9.2 WP HTF $19.99
The Beauty 1 CGC 9.8 signed Image Comics Variant Rare only one on EBAY $49.00
Walking Dead #167 GÇô Image/Skybound 2017 GÇô Death of Andrea GÇô CGC 9.6 NM+ $19.99
Batman '66 Meets Wonder Woman '77 1B 2017 CGC 9.8 1221310005 $48.00
Defenders of the Earth #1 (1987) Star/Marvel CGC 8.0 White Pages $50.00

Those sales all occurred during a 5-hour window last Tuesday.  Yep, 65,000+ per year.

Edited November 19, 2018 by valiantman

[bc]

Don't see many of those "brand new moderns" in that list.

So we are still close to 5 : 1 when you look at the sub-$50 and over-$500 categories.

[jsilverjanet]

2 hours ago, 1Cool said:

That is kind of shocking.  More then 65,000 slabs per year have been sold less then $50.  I'd guess a large majority of these books are brand new moderns.  But if it only cost $20 - $23 a book to get a book slabbed then a $45 modern will make you $20 a book after fees.  You would have to press your own books (or not press moderns) and submit at Cons to avoid the shipping cost to CGC to get the average price down to $20 a book but it is definitely doable.  Even copper age books can be graded in bulk for a little over $20 a book.  I subbed 100 books recently and it cost me $100 to ship the large package to CGC (my comic book collectors insurance covered most of the insurance but i need that anyhow).  I do my own pressing so very little per book cost (bit of time but you can fit it in while doing other stuff) and grading was $18 per book (lets bump that to $20 to cover some rejects in a prescreen).  Return shipping is about $2 a book for lower price slabs so the total is only $23 per book for everything included.  Personally I'd think assuming the max price realized would be $45 is a bit of a waste of time but some people must be doing it for a part time living to get 65,000 per year.

@valiantman - thank you, I'd ask for the raw data to mess around but probably wouldn't be able to do anything anytime soon. The reason I choose $50 price break is that I suspect that many slabs sell for under $50. 

@1Cool$20 profit on a book on a book I paid $1-$2 is good money, lot of work but good money none the less.

[greggy]

1 hour ago, jsilverjanet said:

@valiantman - thank you, I'd ask for the raw data to mess around but probably wouldn't be able to do anything anytime soon. The reason I choose $50 price break is that I suspect that many slabs sell for under $50. 

@1Cool$20 profit on a book on a book I paid $1-$2 is good money, lot of work but good money none the less.

[telerites]

20 hours ago, valiantman said:

The Uncanny X-men 205 CGC 8.5 Origin Of Lady Death strike Wolverine $33.00

Great stuff as usual, Greg.

I picked this one at random and looking at GPA, the buyer overpaid compared to same month sale (Nov 2018) of these

9.4 @ $20 

9.8 @ $41 

So for $8 more, a 9.8 could be had or saved $13 and still had an upgrade from the 8.5.

I realize the winning bidder could have had a higher bid locked in but if so, did not need to go higher than what they hammered and other factors like seller rating, shipping cost, auction close timing, etc. 

Just curious sometimes what you see on Ebay.  I have sales of items higher than what someone could have paid on Amazon, Walmart, etc.  

[Aweandlorder]

So what did we learn from this thread so far:

a. People collect, slab and sell differently from one another

b. Tons of slabs, coupled with hard effort, sell for pennies (and many times at a loss)

c. Buyers like me, wait for dumb sellers to list their slabs at cost (or below) so I could flip them at 3x the amount or higher later 

Thanks for the info and Happy thanksgiving everyone!