Have about 4000-5000 comics and could use some advice 0

[Slevit]

Hello,

I will try to make this brief, but I don't want to leave things out. Due to unfortunate circumstances, I recently inherited about 4000-5000 comics from an avid collector who knew the value of comics since he was a child and who always took great care of them. Unfortunately a water pipe broke where they were being stored and thousands of Silver and Bronze Age comics and earlier were lost; I get sick sometimes when I see how much they are. Complete sets and doubles of first appearances and key issues of everybody you can think of: FF, Cap, Spidey, Flash, Iron Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Thor, etc. He read everything - I have about idk 50-100 different independent titles too: Cyber Force; Powers; 100 Bullets; Savage Dragon, Spawn, Silverhawk, Sandman; Nyx; Deathstroke; and a bunch of others I can't remember and a couple are in different languages. Of course about 6 or 7 long boxes of West Coast Avengers and a bunch of 80's JLA survived but not the old FF or Cap or..... I have mostly Modern comics but I also have some Silver and Bronze issues; he would go to flea markets as a child and buy older comics because they were for a good price and they might have value....and they do. He also bought comics every week for about 20 years. He was a true comic book fan in every sense; I know very little about them. 95% of the comics I have are boarded and bagged since he bought them in the 70's and 80's; when he would read them he would take great care so he wouldn't cause any dents on the spine or any creases or marks anywhere - the opposite of how most people read things - and then they would go right back into the bag.

Anyway, so I have all these comics I don't know what to do with. I have done some research and I know some of them are valuable but pricing is all over the place. I used gocollect.com and Ebay but that just gave me a general idea of what they are worth. Also, someone made the argument if they are rare enough to be graded and collected, than they might be worth more than the guide price since they are that rare in that condition. I understand commons are not worth much and condition is everything - I've taken a magnifying glass over a lot of them and I don't see any marks, creases near the spine, etc - they look brand new. This is going to sound stupid, lol, but when I took a few comics out of the bag to look at them I could actually smell the printing just opening the pages - like they were printed recently - that's how long they have been in bags and cared for. I sorted most of the major characters into a group of their titles and I am currently cherry picking the older titles to look them up. For instance, I have ASM starting at about issue 280-399 including about 20 doubles of some key issues and first appearances; I am missing about 10-15 comics in that range but I do have the ASM issue #300 and the other Venom Issues. I also have several issues of the Rawhide Kid; Ms. Marvel $18; Avengers Annual 10 I think; Transformers 1-7; several Crisis on Infinite Earths (# 7 Supergirl Dies is signed by someone but I cant make it out), the ASM issue #234 and Annual issue #22, the Flash #52, etc. My best picture (provided) is probably Batman's Detective comics #474 - you can see a small crease in the bottom right of the cover and a you can see where the comic was opened near the spine and slight wear marks but I wouldn't call it a crease at all but most comics don't even have that. (In the pictures, the white squares are my notes so I have an idea of how much they sell for graded, not what condition I think they are in.)

I see issue #300 for different prices for the same grade on different sites - the same for Ms. Marvel #18. One site has MM listed as $850 for a 9.8 graded and another site lists the same grading for $400; quite a huge difference. If I am correct, not all comics graded 9.8 have the same value - there's higher versions because the cover is more eye-popping or vibrant than an average 9.8 or other 9.8 covers etc. I live in a bigger city so I was going to take them to a LCS (there are several) and see what condition he thinks they are in and what he thinks I should do but that makes me nervous. I want to sell most if not all of them - they do me no good and someone else should enjoy them. I have called several comic book places and the bulk prices are not encouraging. I was offered $1000 for all of them. Then I sent quality pictures of the better comics - Ms. Marvel #18 - $160 graded at 9.0-$850 graded 9.8 - and a picture of the stack of ASM and that offer rose to $1200. Now, I know they can't see the condition and everyone thinks their comics are in prefect condition and comic book stores have to make money, but.....Also, I have read several articles on raw vs graded comics. As an example, if I agreed with my LCS that something should grade at a 9.0-9.2 (I understand it can be higher or lower) and that that grade is worth $20, how much can I realistically expect to be offered by a LCS or any comic collector really? Is it a $1? $5? half price at $10? The 2 problems: 1) I don't now enough about grading to determine if I am getting a fair deal. I guess I could lug the boxes to the 2 or 3 LCS's in the area and see what they offer and what they think the grades are and compare. That seems like it will be very time consuming and is only going to be so helpful with pricing and they probably won't want all the commons; 2) I currently have about idk...100+ comics valued at least $25-$40 if they were graded. At $25 a comic, I don't currently have $2500 to tie up in comic grading. Plus once it is graded, can I expect full price for that grade?

