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Looking at a Large DC Copper Age Collection
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206 posts in this topic

On 5/3/2019 at 1:24 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

I doubt the OP is going to pass the deal to you (they already said they're going to set up at a show), but I would be fascinated to know what your net results would be, accounting for everything...no fudging and not including labor costs.

:popcorn:

If I took all 60 boxes, I'd be out $1500. I would expect my net results, including all costs but NOT including my labor costs - which is a "sunk cost"  - would be conservatively a profit of about $15-20K. There would be a great deal of slabbing so the time frame would be probably longer than one would think, but that's about where it would be. I would have an advantage over the OP in that I wouldn't care about keeping the excess but that could easily be dumped.

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2 minutes ago, FlyingDonut said:

I would expect my net results, including all costs but NOT including my labor costs - which is a "sunk cost"  - would be conservatively a profit of about $15-20K.

1. Why would you not include your labor costs? Is there no labor involved in acquiring, processing, storing, and maintaining this inventory?

2. Net results, including the cost of storage, advertising, labor, packaging, pressing (?), slab costs, and time?

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12 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

1. Why would you not include your labor costs? Is there no labor involved in acquiring, processing, storing, and maintaining this inventory?

2. Net results, including the cost of storage, advertising, labor, packaging, pressing (?), slab costs, and time?

1. Because you said not to in your original question, so OK. Acquiring: Three hours (based on the OPs statement). Expand that to five. Processing: Hard to value, because I wouldn't be doing solely this one, but say another five hours. Storing: Zero additional dollars from what I am paying now. My garage is my garage. Maintaining: Not sure what the difference is between processing and maintaining, but say another five. That's 13.  Pressing at $10 per book. I don't press a lot, but lets assume that I'm pressing every book I slab, and I slab 500 books. That's $5K, 500 moderns will run me at max $10K. Value my time at $100 per hour, so that's $1300. For each sale, figure 5 minutes to pack and ship so that's $8.50 in my time cost to ship. I have to say that I never value my time when doing this, because I'm the "owner" of the business and don't pay myself, so there's that.

So my costs are - including the books at $1500, shipping to me $700 and the above, roughly $17,500.

2. My net resulting profit on this deal - based on some other deals I've done of this size - I'd put at roughly $35,000. The slabs would be the juice to pay the nut off and then everything else would be gravy. 

Edited by FlyingDonut
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Geez donut that is one way but i would go the quick and dirty route. Inside of a large show weekend i could from start to finish make a 5x to 10x profit, between Thursday and Sunday. I would not be bringing any of these books home. By monday i would be looking for new deal and you would have to remind me about this one as i would have moved on.

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57 minutes ago, FlyingDonut said:
1 hour ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

1. Why would you not include your labor costs? Is there no labor involved in acquiring, processing, storing, and maintaining this inventory?

2. Net results, including the cost of storage, advertising, labor, packaging, pressing (?), slab costs, and time?

1. Because you said not to in your original question, so OK.

No, I said "no fudging and not including labor costs." In other words, "no fudging: labor costs have to be included as well."

It wasn't "no fudging (separate thought) and not including labor costs."

1 hour ago, FlyingDonut said:

2. My net resulting profit on this deal - based on some other deals I've done of this size - I'd put at roughly $35,000. The slabs would be the juice to pay the nut off and then everything else would be gravy. 

Yes, but my original response was that I would love to see your actual results...not your estimates. 

I think your numbers are highly optimistic. 

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I have bought multiple 20-30 longbox collections. Not a one has proved to be a burden. If the HG quality is there, I really don't care what the titles are, as long as they're representative of the collector. The more organized the better, of course. I've had to rebag/mylar them where appropriate, but I love doing it. I am nothing but envious of Dormian. What's the rush to get rid of anything? You going somewhere? Book and titles I thought at the time were just crapola, have turned into silver mines. :bigsmile:

Whenever you can find a "virgin" collection of any books 20 years old or older - BUY them. Hell, you just made 20 years of storage profit right off the top! lol

Edited by divad
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A collection I picked up in Napa many years ago, was advertised as "all 80s and 90s books, possibly every JLA issue printed" during those decades. Nobody even looked at it. The guy started at $2100 - I didn't bother going - too vague, I thought, or all junk. He came down to $900. Wth, I said and took a rental car up to look at them (the family car had just died and I was shopping for a new one.) Spent less than a half hour assessing them and then told him I'd take them all (for less.) He kept bringing out boxes I hadn't even seen. The TPBs alone (which I had zero interest in) covered my costs. Total gravy, and I still have over 40-60% of that collection "aging" in Mylar. The only other time I had seen a bigger collection was when Jimbo had brought back half of what we called then, the "Peninsula Collection". Jimbo barely had room for himself in the driver's seat. lol

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4 hours ago, FlyingDonut said:

1. Because you said not to in your original question, so OK. Acquiring: Three hours (based on the OPs statement). Expand that to five. Processing: Hard to value, because I wouldn't be doing solely this one, but say another five hours. Storing: Zero additional dollars from what I am paying now. My garage is my garage. Maintaining: Not sure what the difference is between processing and maintaining, but say another five. That's 13.  Pressing at $10 per book. I don't press a lot, but lets assume that I'm pressing every book I slab, and I slab 500 books. That's $5K, 500 moderns will run me at max $10K. Value my time at $100 per hour, so that's $1300. For each sale, figure 5 minutes to pack and ship so that's $8.50 in my time cost to ship. I have to say that I never value my time when doing this, because I'm the "owner" of the business and don't pay myself, so there's that.

