Comic Book Inheritance 1 1

[heyyybrotherrr]

Greetings! I inherited my uncle's old comic book collection (around 2-3 thousand books) around three months ago and have been trying to decide what steps to take next. Right now, I'm still just making a big inventory list so I know what I have and know that it's organized if I ever need to find anything. Over the past three months, I've been on My comic shop, go collect, key collector, and comic price guide quite a bit to determine what I have and if it's of any value. I know enough now to recognize that I have some key issues and that I have some cool books in great condition. Just a quick list:

Iron Man 2-333 (doe not include #54; include two issues of #128) (not great condition for the earliest ones)

Amazing Spider Man (about 100 comics mostly in the 300's; include 301, 346, all Carnage, "Planet of the Symbiotes") Great condition

Some cool Spectacular and Web of Spider man stuff (Web #31,32) (great condition)

Transformers 1-80

Tales of Suspense (include #50, #60, these ones aren't in great condition unfortunately)

I still have a lot to go through - looks like mostly X-Men stuff and some Captain America is left. There are lots of random goodies as well - some cool Marvel Age, all of Infinite War/Crusade/Gauntlet (flawless), 3 issues of Darkhawk #1 that are flawless, Miracle Man #1 (flawless), a lot more that I'm forgetting about. 

Anyway, my question is how to maximize my profit selling these books. I want to get some of them graded (Iron man 55, Tales of Suspense 50, maybe some ASM) but it seems like there are conflicting views regarding grading books (just from what I've read of people in a similar circumstance and the the advice they get). Is Ebay, Facebook marketplace, or Amazon the way to go? Grab a booth at a convention? I've been warned against LCS. Anyway, thanks for reading and any advice! Cheers! 

PS: (pardon the misspellings/grammar - in a hurry)

 

[Krismusic]

First off Sorry for your lose.

Sounds like your on the right track and taking all the steps you need.. but if you want to grade some of the more valuable books look at the raw values they sell for compared to the graded value; hopefully you have spend some time in the PGM section of the forums to get a good idea of how books grade and what defects to look for etc... when comfortable and when you have a list of books you want to submit send them in and sell them through whichever venue you feel comfortable selling in. eBay will offer some protection but comes with its own seller hassles.. (there are plenty of topics on this in the boards). Some try to sell locally..i would not recommend unless its cheap to set up a booth at a convention. Also the graded books you can probably easily sell off here. I would start with some lower value books and build a kudos and reputation of trust with the board members and go from there.. 

Best of luck and welcome to the boards.

[theCapraAegagrus]

3 minutes ago, Krismusic said:

First off Sorry for your lose.

Sounds like your on the right track and taking all the steps you need.. but if you want to grade some of the more valuable books look at the raw values they sell for compared to the graded value; hopefully you have spend some time in the PGM section of the forums to get a good idea of how books grade and what defects to look for etc... when comfortable and when you have a list of books you want to submit send them in and sell them through whichever venue you feel comfortable selling in. eBay will offer some protection but comes with its own seller hassles.. (there are plenty of topics on this in the boards). Some try to sell locally..i would not recommend unless its cheap to set up a booth at a convention. Also the graded books you can probably easily sell off here. I would start with some lower value books and build a kudos and reputation of trust with the board members and go from there.. 

Best of luck and welcome to the boards.

loss*

Get keys like Iron Man #55 graded.

If you want to "maximize profits" - there is a lot of work to be done. Learning how to grade is one of those jobs. Otherwise, you'll have to pay other people to do that work for you. That's a detriment to profitability.

[Krismusic]

Just now, theCapraAegagrus said:

loss*

Get keys like Iron Man #55 graded.

If you want to "maximize profits" - there is a lot of work to be done. Learning how to grade is one of those jobs. Otherwise, you'll have to pay other people to do that work for you. That's a detriment to profitability.

sorry loss

[Krismusic]

waz typing fast  

[theCapraAegagrus]

Just now, Krismusic said:

waz typing fast  

[Krismusic]

5 minutes ago, theCapraAegagrus said:

[marvelmaniac]

Sorry for your loss.

Just so you know, Transformers 1,issues 74 -79(low print runs) and issue 80 may be worth grading depending on the grade of your books, my Transformers #1 Raw NM 9.4 is selling for about $90.00 on eBay, CGC Graded NM 9.4?

You may want to look at eBay sold auctions to see what raw copies are selling for vs. CGC graded books in the same grade.

[heyyybrotherrr]

Thanks everyone! I appreciate the helpful information! The crux of the matter is the cost/benefit of getting comics graded. It seems like there is a big drop-off in price between a 9.8 and even a 9.0, let alone a 9.8 and something in the 4.0-6.0 ballpark. The most important thing I've realized thus far is to not trick myself into thinking I have one thing, and counting on it, when it's a different thing entirely (mint comic vs. very fine). @marvelmaniac thanks for this, these low-print comics are harder for me to spot than the key-issue ones. I'll keep those Transformers safe and sound. My next stop is PGM - thanks again!

[Glassman10]

Based on your descriptions of the books, I'd be surprised if you had 9. hardly anything and yes it devalues the comics enormously.  That's a grade for a pristine comic.  The one that would stand out is the Iron Man 55 which introduces a character named Thanos. In great condition, it would pay for most other books needing slabbin but I'm not hearing you mention others that answer that bell.  Use Overstreet to at least flag you to books that jump out in value. Best of luck with that. 

Go to some sites like metropolitan comics, or my comics. See what they ask for these comics. Then, the difficult part is learning to grade objectively. 

Edited February 6, 2020 by Glassman10