My comics from late 80's/early 90's how to value/sell them? (pic included) 0

[YusakeYojimbo]

I have no idea how much my comics are worth but am expecting a baby. (some pictured below)
Selling my comics on ebay/amazon best option to sell? If not, what is best option? 
For the most part edges and pages inside are clean but how much are comics devalued by cream/not pure white, coloring of pages? 
CGC lists price for grading as ~$20 per item, if I'm seeing some of my comics on amazon for $10-$100 that means its not worth it to have them graded? 
Advice appreciated!
Spent couple hours looking at noobie posts and google still no idea how to value/sell my comics help appreciated!

Edited January 10, 2021 by YusakeYojimbo
writing is hard for me. ty

[revat]

i would say most of these are not worth grading (for someone inexperienced), unless they are perfect in every conceivable way to your eye, exterior, interior, no bends, tears, folds, creases, spine tics, markings stains, fingerprints or any other blemishes.  The value difference between a CGC 9.8 and CGC 9.6 is DRAMATIC.

You can sell them in lots or individually on ebay, but for this size collection you'll probably do better selling here on the boards.  Price and grade each book individually with a few good photos.  Check out the sales forum to look at examples of sales threads.

[SOTIcollector]

On 1/10/2021 at 2:41 AM, YusakeYojimbo said:

I have no idea how much my comics are worth but am expecting a baby. (some pictured below)
Selling my comics on ebay/amazon best option to sell? If not, what is best option? 
For the most part edges and pages inside are clean but how much are comics devalued by cream/not pure white, coloring of pages? 
CGC lists price for grading as ~$20 per item, if I'm seeing some of my comics on amazon for $10-$100 that means its not worth it to have them graded? 
Advice appreciated!
Spent couple hours looking at noobie posts and google still no idea how to value/sell my comics help appreciated!

When you're looking to sell comics, the amount of money you'll get directly correlates to the amount of time, effort, and money you want to put into selling them.  Let's talk about selling the comics as they are before we discuss the option of having them graded. 

The easiest option would be to offer them as one lot to a single buyer, either online or at a comic store.  There are some dealers (Gary Dolgoff and MyComicShop.com come to mind) that I'm pretty sure would make you an offer to buy the entire collection all at once.  One fell swoop, and you're done.  However that would be likely to get you the least amount of money for your collection because 1) you're leaving all of the work up to the purchaser, 2) the purchaser needs to resell the comics at a profit and 3) the purchaser is likely to already have many of these common 1990's comics in stock, so the price they might offer you for a common comic with a high print run (such as Wildcats #1), is the price it's worth to them to own a 15th, or a 150th, copy of that book.  For some books, you could expect to receive only pennies. 

The option that would net you the most money would be to expend a LOT of time and effort in photographing and describing the comics, and working to hunt down a collector who wants the exact issue you're selling.  You might find that collector on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace (with no fees).  You might find that collector by reaching a much wider audience on eBay, and paying them a commission for their platform.  If you work really hard at it, you might find a way to get close to fair market value for each book.  You would also expend a LOT of time and effort to do this. The challenge is to find the right balance for you, and it's entirely up to you to determine what that balance is.  Even with an infinite amount of effort, it could take years to find a collector who wants Wildcats #1 and wants to buy it from you at your price.  That buyer would almost certainly need to be a local buyer, because the buyer would factor in the cost of shipping.  Might you find a collector who wants to spend $5 for Wildcats #1?  Sure.  But if shipping costs $4, and the buyer is willing to pay $5 for the book, then you net one measly buck.

The key is to figure out how much time and effort you want to put into selling the books, and to figure out where on this continuum you want to land.  To get an idea of fair market value, I would recommend looking up completed sales on eBay, which show you exactly what buyers are willing to pay for some books like yours.  Looking up the few books pictured shouldn't take too long; looking up dozens of longboxes would take forever and you'd need to figure out which ones are worth looking up.  The trick there is to compare apples to apples.  When comparing your Amazing Spiderman #365 to others that have sold, look carefully at the photos that are posted and look closely for any defects in your books.  ebay completed sales typically give you an idea of the most somebody is willing to pay for your book, if your book is in the same condition.  If you sell the book on ebay, count on netting about 75-80% of that after eBay fees, PayPal fees, paying for shipping materials, etc.

Once you have a rough idea of what your books are worth raw, you could consider slabbing.  Since you're just looking to maximize your profit selling these books, you need to know whether slabbing will net you more than selling the books raw.  Were you one of those picky collectors who showed up at the comic shop every Wednesday morning, flipped through a stack of 50 copies, and picked out the absolute best ones?  Did you sometimes pass on buying a book when there were no copies available that met your exacting standards, because everything has a fine stress line near the staple?  If so, then perhaps some of your books could get graded CGC 9.8.  That could make it worth your time finding books to submit.  However, if you were less picky than that, it's unlikely you have many books that are worth slabbing.  Slabbing costs do run $20 and up plus shipping both ways, so you'd need to be pretty sure that on average, the books you send in will increase in value by $25 to $30 each just to break even.  Given what I see above, that's a very tall order.  Unless you have some much higher dollar books (multiple hundreds of dollars, like ASM #300), slabbing isn't likely to be the right option for you.  

