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Recent collection from Canada
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225 posts in this topic

On 9/14/2020 at 9:07 AM, Artboy99 said:

The buyer's store is literally 9 blocks from my home. His prices are always high.

He can't grade comics, and it was difficult to watch him jam the books back into the boxes.

From that video, it's clear he has no clue what Near Mint means. While those comics looked nice, they were all more or less in the 5.0-7.0 range, judging from their spines.

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4 hours ago, Wall-Crawler said:

Why "mock" the guys over his YouTube videos? They seem to have pretty decent production values. Yeah, they have a "reality TV' vibe, but he's promoting his business and clearly getting the word out...?

Awesome sig line though by the way :golfclap:!!!

It was just a joke because he actually looks like Ashton Kutcher.  That might even be a compliment...lol  The lack of a sense of humor here among "funny book" people is just amazing sometimes...

Thank you for the compliment on my sig line.  HarveySwick made it for me. :)

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This "find" kinda reminds me of a story I read in the 1980s or 1990s about a huge Dell 4-color collection that was stolen from a storage unit in western Nebraska.  There's probably no connection, but you don't hear about huge Dell collections very often.  I wonder if the Nebraska guy ever got his books back.

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On 9/14/2020 at 7:41 PM, aardvark88 said:

I have never seen Cow Puncher in Canada. Don't worry about this Western horde, as you did not have space for another skid of comics in your house. If you really want to 'invest' $10k into this collection, I am sure 90% of it will be available at Edmonton Antique cons when they start up again in 2022.

Would have been better if this collection had a long box of GA Archies and even Classics Illustrated to diversify it a bit.

There are plenty of Cow Puncher books locally due to a number of GGA collectors. The books are tucked away in collections, though.

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I really hope he does a CGC box unveiling video to book end this. I wonder how he will react to seeing all of the "NM" books coming back as 7.0s............

 

Edited by kimik
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The problem for the buyer is trying to move the low demand stuff. He needs to make his money back on the best stuff, as low to mid grade Dell and Fawcett Western commons are $2-$5 bin fodder in order to move them at local shows. Otherwise, he will likely have them collecting dust in storage until he closes his store decades down the road........

Edited by kimik
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23 minutes ago, kimik said:

The problem for the buyer is trying to move the low demand stuff. He needs to make his money back on the best stuff, as low to mid grade Dell and Fawcett Western commons are $2-$5 bin fodder in order to move them at local shows. Otherwise, he will likely have them collecting dust in storage until he closes his store decades down the road........

Would that junk sell on eBay?  It could be a long while before local shows are a thing again. :(

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It would take forever to sell on eBay

As I said before, I would go through the boxes carefully. Seems to be a very well organized collection. Really wouldn’t take that long for experienced comic folks. 

Pick out the best of the best and keep maybe one box. He would have a lot harder time because he is just focused on #1 issues. We would pick out Black Rider #8, Durango Kid #30 and the Frazetta issues. Baker covers and other “sleepers”. There are more decent Western books than most would think. 

Then try to dump the rest for what he paid. Leave Bob Colt #1 and other dead stuff for a little “sparkle” to someone like himself. He already made back a chunk on the price guides. Or break them up in large lots and dump them on the local auction houses. Plenty of greedy dumb folks who think all “ten centers” are worth a ton of money. Wouldn’t be hard to make some decent profit on the swill with minimal effort. 

Problem is, he had to be a “big shot” and show all his cards on the internet for everybody to see. 

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3 hours ago, Robot Man said:

It would take forever to sell on eBay

As I said before, I would go through the boxes carefully. Seems to be a very well organized collection. Really wouldn’t take that long for experienced comic folks. 

Pick out the best of the best and keep maybe one box. He would have a lot harder time because he is just focused on #1 issues. We would pick out Black Rider #8, Durango Kid #30 and the Frazetta issues. Baker covers and other “sleepers”. There are more decent Western books than most would think. 

Then try to dump the rest for what he paid. Leave Bob Colt #1 and other dead stuff for a little “sparkle” to someone like himself. He already made back a chunk on the price guides. Or break them up in large lots and dump them on the local auction houses. Plenty of greedy dumb folks who think all “ten centers” are worth a ton of money. Wouldn’t be hard to make some decent profit on the swill with minimal effort. 

Problem is, he had to be a “big shot” and show all his cards on the internet for everybody to see. 

He was lucky that all the books had identification stickers on them many with prices so it was easy for him to pick out the "good" stuff.

I talked with a friend of mine today who owns one of the other antiques/ collectibles stores in town and told him of this collection. He took notes on our conversation and planned to contact Alex ( Curiousity Inc.) to discuss.

My friend also mentioned that the buyer can't grade. We all already knew that.

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14 minutes ago, Artboy99 said:

He was lucky that all the books had identification stickers on them many with prices so it was easy for him to pick out the "good" stuff.

After watching the video again, I somehow got the impression that the books with the price tags on them were actually the ones priced out by Alex himself.  (shrug)

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5 hours ago, Robot Man said:

It would take forever to sell on eBay

As I said before, I would go through the boxes carefully. Seems to be a very well organized collection. Really wouldn’t take that long for experienced comic folks. 

Pick out the best of the best and keep maybe one box. He would have a lot harder time because he is just focused on #1 issues. We would pick out Black Rider #8, Durango Kid #30 and the Frazetta issues. Baker covers and other “sleepers”. There are more decent Western books than most would think. 

