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Do We Have a "Whats Hot, Whats Not" Thread?
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109 posts in this topic

Also my Son said...

If the hot/key books are going to sell that quickly why should we take 30% of FMV when we can sell them ourselves and take all of the profit.

AFAIK he plans on listing a couple of books on Facebook to see what happens.

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1 minute ago, marvelmaniac said:

It is not up to me.

He was explaining to me what happens when he adds a new collection and I told him that although I was with him the entire time and a lot of these books were bought by me brand new that they were no longer mine so he needed to explain everything to my Son and his wife since they will be making the final decision.

After explaining all of this to them he also said "if you are having doubts or do not feel right about the offer let me know right now, it will not hurt my feelings", my Son and his wife decided to wait for his final offer and I told him since my Son has the final say he should contact him through Facebook rather than contacting me.

I told my Son that I contacted 9 local dealers through Facebook and only received 3 replies...

1)Thanks for reaching out, here are some gems in there but the majority are books we are not currently interested in, Good Luck!!!

2)Thank you for reaching out and supplying a list of the books, we will go over the list and get back to you.

3)The dealer that came out to the house was the only real interested party.

It's a business at the end of the day (for some) and you have to be comfortable with the deal you are making. There is alot of strong advice on the thread, such as possibly setting up an Ebay account and selling the books off either individually or as runs. You can also attempt to trade the books for more appealing books to dealers. The problem is that people are generally looking for the best deals for themselves.

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9 minutes ago, marvelmaniac said:

Also my Son said...

If the hot/key books are going to sell that quickly why should we take 30% of FMV when we can sell them ourselves and take all of the profit.

AFAIK he plans on listing a couple of books on Facebook to see what happens.

Your selling to dealers.

Sell to collectors, than you will elevate that %30 fmv.

Broaden your net by using other selling platforms.

Be patient.

Check out gocollect.com it has a really good popular book section

GPA

Check out Ebay to see what all the books are going for ect.

Edited by Hollywood1892
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16 minutes ago, marvelmaniac said:

Also my Son said...

If the hot/key books are going to sell that quickly why should we take 30% of FMV when we can sell them ourselves and take all of the profit.

AFAIK he plans on listing a couple of books on Facebook to see what happens.

Well, one reason may be if the bulk of the books are common 80s - 90s books, after the currently hot books are sold, you could be in for a long, slow slog trying to sell the rest.

 

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24 minutes ago, Hollywood1892 said:

Your selling to dealers.

Sell to collectors, than you will elevate that %30 fmv.

Broaden your net by using other selling platforms.

Be patient.

Check out gocollect.com it has a really good popular book section

GPA

Check out Ebay to see what all the books are going for ect.

They do not want to be bothered with packing/shipping etc so it will be Facebook,Yard Sale, etc.

I know "Yard Sale" sounds bad but I used to do model railroading and I stopped I gave them all of my HO equipment including Locomotives that did not run and they sold all of them at a price they were happy with at a town wide yard sale, so...

I already appraised his top 35 using eBay sold auction listings and the dealer that came out agreed with about 98% on my grades and FMV, he said some where slightly higher, some where slightly lower.

He pointed out several books that he would be able to sell immediately either because of being "hot" now or because you just do not see them, they do not show up often (JIM Annual 1, ASM Annual 1)

He also told me he gets $150.00 for the complete run (1-12) of Marvel Super Hero Secret Wars (1984), he says they come in for #1 and #8 and leave with the complete run.

14 minutes ago, Pontoon said:

Well, one reason may be if the bulk of the books are common 80s - 90s books, after the currently hot books are sold, you could be in for a long, slow slog trying to sell the rest.

 

If he can sell the 35 key's/hot books (that we know of right now) for FMV he will have sold them for $1900.00 and still have the junk left, that is $1100.00 more than he was offered for the whole collection.

Edited by marvelmaniac
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13 minutes ago, marvelmaniac said:

 

They do not want to be bothered with packing/shipping etc so it will be Facebook,Yard Sale, etc.

I know "Yard Sale" sounds bad but I used to do model railroading and I stopped I gave them all of my HO equipment including Locomotives that did not run and they sold all of them at a price they were happy with at a town wide yard sale, so...

I already appraised his top 35 using eBay sold auction listings and the dealer that came out agreed with about 98% on my grades and FMV, he said some where slightly higher, some where slightly lower.