Best of luck!

 

 

 

Edited January 12, 2021 by SOTIcollector

[KCOComics]

29 minutes ago, SOTIcollector said:

When you're looking to sell comics, the amount of money you'll get directly correlates to the amount of time, effort, and money you want to put into selling them.  Let's talk about selling the comics as they are before we discuss the option of having them graded. 

The easiest option would be to offer them as one lot to a single buyer, either online or at a comic store.  There are some dealers (Gary Dolgoff and MyComicShop.com come to mind) that I'm pretty sure would make you an offer to buy the entire collection all at once.  One fell swoop, and you're done.  However that would be likely to get you the least amount of money for your collection because 1) you're leaving all of the work up to the purchaser, 2) the purchaser needs to resell the comics at a profit and 3) the purchaser is likely to already have many of these common 1990's comics in stock, so the price they might offer you for a common comic with a high print run (such as Wildcats #1), is the price it's worth to them to own a 15th, or a 150th, copy of that book.  For some books, you could expect to receive only pennies. 

The option that would net you the most money would be to expend a LOT of time and effort in photographing and describing the comics, and working to hunt down a collector who wants the exact issue you're selling.  You might find that collector on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace (with no fees).  You might find that collector by reaching a much wider audience on eBay, and paying them a commission for their platform.  If you work really hard at it, you might find a way to get close to fair market value for each book.  You would also expend a LOT of time and effort to do this. The challenge is to find the right balance for you, and it's entirely up to you to determine what that balance is.  Even with an infinite amount of effort, it could take years to find a collector who wants Wildcats #1 and wants to buy it from you at your price.  That buyer would almost certainly need to be a local buyer, because the buyer would factor in the cost of shipping.  Might you find a collector who wants to spend $5 for Wildcats #1?  Sure.  But if shipping costs $4, and the buyer is willing to pay $5 for the book, then you net one measly buck.

The key is to figure out how much time and effort you want to put into selling the books, and to figure out where on this continuum you want to land.  To get an idea of fair market value, I would recommend looking up completed sales on eBay, which show you exactly what buyers are willing to pay for some books like yours.  Looking up the few books pictured shouldn't take too long; looking up dozens of longboxes would take forever and you'd need to figure out which ones are worth looking up.  The trick there is to compare apples to apples.  When comparing your Amazing Spiderman #365 to others that have sold, look carefully at the photos that are posted and look closely for any defects in your books.  ebay completed sales typically give you an idea of the most somebody is willing to pay for your book, if your book is in the same condition.  If you sell the book on ebay, count on netting about 75-80% of that after eBay fees, PayPal fees, paying for shipping materials, etc.

Once you have a rough idea of what your books are worth raw, you could consider slabbing.  Since you're just looking to maximize your profit selling these books, you need to know whether slabbing will net you more than selling the books raw.  Were you one of those picky collectors who showed up at the comic shop every Wednesday morning, flipped through a stack of 50 copies, and picked out the absolute best ones?  Did you sometimes pass on buying a book when there were no copies available that met your exacting standards, because everything has a fine stress line near the staple?  If so, then perhaps some of your books could get graded CGC 9.8.  That could make it worth your time finding books to submit.  However, if you were less picky than that, it's unlikely you have many books that are worth slabbing.  Slabbing costs do run $20 and up plus shipping both ways, so you'd need to be pretty sure that on average, the books you send in will increase in value by $25 to $30 each just to break even.  Given what I see above, that's a very tall order.  Unless you have some much higher dollar books (multiple hundreds of dollars, like ASM #300), slabbing isn't likely to be the right option for you.  

Best of luck!

 

 

 

This is excellent advice.  

That balance for me would be to carefully go through the comics and identify the 5 to 10 most valuable (or anything over a certain $$ threshold). 

If they are in great shape, post pictures here in the Spare a grade forum and see if the peanut gallery thinks you have a shot at a 9.8. 

Anything worth more than $50 may be worth the work to track down buyers.  The bulk of the collection I would bring to a few comic shops and take offers. As @SOTIcollector said, don't expect a big offer going with a bulk sale.  It's work for the shops without a ton of profit.

[shadroch]

Looking at that picture, you could clear $200 or more if you sold them as a lot on ebay with a bunch of clear pictures. you'd get more if you sold them individually but it would be much more work.  I'm thinking a few dealers might offer you a hundred for the the lot, but for most of them these would just be extra copies of books they already have. 

The simplest, cheapest route would be to auction them off here. Maybe split them into two or three groups, start the auction at a dollar and let the market decide. It's a lot less work and you will get more than most dealers will pay with little work.

[theCapraAegagrus]

17 minutes ago, shadroch said:

Looking at that picture, you could clear $200 or more if you sold them as a lot on ebay with a bunch of clear pictures. you'd get more if you sold them individually but it would be much more work.  I'm thinking a few dealers might offer you a hundred for the the lot, but for most of them these would just be extra copies of books they already have. 

The simplest, cheapest route would be to auction them off here. Maybe split them into two or three groups, start the auction at a dollar and let the market decide. It's a lot less work and you will get more than most dealers will pay with little work.

That's what I was thinkin'.