So, I am asking for help. I am reasonable and don't necessarily need top dollar but I don't want to just give them away either. So grade some, keep some, sell some as raw to the local LCS and I can expect 30% of the expected value or 50% etc. or any thoughts how I should tackle this? I still have thousands of comics to go through. I thought about buying a scanner but what software would I use? Any constructive help is appreciated.

Very limited in size for pictures so the quality isn't great because I wanted to post more than 2 or 3. The Batman 474 and the picture of all of the ASM are probably the best I have currently using this size. Here's a little of what I have:

 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Slevit
Add pictures. other edits were add picture and spelling error

[marvelmaniac]

GoCollect.com is for CGC Graded Book Sales only.

You cannot use a CGC graded book to determine value of a Raw book.

eBay sold auction listings will give you a "General Idea" of FMV (there is not a definitive value) but you have to find books close or in the same grade as yours and be sure by looking at the posted pics and check the bidding, you want to look at auctions with at least 5 separate bidders and be sure there was not a bidding war going on that artificially drove the price up for that auction.

My Son is trying to sell his collection and we just had a dealer out to my Son's house to look at his books.

For the most part books with a cover price ABOVE .75 are worthless, he was offering .03 cents per book for the "fillers", so you can basically toss those out of the equation.

Make a list of what you have and post it and the membership can help with some values, as far as grade you can post the most valuable in the "Buddy Can You Spare A Grade" Forum or attempt to grade them yourself using either...

https://www.amazon.com/Overstreet-Guide-Grading-Comics-2016/dp/1603601996

https://comics.ha.com/tutorial/comics-grading.s?show=comicdefinitions

I keep track of eBay sales for about 75 of my most valuable books (All Raw) every four month's so I may be able to help you with some.

As I have been told several times Overstreet and Heritage Grading standards are not the same grading standards as CGC but since nobody knows what CGC's grading standards are this is all us "common folk" have to go by.

 

[revat]

If you're into comics and have the time, then its certainly fun to learn about the hobby and grading and prices and shipping and paypal and taxes and returns, and try to make top dollar selling individual issues over time.  BUT in some cases, it might make more sense timewise, financially, and logistically to sell everything as a huge lot, just to clear out the space and not have to deal with selling it piecemeal (if you don't enjoy it that much), or your time is just more valuable.

So lets say you could say you could sell now for $1200, probably closer to $1500 if you let people inspect condition to sell it all as a collection now.  You have a couple local dealers come by, take the best offer, it takes you maybe 2-3 hours, and they do all the moving, and you get paid in cash/check with no fees, and its all gone today.  Its assumed that with the infrastructure they have in place, they probably hope to net at least $5,000, and they already have infrastructure in place to sell everything, but they do pay taxes.  But they also have the luxury of selling over time without space or effort concerns (as they'd be doing it anyway), not a ton of time opportunity cost.  How much time would it take you to sell everything individually for even $4,000?  How many man hours? is it worth it?  Or if you want to get into grading?  How many man hours of research and learning to grade, and MORE money invested into grading, plus waiting and risk and shipping and insurance.  Taking pics and advertising and sales threads and ebay listings, and selling fees to auction houses and paypal, possibly taxes and returns and time spent packaging and shipping, etc.

I'm not saying its worth it or not worth it, it might be.  It really depends on what you have, and I understand both not wanting to be ripped off, and wanting to get top dollar.  But it also sounds like you understand some of the financial realisms of selling to a dealer as well, especially the fact that their time and effort requires profit as well.

