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Advice on selling my small private collection
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46 posts in this topic

I collected comics as a kid during the 60s. I have been a lurker on these boards for many years but have rarely posted.  I have not been an active collector for many years but I still have 3 long boxes of comics that I now want to sell. The heart of my collection is every issue of Action Comics from #222 (Nov 56) to #357 (Dec 68). This includes 18 issues between 241 and 271 that I've had slabbed with grades from 7.0 to 8.5, and a 242 in 5.0. I have a few older Action Comics including a poor condition #14. I have a bunch of other random stuff as well, including a few Marvels.  These books have been in my possession for over 50 years (with the exception of a few I bought off the stand in the 70s), and I always told my wife I would sell them after I retired. So I am now retired and I have the time to deal with selling them. I am technically savvy and my inclination is to start listing them on eBay. Any advice?

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1 minute ago, electricprune said:

I would think you’d have good luck with those selling on the Gold/Silver/Bronze selling section right here on the boards. It would hurt to try a few and see how they do.

I believe you meant to say it would NOT hurt to try a few here. :baiting:

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26 minutes ago, 60s_kid said:

I collected comics as a kid during the 60s. I have been a lurker on these boards for many years but have rarely posted.  I have not been an active collector for many years but I still have 3 long boxes of comics that I now want to sell. The heart of my collection is every issue of Action Comics from #222 (Nov 56) to #357 (Dec 68). This includes 18 issues between 241 and 271 that I've had slabbed with grades from 7.0 to 8.5, and a 242 in 5.0. I have a few older Action Comics including a poor condition #14. I have a bunch of other random stuff as well, including a few Marvels.  These books have been in my possession for over 50 years (with the exception of a few I bought off the stand in the 70s), and I always told my wife I would sell them after I retired. So I am now retired and I have the time to deal with selling them. I am technically savvy and my inclination is to start listing them on eBay. Any advice?

I went through a similar scenario about 10 years ago when I retired. After selling a lot of my books, I soon got seller's remorse and started collecting again ! I also tried the E-Bay route and, trust me, it is a pain. At first it was fun but after a while, between the packaging, shipping, buyer's complaints, non payers, fees, etc. it became a grind, worse than a job. I would use an auction house and for a small fee, usually 10 %, they will take care of everything. It is soooo much easier. I also think you will see better selling prices.

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Thanks for the responses. I may try a few on the sellilng section of these boards. As for realizing selling prices on eBay I plan to go the Buy it Now route for the better stuff. If I were to use an auction house are there any preferred ones or any to avoid?

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3 minutes ago, 60s_kid said:

Thanks for the responses. I may try a few on the sellilng section of these boards. As for realizing selling prices on eBay I plan to go the Buy it Now route for the better stuff. If I were to use an auction house are there any preferred ones or any to avoid?

It sounds like you have some valuable books and you are better served putting them in auction. The BIN plan may see you lose out on some books because you 'guessed' wrong on the valuation. I remember listing a book with a BIN on E-Bay and it was gone in like 10 seconds and the buyer wanted more, similar books. I then realized I had made a mistake in the price. I still honored it but never again used a BIN. The non payers, retracted bidding, and excuses you will get on E-Bay will soon sour your positive attitude. But I sense you want to give this a try on your own so Good Luck.

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I have signed up for GoCollect.com to get a good idea of values. I also search eBay to see what sales have been made. I have seen on GoCollect some of the sales by the auction houses that start with low bids and wind up selling for less that people realize on eBay with BINs. I may have to let them sit on eBay for awhile but I am willing to do that.

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1 hour ago, 60s_kid said:

I have signed up for GoCollect.com to get a good idea of values. I also search eBay to see what sales have been made. I have seen on GoCollect some of the sales by the auction houses that start with low bids and wind up selling for less that people realize on eBay with BINs. I may have to let them sit on eBay for awhile but I am willing to do that.

Comic Link. For Silver Age, they consistently get the best prices. Heritage does as well but their fee structure is outrageous. For the kind of stuff it sounds like you have, you will get the best prices with very little work on your part. Ebay is a LOT more work and likely not as fruitful on the prices.

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I've had solid results with BINs on ebay.  Like the man above said, do your research first on pricing - either use GPA to get data, or simply ebay historical sales (actual sales, not asking prices) for the keys.  Also as they've said, it can be some work, and there are some duds who buy on ebay, but since I changed from auction format to BIN I've had much much fewer problems - maybe 3 in past thousand listings I've made, one a return, and two people won and were deadbeats needing relist (all three duds were auctions format, and on the two deadbeats I came here and sold for more than final auction price).