Then try to dump the rest for what he paid. Leave Bob Colt #1 and other dead stuff for a little “sparkle” to someone like himself. He already made back a chunk on the price guides. Or break them up in large lots and dump them on the local auction houses. Plenty of greedy dumb folks who think all “ten centers” are worth a ton of money. Wouldn’t be hard to make some decent profit on the swill with minimal effort. 

Problem is, he had to be a “big shot” and show all his cards on the internet for everybody to see. 

Producing videos and putting them online is a savvy move.  If you get enough viewers and a strong following you can generate some income and it's a great marketing move.  He's already sold the Overstreets and I suspect he will get inquiries about selling other parts of this collection.  And it will likely help to draw attention to his business and could lead to him purchasing other collections. 

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6 hours ago, piper said:

Would that junk sell on eBay?  It could be a long while before local shows are a thing again. :(

Less interesting lots tend to sell for $5 to $10 a book on ebay.  But generally the lots of ebay are low grade and these books appear to be higher grade and I'd imagine there's a bit of upside.

The grades on the original owner's stickers appear to be too high - to be fair grading standards have changed a lot -  but a lot of those books appear to be pretty nice and I suspect there are a lot of VF books in the collection.  I've seen lots of  old Western comics and they're very common but less common in nice shape.

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2 hours ago, lou_fine said:
2 hours ago, Artboy99 said:

He was lucky that all the books had identification stickers on them many with prices so it was easy for him to pick out the "good" stuff.

After watching the video again, I somehow got the impression that the books with the price tags on them were actually the ones priced out by Alex himself.  (shrug)

I believe the first video showed some hand written price stickers on the back of the mylars and I'd assume those are from the original owner.  The second video showed a box of comics with price stickers  made with a price gun on the front that I would assume Alex put on.  I've dealt with a few flea market, antique dealer guys and because they're not experienced graders some like to put the highest Overstreet value on the sticker and negotiate from there.

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1 hour ago, thehumantorch said:

Producing videos and putting them online is a savvy move.  If you get enough viewers and a strong following you can generate some income and it's a great marketing move.  He's already sold the Overstreets and I suspect he will get inquiries about selling other parts of this collection.  And it will likely help to draw attention to his business and could lead to him purchasing other collections. 

I fully agree and understand your logic. His big mistake was to share what he paid for them with the world. Although, I have never heard from Chuck Rosanski what he paid for the Church collection, it has been rumored as low as cover price. He has been kicked around for 40+ years about it. His situation was very similar to this guy’s (other than the collection he got had a little better material in it). The unlucky ones who wern’t so lucky and smart always want to bring up the “ethics”. 

I learned this way back in high school with locker room talk. Girls really didn’t appreciate it. I got a LOT more lucky than the guys that bragged...

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22 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

Girls really didn’t appreciate it. I got a LOT more lucky than the guys that bragged...

Umm.......I hope you do realize that there are some female board members here who might not appreciate YOU talking about the fairer sex in this manner.  :baiting:  lol

Edited by lou_fine
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20 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

I fully agree and understand your logic. His big mistake was to share what he paid for them with the world. Although, I have never heard from Chuck Rosanski what he paid for the Church collection, it has been rumored as low as cover price. He has been kicked around for 40+ years about it. His situation was very similar to this guy’s (other than the collection he got had a little better material in it). The unlucky ones who wern’t so lucky and smart always want to bring up the “ethics”. 

I learned this way back in high school with locker room talk. Girls really didn’t appreciate it. I got a LOT more lucky than the guys that bragged...

You may be right about him telling us what he paid.  Did he even reveal what he paid for the non comic stuff in the collection or was that part of the 10k?

Those buttons have to be worth a bit.  The autographed photos are surely worth something.  I think he had some lunchboxes and wouldn't be surprised if there were some cap guns and holsters that can have value.  

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39 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Umm.......I hope you do realize that there are some female board members here who might not appreciate YOU talking about the fairer sex in this manner.  :baiting:  lol

Hey, it was high school. My point was that they appreciated me keeping my mouth shut.

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37 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

You may be right about him telling us what he paid.  Did he even reveal what he paid for the non comic stuff in the collection or was that part of the 10k?

Those buttons have to be worth a bit.  The autographed photos are surely worth something.  I think he had some lunchboxes and wouldn't be surprised if there were some cap guns and holsters that can have value.  

I assume he meant 10K for everything. The buttons look like they might be repros. Cap guns and holsters from known stars still sell decent. Everything else is like the comics, a very hard sell now. Sadly, like a lot of character stuff, most people who know them are dying off or trying to dump their own collections. How many people even know who Sunset Carson or Gabby Hayes are any more? 

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10 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

I assume he meant 10K for everything. The buttons look like they might be repros. Cap guns and holsters from known stars still sell decent. Everything else is like the comics, a very hard sell now. Sadly, like a lot of character stuff, most people who know them are dying off or trying to dump their own collections. How many people even know who Sunset Carson or Gabby Hayes are any more? 

Paying $1 a book I'd dump the bulk of it on ebay or to a dealer from British Colombia I know who specializes in old books from all genres to recover my investment and make space and I might store the rest in my basement.  It's hard to imagine this stuff becoming popular again but it could happen.  I never thought I'd see romance comics or 50s crime books selling well. but they're hot

Edited by thehumantorch
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4 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

but a lot of those books appear to be pretty nice and I suspect there are a lot of VF books in the collection.  I've seen lots of  old Western comics and they're very common but less common in nice shape.

Take a closer look. The VF/NM to NM books looked closer to 7.0 than 8.0, and stuff in the boxes was worse than that. 

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