So these are the things I would consider, also consider how much work you even have to do to make an informed decision to begin with.

 

Also, please remember that just because someone is ASKING for a price on a given website, does not mean the comic can actually be SOLD for that price.  People can ASK for whatever they want, but that doesn't mean there's buyers.

[Krismusic]

I agree with everything mavelmaniac and revat said.

here's is what I would do since you seem to have done some research and learned what would possibly be worth a bit. I would take those out post them in the Hey buddy spare a grade forum see what people think the grade is then decide if the graded price is worth it and get it graded. then put it together with the rest of the collection to get a better bulk deal as you can get more realized value from the graded books included in the entire collection. Unless you want to dive into the hobby then you can investigate the collection buy and sell etc.. but if your not interested in comics or getting into the hobby I would do that. 

[Hollywood1892]

On 10/14/2019 at 12:31 PM, Slevit said:

Hello,

I will try to make this brief, but I don't want to leave things out. Due to unfortunate circumstances, I recently inherited about 4000-5000 comics from an avid collector who knew the value of comics since he was a child and who always took great care of them. Unfortunately a water pipe broke where they were being stored and thousands of Silver and Bronze Age comics and earlier were lost; I get sick sometimes when I see how much they are. Complete sets and doubles of first appearances and key issues of everybody you can think of: FF, Cap, Spidey, Flash, Iron Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Thor, etc. He read everything - I have about idk 50-100 different independent titles too: Cyber Force; Powers; 100 Bullets; Savage Dragon, Spawn, Silverhawk, Sandman; Nyx; Deathstroke; and a bunch of others I can't remember and a couple are in different languages. Of course about 6 or 7 long boxes of West Coast Avengers and a bunch of 80's JLA survived but not the old FF or Cap or..... I have mostly Modern comics but I also have some Silver and Bronze issues; he would go to flea markets as a child and buy older comics because they were for a good price and they might have value....and they do. He also bought comics every week for about 20 years. He was a true comic book fan in every sense; I know very little about them. 95% of the comics I have are boarded and bagged since he bought them in the 70's and 80's; when he would read them he would take great care so he wouldn't cause any dents on the spine or any creases or marks anywhere - the opposite of how most people read things - and then they would go right back into the bag.

Anyway, so I have all these comics I don't know what to do with. I have done some research and I know some of them are valuable but pricing is all over the place. I used gocollect.com and Ebay but that just gave me a general idea of what they are worth. Also, someone made the argument if they are rare enough to be graded and collected, than they might be worth more than the guide price since they are that rare in that condition. I understand commons are not worth much and condition is everything - I've taken a magnifying glass over a lot of them and I don't see any marks, creases near the spine, etc - they look brand new. This is going to sound stupid, lol, but when I took a few comics out of the bag to look at them I could actually smell the printing just opening the pages - like they were printed recently - that's how long they have been in bags and cared for. I sorted most of the major characters into a group of their titles and I am currently cherry picking the older titles to look them up. For instance, I have ASM starting at about issue 280-399 including about 20 doubles of some key issues and first appearances; I am missing about 10-15 comics in that range but I do have the ASM issue #300 and the other Venom Issues. I also have several issues of the Rawhide Kid; Ms. Marvel $18; Avengers Annual 10 I think; Transformers 1-7; several Crisis on Infinite Earths (# 7 Supergirl Dies is signed by someone but I cant make it out), the ASM issue #234 and Annual issue #22, the Flash #52, etc. My best picture (provided) is probably Batman's Detective comics #474 - you can see a small crease in the bottom right of the cover and a you can see where the comic was opened near the spine and slight wear marks but I wouldn't call it a crease at all but most comics don't even have that. (In the pictures, the white squares are my notes so I have an idea of how much they sell for graded, not what condition I think they are in.)