The reason I sell on ebay not here is so I don't have to do all the work twice to sell at/near market value - as a relative noob here after a couple of years I didn't get the same results as members who've been here a while, so after selling half the books I listed during the three days I kept thread open (mostly key issues), I then listed remaining books on ebay after I increased the sale price by 10%.  There are other ways, I could have kept the thread here going and just discounted the books after a few days, but since I already did the research on market pricing that didn't strike me a reasonable approach.

Again though, that means you've first graded each book carefully and conservatively, and bought all the packing materials etc. to deliver a good product on ebay, which could turn out to be a real pain and certainly could be viewed as a fair amount of work.  People also speak highly of selling through mycomicshop or sending into one of the auction-sites (either comiclink or comicconnect, I forget which they recommend). Good luck whatever you do bud.

Here is last sale thread I did here. (click link)

Edited by grebal
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Good books with fair prices will sell here, on the Boards. If you choose to put your books in auction on E-Bay, okay, I can understand that. However, If you choose to put your books on E-Bay with a BIN, I don't understand why you don't try the Boards first. No fees on the Boards and you are participating in a community. No such thing as retracting bids on the Boards, E-Bay, happens all the time. 

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On ‎1‎/‎26‎/‎2019 at 1:15 PM, grebal said:

I've had solid results with BINs on ebay.  Like the man above said, do your research first on pricing - either use GPA to get data, or simply ebay historical sales (actual sales, not asking prices) for the keys.  Also as they've said, it can be some work, and there are some duds who buy on ebay, but since I changed from auction format to BIN I've had much much fewer problems - maybe 3 in past thousand listings I've made, one a return, and two people won and were deadbeats needing relist (all three duds were auctions format, and on the two deadbeats I came here and sold for more than final auction price).

The reason I sell on ebay not here is so I don't have to do all the work twice to sell at/near market value - as a relative noob here after a couple of years I didn't get the same results as members who've been here a while, so after selling half the books I listed during the three days I kept thread open (mostly key issues), I then listed remaining books on ebay after I increased the sale price by 10%.  There are other ways, I could have kept the thread here going and just discounted the books after a few days, but since I already did the research on market pricing that didn't strike me a reasonable approach.

Again though, that means you've first graded each book carefully and conservatively, and bought all the packing materials etc. to deliver a good product on ebay, which could turn out to be a real pain and certainly could be viewed as a fair amount of work.  People also speak highly of selling through mycomicshop or sending into one of the auction-sites (either comiclink or comicconnect, I forget which they recommend). Good luck whatever you do bud.

Here is last sale thread I did here. (click link)

MASKING!!!  :whatthe:

Nods Mortified!!!  (tsk)

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On 1/26/2019 at 1:39 PM, 60s_kid said:

I have signed up for GoCollect.com to get a good idea of values. I also search eBay to see what sales have been made. I have seen on GoCollect some of the sales by the auction houses that start with low bids and wind up selling for less that people realize on eBay with BINs. I may have to let them sit on eBay for awhile but I am willing to do that.

PLease don't take offense from my comment. This seems to happen a lot here and it can get frustrating. Why did you come here asking for advice when you had your mind already set on what you wanted to do ? You ackowledge our suggestions but then say 'Thanks but I'm going to do it my way'. You are already making a rookie mistake by utilizing GoCollect.com for your valuations. Again, I wish you good luck but no more advice from me here. 

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31 minutes ago, Bomber-Bob said:

You are already making a rookie mistake by utilizing GoCollect.com for your valuations. Again, I wish you good luck but no more advice from me here. 

I disagree.  Though GoCollect doesn’t have as much or varied sources as GPA, it’s not like he used comicspriceguide.com or something.  

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I recently started selling comics using Heritage.  Before that I used eBay and tried the boards here.  Here's the pros and cons:

Board Pros

A lot of serious collectors frequent the boards.  In my case, I did not even have to list a comic in the selling section.  I used the board to get me in touch with dealers who handle consignments who were willing to help for a percentage, but ultimately got PM'd by a collector on the boards who made me an offer I couldn't refuse.  Literally, he offered me the highest price ever paid for the book in question (it was top of census) and offered to fly me and my wife to a very nice vacation destination and put us up in a hotel to deliver the book (I was too busy and I ended safely shipping the book).  So if you are looking for buyers, you got some big time ones here.