He pointed out several books that he would be able to sell immediately either because of being "hot" now or because you just do not see them, they do not show up often (JIM Annual 1, ASM Annual 1)

He also told me he gets $150.00 for the complete run (1-12) of Marvel Super Hero Secret Wars (1984), he says they come in for #1 and #8 and leave with the complete run.

If he can sell the 35 key's/hot books (that we know of right now) for FMV he will have sold them for $1900.00 and still have the junk left, that is $1100.00 more than he was offered for the whole collection.

At the end of the day you need to make a move you are comfortable living with.

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2 hours ago, marvelmaniac said:

Back to the original subject...

He was very upfront about his business, other dealers on the forum can either confirm or dispute what he told me.

1)He has 48 hours to turn over books he purchased from a new collection. With 9 other dealers local and people on Facebook/Craigslist that are all posting new finds on the internet at the same time he has a short window...After 48 hours he says most buyers that are looking online "assume" the keys/hot books are gone so they do not come in so the remaining books just sit and become stale.

2)The "fillers" are generally sold at shows to other dealers for about $10.00 a box or at .50/25 cents each or less at specials during the year.

3)We agreed on 98% of the books as I had them graded but he said..."even though we grew up on Overstreet I have to grade very hard as I assume CGC would because that is what buyers are looking at/for due to the internet so every little tick/color break/bindery defect/color fade, etc has to be carefully examined under a microscope."

I graded and priced the top 35 books in the collection and came up with a FMV or $1900.00, we were looking for about 30% of FMV for those books.

That left 2000 books that he was offering 7 cents per book, I am not really sure if they are all fillers (the reason for this thread). He went home and did his research and contacted my Son with an offer of $800.00 which my Son declined, we were looking for about $1200.00.

One can never be sure without seeing the books, and areas of the country will vary... but his offer does seem a bit low, especially in a market like New Jersey.  I'm guessing most of your keys I might consider semi-keys... but even so, assuming the $1900 is real-world retail, I would likely be paying about $1000 (I have book scouts sell me that sort of material every week at about that percentage).  True major keys (SpMan 129, FF48, SpMan 50, and on and on... would pay considerably more, even in lower and average grades).  We pay 10-cents each for bulk 80s and 90s books that go into our dollar room.  So your asking price of $1200 sounds like exactly what we'd offer.  But we have a large store operation, and a lot of out-of-state travel-throughs.  We don't put collectibles on eBay, however, or do shows anymore either... just in-store sales, and we're in central Ohio which is a tougher market than the big cities.  I'm not sure I understand the 48-hour thing... we may sell some books immediately, but others may take weeks or months.  A percentage of $1 books, even at that price, will never sell, or will have to be bulked out at or near cost.  We have enough backstock on much material that if we can't make a decent offer, we simply pass rather than lowball... so as always, much would depend upon the mix.

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2 hours ago, marvelmaniac said:

I do not know if everything he stated is true or hype, I can only state what he told me.

If I am allowed to post a list of the books he has maybe you could point out the keys to see if we agree or if I have something missing.

As long as it doesn't look like you're actively trying to sell the books here on the boards in the posts, I don't think there'd be a problem with that.  Or you can send pm lists to people you trust and think are knowledgeable.

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3 hours ago, marvelmaniac said:

I do not know if everything he stated is true or hype, I can only state what he told me.

If I am allowed to post a list of the books he has maybe you could point out the keys to see if we agree or if I have something missing.

His offer is not so low as to seem like a "ripoff" or anything.  Everyone's overstock varies.  And even on keys or semi-keys... if I already have 5 copies, it may affect how much I want to pay for an entire collection.  Or I may pass on those and explain they are valuable to someone but I'm stocked on them, and make an offer on the other items.  10-cents is fairly standard on $1-box stock, but I've heard as low as 5-cents... especially on very large collections, though I've never offered that low myself.  He may be in line for your area, however, since no one else would even come look at the books.  I have a lot of stock because I've been in business for 35 years.  But we don't get collections rolling in through the doors in Ohio like they might in a major metropolitan area.  If he stated $800, it's also possible he's expecting you to up him to $900, or maybe even $1000.  Again... I'm just giving some general insights into business in this neck of the woods, and have no background in your region.  But if I had to give you parameters based just on what I can glean... $1500 would be a windfall offer and should be grabbed up immediately.  $500 is probably way too low, and definitely worth you taking the time to sell them yourself.  Somewhere in the middle is where you have to balance time spent selling vs. instant cash and decide based on that.