I see issue #300 for different prices for the same grade on different sites - the same for Ms. Marvel #18. One site has MM listed as $850 for a 9.8 graded and another site lists the same grading for $400; quite a huge difference. If I am correct, not all comics graded 9.8 have the same value - there's higher versions because the cover is more eye-popping or vibrant than an average 9.8 or other 9.8 covers etc. I live in a bigger city so I was going to take them to a LCS (there are several) and see what condition he thinks they are in and what he thinks I should do but that makes me nervous. I want to sell most if not all of them - they do me no good and someone else should enjoy them. I have called several comic book places and the bulk prices are not encouraging. I was offered $1000 for all of them. Then I sent quality pictures of the better comics - Ms. Marvel #18 - $160 graded at 9.0-$850 graded 9.8 - and a picture of the stack of ASM and that offer rose to $1200. Now, I know they can't see the condition and everyone thinks their comics are in prefect condition and comic book stores have to make money, but.....Also, I have read several articles on raw vs graded comics. As an example, if I agreed with my LCS that something should grade at a 9.0-9.2 (I understand it can be higher or lower) and that that grade is worth $20, how much can I realistically expect to be offered by a LCS or any comic collector really? Is it a $1? $5? half price at $10? The 2 problems: 1) I don't now enough about grading to determine if I am getting a fair deal. I guess I could lug the boxes to the 2 or 3 LCS's in the area and see what they offer and what they think the grades are and compare. That seems like it will be very time consuming and is only going to be so helpful with pricing and they probably won't want all the commons; 2) I currently have about idk...100+ comics valued at least $25-$40 if they were graded. At $25 a comic, I don't currently have $2500 to tie up in comic grading. Plus once it is graded, can I expect full price for that grade?

So, I am asking for help. I am reasonable and don't necessarily need top dollar but I don't want to just give them away either. So grade some, keep some, sell some as raw to the local LCS and I can expect 30% of the expected value or 50% etc. or any thoughts how I should tackle this? I still have thousands of comics to go through. I thought about buying a scanner but what software would I use? Any constructive help is appreciated.

Very limited in size for pictures so the quality isn't great because I wanted to post more than 2 or 3. The Batman 474 and the picture of all of the ASM are probably the best I have currently using this size. Here's a little of what I have:

 

Some really nice books...sorry to hear about the pipe bursting, that's really tragic.

You can get some sound advice on these boards, as you can already see.

For me personally, I would recommend looking into getting the books slabbed and graded. And maybe you have just stumbled upon a lifelong and very fulfilling hobby...

Good Luck

And welcome to the boards, stick around for awhile and have one on us

[theCapraAegagrus]

9 hours ago, Hollywood1892 said:

And welcome to the boards, stick around for awhile and have one on us

Are you buying, or...?

[Hollywood1892]

3 minutes ago, theCapraAegagrus said:

Are you buying, or...?

Oh I owe you at least a case

[Krismusic]

56 minutes ago, Hollywood1892 said:

Oh I owe you at least a case

ohh free beer  i prefer stella or hein or steam whistle ( Canadian beer) please and thanks  

[Hollywood1892]

1 minute ago, Krismusic said:

ohh free beer  i prefer stella or hein or steam whistle ( Canadian beer) please and thanks  

I'm sober 14 years

[Krismusic]

Just now, Hollywood1892 said:

I'm sober 14 years

ok well that's good I am guessing (not sure of your story behind it) but congrats if it was a challenge or something to achieve. 

[silversurfer275]

looks like you have some good stuff that asm 300 you have if it looks really good I would send it out to grade also if you just want to sell these try looking at key collector, ebay sold items stuff like that and yeah really sad to see about that pipe but yeah if you need more help I can help with some marvel stuff mostly silver surfer stuff and yeah good luck.

[the blob]

If you just want to get it over with send them to mycomicshop. Consign the good stuff, sell them the less good stuff. As for water damaged books, expensive key issues might be salvageable. A water logged FF 3 is still worth sonething. Stop looking at cgc prices. You don't know how to grade, so stop fantasizing about certain books being 9.8s. With that said, the ASM 300s may be worth slabbing regardless. The other stuff, not so much.