Board Cons

The folks on this board tend to be fanatical about certain books, but not very interested in other types of books.  You appear to have mid-grade DC from the late 50s to late 60s.  I think those are fun books, but not everyone agrees.  I'm not sure how those books would do here.  If you were selling PCH, GGA, etc., I think you'd find top prices here.

Heritage Pros

Heritage gets top level prices.  The books I've consigned to Heritage sold for well above the prices that I listed when trying to sell the book on this board.  In fact, even after Heritage took its cut, I still realized higher prices than I could get on this board.  That may have been due to the fact that Heritage has a wide geographical net, and the books I was consigning (Ducks) are sought after by European collectors.  You might not have the same experience with the DC era books you have.  Heritage gave me a discount from its normal fees, and you could probably negotiate the same.  My books were four figure books that ended up in the Signature Auction, though, and experiences might be different in the Sunday Auctions.

Heritage Cons

Takes a while to get the money.  

eBay Pros

You can have complete control of the process.

eBay Cons

Controlling the process takes a lot of time.  You have to pack, you have to ship, you have to deal with disputes, etc.  

TAKEAWAYS: 

For four figure books and above, I would definitely use an auction site.  I think you can get higher prices, and the books will sell quickly.  You do, however, have to pay a higher fee than ebay.  BUT, you only need to ship a bunch of books to the auction house once, and then they deal with the hassle of shipping, etc.  For lesser value books, try here to avoid eBay fees and fraudulent buyers, then try eBay.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Bomber-Bob said:

PLease don't take offense from my comment. This seems to happen a lot here and it can get frustrating. Why did you come here asking for advice when you had your mind already set on what you wanted to do ? You ackowledge our suggestions but then say 'Thanks but I'm going to do it my way'. You are already making a rookie mistake by utilizing GoCollect.com for your valuations. Again, I wish you good luck but no more advice from me here. 

Bob not sure where you got the 'Thanks but I'm going to do it my way'. If you re-read my posts I said I will probably try sell some books here. I am concerned that I am not known on these boards but I will give it a try. I'm not in a big hurry to sell my better stuff.

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3 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

I recently started selling comics using Heritage.  Before that I used eBay and tried the boards here.  Here's the pros and cons:

Board Pros

A lot of serious collectors frequent the boards.  In my case, I did not even have to list a comic in the selling section.  I used the board to get me in touch with dealers who handle consignments who were willing to help for a percentage, but ultimately got PM'd by a collector on the boards who made me an offer I couldn't refuse.  Literally, he offered me the highest price ever paid for the book in question (it was top of census) and offered to fly me and my wife to a very nice vacation destination and put us up in a hotel to deliver the book (I was too busy and I ended safely shipping the book).  So if you are looking for buyers, you got some big time ones here.

Board Cons

The folks on this board tend to be fanatical about certain books, but not very interested in other types of books.  You appear to have mid-grade DC from the late 50s to late 60s.  I think those are fun books, but not everyone agrees.  I'm not sure how those books would do here.  If you were selling PCH, GGA, etc., I think you'd find top prices here.

Heritage Pros

Heritage gets top level prices.  The books I've consigned to Heritage sold for well above the prices that I listed when trying to sell the book on this board.  In fact, even after Heritage took its cut, I still realized higher prices than I could get on this board.  That may have been due to the fact that Heritage has a wide geographical net, and the books I was consigning (Ducks) are sought after by European collectors.  You might not have the same experience with the DC era books you have.  Heritage gave me a discount from its normal fees, and you could probably negotiate the same.  My books were four figure books that ended up in the Signature Auction, though, and experiences might be different in the Sunday Auctions.

Heritage Cons

Takes a while to get the money.  

eBay Pros

You can have complete control of the process.

eBay Cons

Controlling the process takes a lot of time.  You have to pack, you have to ship, you have to deal with disputes, etc.  

TAKEAWAYS: 

For four figure books and above, I would definitely use an auction site.  I think you can get higher prices, and the books will sell quickly.  You do, however, have to pay a higher fee than ebay.  BUT, you only need to ship a bunch of books to the auction house once, and then they deal with the hassle of shipping, etc.  For lesser value books, try here to avoid eBay fees and fraudulent buyers, then try eBay.

 

 

Thanks for your detailed reply. I only have one book I would consider to be four figures (Action 242). However I do have some other stuff I would consider to better than mid-grade. DCs in high grade from the late 50s are not easy to find. Several of my slabbed copies are in the top 5 graded and most of the 18 mentioned above are in the top 20. 

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