So my costs are - including the books at $1500, shipping to me $700 and the above, roughly $17,500.

2. My net resulting profit on this deal - based on some other deals I've done of this size - I'd put at roughly $35,000. The slabs would be the juice to pay the nut off and then everything else would be gravy. 

This is a very good breakdown, but you forgot to factor in all the time you are spending here arguing about why this is a great deal. :foryou:

 

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9 hours ago, blazingbob said:

Thank you to some of the posters for the Zatanna Hughes covers.  I bought a 30K collection that had long boxes of moderns but didn't know about the Zatanna Hughes covers.  

Don't forget about the Bolland Zatanna variants too

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4 hours ago, divad said:

I have bought multiple 20-30 longbox collections. Not a one has proved to be a burden. If the HG quality is there, I really don't care what the titles are, as long as they're representative of the collector. The more organized the better, of course. I've had to rebag/mylar them where appropriate, but I love doing it. I am nothing but envious of Dormian. What's the rush to get rid of anything? You going somewhere? Book and titles I thought at the time were just crapola, have turned into silver mines. :bigsmile:

Whenever you can find a "virgin" collection of any books 20 years old or older - BUY them. Hell, you just made 20 years of storage profit right off the top! lol

I agree it may take me a year turn the whole collection, but if its high grade I would make a killing.

 

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7 hours ago, FlyingDonut said:

1. Because you said not to in your original question, so OK. Acquiring: Three hours (based on the OPs statement). Expand that to five. Processing: Hard to value, because I wouldn't be doing solely this one, but say another five hours. Storing: Zero additional dollars from what I am paying now. My garage is my garage. Maintaining: Not sure what the difference is between processing and maintaining, but say another five. That's 13.  Pressing at $10 per book. I don't press a lot, but lets assume that I'm pressing every book I slab, and I slab 500 books. That's $5K, 500 moderns will run me at max $10K. Value my time at $100 per hour, so that's $1300. For each sale, figure 5 minutes to pack and ship so that's $8.50 in my time cost to ship. I have to say that I never value my time when doing this, because I'm the "owner" of the business and don't pay myself, so there's that.

So my costs are - including the books at $1500, shipping to me $700 and the above, roughly $17,500.

2. My net resulting profit on this deal - based on some other deals I've done of this size - I'd put at roughly $35,000. The slabs would be the juice to pay the nut off and then everything else would be gravy. 

I'm quite surprised you actually pay for pressing. I sell books as a hobby and own 4 pressing units. Can't imagine a dealer having none/ pay to press

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9 hours ago, Aweandlorder said:

I'm quite surprised you actually pay for pressing. I sell books as a hobby and own 4 pressing units. Can't imagine a dealer having none/ pay to press

I don't press/slab enough books to make it worth while and don't have the training. $10 per unit to slab I can deal with for moderns, just makes the slabbing cost $30 instead of $20, which is no big deal. 

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16 hours ago, divad said:

I have bought multiple 20-30 longbox collections. Not a one has proved to be a burden. If the HG quality is there, I really don't care what the titles are, as long as they're representative of the collector. The more organized the better, of course. I've had to rebag/mylar them where appropriate, but I love doing it. I am nothing but envious of Dormian. What's the rush to get rid of anything? You going somewhere? Book and titles I thought at the time were just crapola, have turned into silver mines. :bigsmile:

Whenever you can find a "virgin" collection of any books 20 years old or older - BUY them. Hell, you just made 20 years of storage profit right off the top! lol

Divad is usually full of crapola :roflmao::baiting:but this post is 100% HIGH GRADE WISDOM.

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1 hour ago, FlyingDonut said:

I don't press/slab enough books to make it worth while and don't have the training. $10 per unit to slab I can deal with for moderns, just makes the slabbing cost $30 instead of $20, which is no big deal. 

I get where you're coming from. Everyone have their own preferences. 

I sub any book that has a potential of $100 or higher. I use the word potential because sometimes a book turns from 100 to 50 through time (although not often since I don't send in books that just started to trend higher, unless they skyrocket, which is not the case in this example) 

which is why I do zero "add ons". Never fast track, never press (well, since I own the units and do a good job at it). I almost always pre screen but honestly I manage to sell my rejects for a lot more than $5 which offsets the reject fee. 

Im pretty sure that the books you spend $30 on pressing are high end. But in the example of the OP of this thread we're talking about moderns which, with the exception of the known keys, would likely be in the 50-100 range if subbed and get a 9.8 (and that's a big if too)

Anyways, thanks for sharing, always good to read someone else's method of work (thumbsu

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And..I get that we're on the internet and everyone wants to be right. 

But if you're arguing what's best for you and apply that outwardly to another person who's work method is completely different than yours, and belittle their work ethics - you have no place in this community. Or any community to be quite frank. 

We all do what we like to do, and do if for reasons that fulfil our financial AND recreational goals. If I was to start billing my gym for all the thousands of hours I deadlift and bench pressed, I would own a cottage in Malibu beach. Instead I pay THEM. According to some of the sentiments in this thread - that wouldn't make any sense!

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Was looking at eBay SOLD listings to see if a long box that contained binders full of comic related cards and pogs had any value when this thread popped into my head. (I got the card binders as an incidental when I purchased a 30 long box collection of mostly bronze and copper books about 5 years ago. ). Made me wonder how bad a collection has to be to no longer be “worth it”?  Everyone must have a limit. 

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