Guess the market is quite good after all 2 2

[Aweandlorder]

31 minutes ago, the blob said:

Since my wife buys like $10K worth of   a month on amazon (or so it seems) would that help her seller rating, or are they unrelated?

 

Some of those Amazon prices are funny. 2X the going rate on ebay. I guess folks who don't know what they're doing buy on Amazon. Maybe that is where facebook people get their prices. I need to check it out...

 

 

The amazon platform is far far far wider than ebay.

most people have an amazon prime account and if they search for a book on their preferred platform on their phone (ie safari, chrome etc) they will get a direct link to the amazon listing before they will ever get to it on ebay. These guys dont EVER compare prices. they whip out their phone, look for a book, see the price and IF ITS IN THEIR BUDGET they BIN

[the blob]

2 hours ago, Aweandlorder said:

My wife used to joke about my comic book sales gig until I threatened her Ill go back to my DJing gigs without it... Now shes coming with me to conventions/yard sales (she actually got quite good with negotiating) 

My wife's negotiation technique  is a cross between the nastiest b==tch in queens and a hustler on 47th street. It is abusive and terrifying. She got it from her mother, who should have played someone's homicidal aunt on the sopranos.

[Mercury Man]

Run Collectors =  Readers/Junior Comic 'Historians', also not afraid to crack and read  

Key Collectors = Only like the $$ signs, only crack if they press-clean and resubmit

[fastballspecial]

On 1/13/2020 at 10:36 AM, Aweandlorder said:

On 1/13/2020 at 8:30 AM, 1Cool said:

Great news.  What do you contribute to your success year?  Finding a plethora of keys - modern books - great year for finding dirt cheap books on e-bay for a quick flip?

I just checked and my sales were down 40% in 2019 compared to 2018.  2018 was my best year by far so that is a tough bar to shoot for but I was kind of shocked by the 40% drop off.  Bigger keys have been tougher to come by and people seem to be a LOT cheaper when it comes to buying books on e-bay and the Canadian buyers have pretty well dried up due to shipping cost and drop in their dollar which I contribute to the large decline.  2020 has started out well and hopefully it will be a bumper year.

My sales were up 10-15% from ‘18 so not really THAT much better but if there’s anything I did different last year it was going heavier on listing lower ticket items starting with $5 books than previous years. It worked extremely well on slower periods I found, as people spent more money on those books as opposed to big books

This is all I have done for 20 years works fine. You wont retire a millionaire, but its great extra income every year.
I don't sell keys in less they fall into my lap dirt cheap. 

[fastballspecial]

On 1/13/2020 at 10:48 AM, toro said:

The thing that totally amazes me are the small Facebook live auctions.  They will put up books that sell for multiples of the same book on ebay.  Sometimes one guy will have purchased a book on ebay for $45, he then starts the auction at $100 and it will sell for around $150. 

Eventually those suckers will dry up. It takes buyers a year or two realize they are paying bleed prices.
Keep in mind a  higher percentage of FB and IG sellers don't ever get paid. Its why I only buy instead
of sell there.

 

[fastballspecial]

On 1/13/2020 at 11:49 AM, Cruzin' Thru Comics said:

On 1/13/2020 at 11:38 AM, KEY ISSUES Comics said:

I feel your pain, which is why I've decided to liquidate most of my inventory. No sense in stocking long runs if they don't sell fast enough... Most younger buyers also hold onto their books for much shorter periods, even keys. Buying and collecting habits have changed enormously.

That’s right. I do have some loyal younger customers that collect complete runs. It’s good to see that in the younger crowd. I also carry tons of $1 books. They sell very well. 

One of my LCS owners told me he survived on $1 books for over 20 years.. Keys and high dollar books are great and would come in from time to time, but $1 books he bought for pennies are his bread and butter.

 

[fastballspecial]

6 hours ago, Aweandlorder said:

No one can tell u whats the best way to work your craft. Everyone has a system. The ones that are successful from it only perfect it with time. The ones that try and fail will move into something else.

there are many ways to trade and many ways to build a portfolio. They all take time and skill  
 

Yes one person's system wont work for another person sometimes.

[fastballspecial]

3 hours ago, Aweandlorder said:

The amazon platform is far far far wider than ebay.

most people have an amazon prime account and if they search for a book on their preferred platform on their phone (ie safari, chrome etc) they will get a direct link to the amazon listing before they will ever get to it on ebay. These guys dont EVER compare prices. they whip out their phone, look for a book, see the price and IF ITS IN THEIR BUDGET they BIN

Agreed it is. At some point I am going to have to make that decision. People pay stupid money on Amazon.