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On 10/16/2019 at 7:27 AM, marvelmaniac said:
On 10/16/2019 at 6:18 AM, Hollywood1892 said:

Sounds to me like some backhanded compliments if you ask me

I hate buyers/dealers like this:censored:

"Oh I'll offer you half of fair market value because I'm going to make a better return than a drug dealer but you got some hot stuff!"

Half...???  :signfunny: :roflmao: :insane:  lol

ok, ok 25%  :grin:

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5 minutes ago, divad said:

once he starts selling keys, both the offers and potential buyers goes down exponentially - did anyone happen to mention this to him?

Yes

If he ever wants to get rid of the bunk he better include it in the final numbers or he will be stuck with alot of reading material

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4 hours ago, marvelmaniac said:

I do not know if everything he stated is true or hype, I can only state what he told me.

If I am allowed to post a list of the books he has maybe you could point out the keys to see if we agree or if I have something missing.

if you lived near me the books would be sold already.  ;)

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54 minutes ago, divad said:
5 hours ago, marvelmaniac said:

I do not know if everything he stated is true or hype, I can only state what he told me.

If I am allowed to post a list of the books he has maybe you could point out the keys to see if we agree or if I have something missing.

if you lived near me the books would be sold already.  ;)

Yah I don't know if its been stated yet, but they could just take some pics and descriptions and post them in the non-sales thread SALES section here on the boards for local pickup.  They might get a more fair offer. 

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15 hours ago, Hollywood1892 said:

Yes

If he ever wants to get rid of the bunk he better include it in the final numbers or he will be stuck with alot of reading material

I am guessing that if he can get FMV for his top 35 (there are actually more in the collection that could/would bring $ 5, $10, $15 each) he would be happy and sell the fillers at a yard sale at a "cheap, get em now" price, 10 for a $1.00...???

Either way, here is the list of books and the list of the keys that I am aware of. (I removed all $ figures so it does not look like I am trying to sell them here, Just looking for the key/hot books)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E_EB0u-mYIO8osRxhZSkzMLlCJGnuCretAOfat0W5U4/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QI1at-p2gA3yeMNxeJRUFBOd5TWiseKYFsd80Vgb4LI/edit?usp=sharing

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7 minutes ago, marvelmaniac said:

I am guessing that if he can get FMV for his top 35 (there are actually more in the collection that could/would bring $ 5, $10, $15 each) he would be happy and sell the fillers at a yard sale at a "cheap, get em now" price, 10 for a $1.00...???

Either way, here is the list of books and the list of the keys that I am aware of. (I removed all $ figures so it does not look like I am trying to sell them here, Just looking for the key/hot books)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E_EB0u-mYIO8osRxhZSkzMLlCJGnuCretAOfat0W5U4/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QI1at-p2gA3yeMNxeJRUFBOd5TWiseKYFsd80Vgb4LI/edit?usp=sharing

Do not underestimate how long it will take to sell books......one thing ebay does not tell you is how long an item has been sitting for sale before it sold!  I've put lots of key books out for sale (on both ebay and locally at shows I was setup at) right at FMV thinking they should sell within 24 hours and they took weeks to months.  

How do you plan on selling $5 and $10 books where the buyer base is that much smaller?  You really, really do not want to be posting books on kijiji/craigslist over small $5/10 books scheduling dozens of meetups over hundreds of emails.

Garage sale?  Sure that can work, but you need to put books out cheap!  People go to garage sales looking for bargains, so you better price these books at 50% of retail!  And put up a sign - make me an offer on everything!   At the end of the day, if you have modern filler stuff and have left off the popular title filler books and flushed out all the keys you will get next to nothing for the books - might as well just leave them at the curb.   

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Also,

Since you have an offer of $800 and your son is looking for $1200, why not just post an ad on craigslist with a firm $1200 price?  Eventually someone will see it and buy it.....give dealers more time, not everyone can drop their hat at a moment's notice to look at collections, but if they can think about it for awhile some of the non responses might eventually come around....

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