[the blob]

Your detective 474 is about a 6.5 and worth $15-25. A better looking pgx 8.5 just sold for $35. The MS. Marvel I can't judge, but its not a 9.8. An 8.5 is a nice looking copy generally and that's worth about $120... After you have spent $ on cgc fees. Raw.. $80? Spiderman 234 is worth $5-10 even in pristine shape. The arm 361 is a good book, but 362 is a $15 book. What you have pictured is mostly $1-$10 stuff. Sorry to be a Debbie downer. But if you genuinely have a stack of asm 300 in nice shape that is a stack of loot.

Edited October 17, 2019 by the blob

[Gardner Broome]

So you are saying that the same collector who owned these mostly worthless comics also had doubles of Fantastic Four #1, Captain America Comics #1, Amazing Fantasy #15, Incredible Hulk #1, etc. that were all lost due to a burst pipe? Does not seem very likely.

[revat]

4 hours ago, Gardner Broome said:

So you are saying that the same collector who owned these mostly worthless comics also had doubles of Fantastic Four #1, Captain America Comics #1, Amazing Fantasy #15, Incredible Hulk #1, etc. that were all lost due to a burst pipe? Does not seem very likely.

Yah we will not hear from the OP again

 

lot of stuff doesn’t add up, maybe on purpose, maybe not.  

[Krismusic]

another hit and run?

[Tempus Fugit]

Buying this collection would save a reseller a lot of time, because they are already priced. 

 

[Slevit]

No I am saying he got doubles when he could because it was a key issue, or origin, or first appearance or artwork etc. HE KNEW ALL THAT STUFF - crossovers etc.  My brother started collecting comics when he was a child - he was born in 1970, and started boarding and bagging them then - AS AN 8 or 9 YEAR OLD CHILD and took care when doing anything with them.  I'm not saying he had a double FF #1 but he bought doubles of comics that were 1st appearances and key issues because he would say you never knew what exactly what would be valuable/collected in the future. (See pictures). Before the burst pipe, maybe...20 years ago I counted the long boxes and there was 36 of them. His favorites where Batman, Cap, FF, Iron Man, X-men, Wolverine, but he had Hulk, Flash, Daredevil, Wolverine, etc. but he had lesser main characters too Hulk, Vision, Hawkeye, Green Arrow, Green Katern, etc. He read a huge variety of comics.

So I took 2 short comic boxes to my LCS and they gave me $350 for what he said was worth about $850...that seems like a lot of money to be leaving on the table since I have a lot more to sell. If he already had a copy or if he hadn't sold a copy in a while he de-valued them. The store has been in business for 30 years and they press comics and they also send them out to be graded and have for idk...30 years.

Here's some doubles that I have easy access to to illustrate my point. Here's also a picture of some old comics; some are banged up. (I have 2 of Spider-man 22 just not pictured here.)

Now that I have a lot of them sorted, I have some runs/sets: Spawn 1-40; Savage and the Savage Dragon about 75 books of each; X-Force; X-factor; Spider-man (sold the ASM). I'm thinking Overstreet Price guide and ebay to get values. (It takes forever to look anything up on ebay. For instance, it can't tell the difference between ASM and just Sipder-man.) Putting them up 1 at a time on here isn't a real option. Also, since I dont know key issues, 1st appearances, etc. I just go to ebay and type Uncanny X-men in a general search or in the SA category and see which ones are graded that people seem to be collecting and what they sold for. But that takes a lot of time and mine are raw....so....thoughts? Also I have a bunch if 1st issues - just the first issue of about idk...300+ comics. So that will be fun to research.

So just start throwing stuff up on ebay and see what happens...or....

[Mercury Man]

I was still picking up Batman #457 for $1 each last year.   There are some decent books, but in general, not a lot to get overly excited about.  

[slym2none]

On 10/16/2019 at 9:19 AM, Krismusic said:

I prefer stella

Quote

or hein

 

 

Quote

or steam whistle ( Canadian beer) please and thanks  

 

-slym (has a green Steam Whistle t-shirt)