I keep thinking it will stop, but doesn't seem likely. 

As a buyer Amazon is way out of my range for comics, but like he said Prime brings in a lot of customers. 
If I was a Trade seller I wouldn't hesitate to do full time on Amazon.

 

[KEY ISSUES Comics]

11 hours ago, fastballspecial said:

One of my LCS owners told me he survived on $1 books for over 20 years.. Keys and high dollar books are great and would come in from time to time, but $1 books he bought for pennies are his bread and butter.

 

Yep. $1-2 books sell like crazy for me as well, but getting them at price that allows me to profit from them is tough.

[Hamlet]

20 hours ago, the blob said:

The irony is that it is harder and harder to find this stuff at shows for $2-3, much less the good old $1 box, yet people seem to expect to be able to buy for $1 and flip for $5-10...

Yeah, I haven't found a dollar box with much good stuff ( low grade SA/mid-grade BA ) lately.  Most of my low-end purchases lately have started coming out of 3/$1 or 50 cent boxes these days, and have been more low-demand Copper books that seem kinda cool for the price.  Stuff like New Mutants, X-Factor, Byrne FF, Simonson Thor, Spectacular Spiderman, Web of Spiderman, and a lot of junk that I never bought back in the day.  It's pretty funny to think that I am buying comics with a $1 cover price for 3/$1 after 30 years of inflation.  

Most of them aren't great, but I've been pleasantly surprised by a few of them.  Honestly, at this price, if I buy 50 comics and 5 of them are pretty decent, I win compared to buying new comics at $4/each.  

It entertains me.

[1Cool]

2 hours ago, Hamlet said:

Yeah, I haven't found a dollar box with much good stuff ( low grade SA/mid-grade BA ) lately.  Most of my low-end purchases lately have started coming out of 3/$1 or 50 cent boxes these days, and have been more low-demand Copper books that seem kinda cool for the price.  Stuff like New Mutants, X-Factor, Byrne FF, Simonson Thor, Spectacular Spiderman, Web of Spiderman, and a lot of junk that I never bought back in the day.  It's pretty funny to think that I am buying comics with a $1 cover price for 3/$1 after 30 years of inflation.  

Most of them aren't great, but I've been pleasantly surprised by a few of them.  Honestly, at this price, if I buy 50 comics and 5 of them are pretty decent, I win compared to buying new comics at $4/each.  

It entertains me.

I commend you wanting to buy comics to read and enjoy.  Your kind is getting more and more rare which is kind of surprising considering how cheap filler books are (especially copper or low grade bronze).  The only problem I see is your kind gets quickly overloaded with material since there is only so much space in the closet or basement for the hundreds of long boxes which would be coming your way if you let people know you pay $50 a long box for drek.  After i looked thru 100,000 comics books for $1 each recently you get an idea of how much low price books there are floating around our hobby.

Edited January 15, 2020 by 1Cool

[Aweandlorder]

58 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

I commend you wanting to buy comics to read and enjoy.  Your kind is getting more and more rare which is kind of surprising considering how cheap filler books are (especially copper or low grade bronze).  The only problem I see is your kind gets quickly overloaded with material since there is only so much space in the closet or basement for the hundreds of long boxes which would be coming your way if you let people know you pay $50 a long box for drek.  After i looked thru a million comics books for $1 each recently you get an idea of how much low price books there are floating around our hobby.

Now looking through a million comics - THAT could be time consuming

[Gotham Kid]

On 1/13/2020 at 4:19 PM, valiantman said:

Heritage in 2019: $79.3M in comic and comic art sales (a new record)

Heritage in 2018: $58.4M in comic and comic art sales (a new record, broken in 2019)

Heritage says the bidder base is expanding beyond their more optimistic expectations (that is, new buyers in the market). 

Haven't read the whole thread but just 1 item of those $79.3M was the Eqyptian Queen that sold for $5.4M. They also sold Marvel 1 9.4 in 2019 for $1.3M. Just those 2 items account for almost $7Mil.

Could just have been a year where Heritage sold more BIG ticket items compared to 2018.

 

Edited January 15, 2020 by Gotham Kid

[LordRahl]

17 hours ago, Mercury Man said:

Run Collectors =  Readers/Junior Comic 'Historians', also not afraid to crack and read  

Key Collectors = Only like the $$ signs, only crack if they press-clean and resubmit

Similar to "what I collect is cool and what you collect sucks". Also, your statement is false, much like most generalizations.

[1Cool]

17 minutes ago, Aweandlorder said:

Now looking through a million comics - THAT could be time consuming

i gave up after maybe getting thru 100,000 books (350 long boxes) but I just got sick of looking at dreky books (and I didn't want to drive back to Pittsburgh for another day of digging thru long boxes)

[Aweandlorder]

26 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

i gave up after maybe getting thru 100,000 books (350 long boxes) but I just got sick of looking at dreky books (and I didn't want to drive back to Pittsburgh for another day of digging thru long boxes)

I dedicate a certain amount of time to deal searching and it really is shifting more and more towards online/eBay finds. Since I can do it at any time whenever I get a break, waiting on a meeting etc... there are certain times a year when I’m less busier with other occupations and I allot it to intensive deal finding. But overall it’s not like it used to be for me, I found that driving to look for collections is a lot more time/money consuming and brings weaker results, as opposed to deals I’m finding online which bring higher precision profit gains and take less time/money

[Hamlet]

2 hours ago, 1Cool said:

I commend you wanting to buy comics to read and enjoy.  Your kind is getting more and more rare which is kind of surprising considering how cheap filler books are (especially copper or low grade bronze).  The only problem I see is your kind gets quickly overloaded with material since there is only so much space in the closet or basement for the hundreds of long boxes which would be coming your way if you let people know you pay $50 a long box for drek.  After i looked thru 100,000 comics books for $1 each recently you get an idea of how much low price books there are floating around our hobby.

Well, its not like I buy any and all drek.  I pick out what looks interesting to me or I feel has some small potential to have value in the future, which actually is a pretty small portion of what people are selling.  I go to small local conventions as often as I can, but that is really only 5-6 per year tops.  One of the guys that is at all of these conventions ( he actually runs one of them ) gets a bunch of tables and has a huge number of long boxes that are $20/50 books.  At the last convention I bought 50 books from him.  That means I passed on probably 5000 other books.  There is a LCS that has a bunch of 3/$1 boxes.  The last time I was there I bought 36 books from those ( along with some Warrens and a few TTA and TOS for my runs that I paid actual money for  ).  At the convention before that I bought about 100 books because one guy had a 3/$1 box that had a bunch of stuff I felt like grabbing at that price ( stuff like 80s Avengers, X-men 285-299, some ASMs in the 370s-380s, etc).  I also rescued a bunch of nice Byrne FFs from someone else that was selling them in their 50 cent boxes.  

If something is pretty drekky, I also tend to be picky on condition ( although I often will grab a few ugly books in a run so I can just read the run without gaps ).  That actually weeds out a large portion of books, as many of these aren't bagged/boarded.

So if I keep this up, I might be buying a couple of long boxes a year, which isn't going to kill me space-wise.

 

 

[MGsimba77]

I spend a ton of time sorting through GPA. Probably an unhealthy amount of time . Mostly what I track are major titles in the 8.5 to 9's silver bronze. Two unmistakable trends are high  grade darker cover silvers regardless of being keys or not rapidly increased last 12 months. Maybe that dark cover trend is starting to bleed into bronze age a little bit too. The other being major title keys silver or bronze are through the roof going back 2 years. Another trend is classic covers in this age range doing well. 

So just looking at my limited scope of interest the comics market looks hot! Things are either shooting up raising steadily or bleeding up slowly. Pretty much nothing is going down that's for sure.

I know plenty of this is the result of MCU Disney but I don't know if some is due to early bronze reaching the 50 year milestone in 2020? Would something like reaching an age milestone be a catalyst for increasing values? I would think so but I'm sure older collectors would have a better idea. 

Edited January 16, 2020 by MGsimba77
Spelling

[the blob]

On 1/13/2020 at 9:11 AM, Aweandlorder said:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamrowe1/2020/01/12/heritage-auctions-comic-book-department-sales-hit-a-record-79-million-last-year/#3ab5cb03f705

Mycs sales, if they report, may better show the market

[Mercury Man]

10 hours ago, LordRahl said:

Similar to "what I collect is cool and what you collect sucks". Also, your statement is false, much like most generalizations.

Not what I implied at all.  Can't read the story of a comic encased in plastic.  Can we at least agree on that?!   Or is that false too?  And no trades, and digital are not part of this conversation.