spreads

That blows. It's pretty dumb on the seller's part to just take the first offer, even if the amount looks good you're leaving money on the table and conducting bad business (assuming this is a company that regularly schedules auctions). I went to an estate auction where the auctioneer pulled items because on that day the attendance was poor and expected better results - I've never gone back to that guy since.

Are the 15s or 16s raws at their previous highs? I see the graded books going for big money, but I recall 15 was going for $100+ pretty easily raw a couple years ago? (I bought a collection that had all those books, that's what I remember). Their could be legs to the character though, how many other Asian super-heroes are there?

Be appreciative US tax law permits that, we can't dump drek on 'goodwill' for a tax receipt. I would be happy moving stuff in bulk, it's on average quite a bit less for me; sometimes $50 CAD for a long box. But I've never had a regret moving bulk and cleaning-up space. It's not always about trying to squeeze every nickle...

No, go read the chain of quotes and discussion again. His comment was criticizing my stance on bringing 50 cent boxes, but he quoted BrotherJ, who's the buyer of the 50 cent boxes.

You should probably learn how to use the quoting function, so the message is targeted to the right audience. Have you brought books to a show and tried moving 50 cent boxes? If the answer is no, then you have no idea whether there are more sales generated by having them. For those that have done this, they will determine what items and at which price points it makes sense for them to have these boxes, I described clear reasons why it's not feasible for me to do this when I can blow out longs cheap to the same type of buyer (but one individual instead of a few dozen over multiples of transactions).

Good recovery, getting something to make it worthwhile is how you turn losers into winners or at worst ties. It's probably the hardest part of buying collections.

LOL. You made several assumptions that are dead wrong. But hey, it's your funeral if you get caught.

Great haul and thanks for the tip!

I'm not overlooking them, I sell bulk collections to these guys all the time. If this guy I mentioned above was completing a run, he would have had a list or known about the books he's looking for. This isn't the case - he saw a few things of interest, sat on the fence, then decided he didn't want to spend 50 cents each on a basket of books after spending an hour of his time looking through boxes. And we're not talking about a big con, small local monthly comic and card show that's been running for 25+ consecutive years with a wide-variety of dealers (both selections).

Almost none of the books were bagged and boarded and are not being sold for their condition. I'm talking about a guy that pulled a stack of several comics and didn't want any of them, big difference then someone who takes a basket of books and put one or two back which is fairly common.

I think I inadvertently touched-on a hidden point....I've had dealers tell me they've missed out on sales because they were too busy to deal with all their buyers. What is the 'opportunity cost' for a seller using their time talking to a buyer of these cheap comics. There's definitely a tangible (a book sold) and intangible (meeting new buyers, networking, looking at a collection for sale, looking at another dealer's table, etc. ) cost that should be factored in....

What's funny is that there are people that will dig for books, pick them out and then decide they don't want them or try to beat you up over a 50 cent comic. No joke, I had a guy him and haw over a handful of 50 cent comics....I think I kind of laughed and said he can just have them for free.....honestly, sunk cost people....

You wish!

I'm 39, I exercise 5 times a week between a variety of sports (hockey, baseball, squash) and strength and cardio (gym, yoga, biking). I consider myself in very good shape for my age, but lugging these boxes is still very tiring, regardless of how good of shape you are. I just don't think it's worth the effort lugging 50 cent boxes, again maybe it depends on your show but I ran this experiment for 4 months and realized it was just not worth my time. The worst are guys that spend an hour in them to dig through for a number 1 issue you purposely left in there as part of a run of 5-20 comics that you left in there, thinking someone would buy the whole run. I put a stop to that, I created cheap sets of readers that averaged $1/piece give or take, but the sale was for a higher dollar amount because I'm forcing the buyer to buy the lot and not cherry-pick. Also, there were a few months I was running these 50 cent boxes where I had unlimited space.....it was lugging the damn things back and forth that was super annoying.....just dealing with 50 cent boxes took time away from me bringing and pricing higher-priced books, bagging/boarding personal stock, listing stuff on ebay, etc. etc. Sorry for the rant, if 50 cent books work for you guys, then definitely keep doing it!

haha, disregard!

I should also note that I often dump longs and shorts at around 40-50 cents each, I often throw in some minor keys in there so the buyer is getting good stuff. I can dump a recent collection much quicker that way....

The floor is limited for a number of reasons: 1) having people dig on the floor inhibits people looking in boxes, space is limited. 2) If I wanted to put boxes down there I would put boxes of discounted trades/HCs, which sell far better and at much higher margins than discount bins. My cost is about as lean as it gets, it's just not worth the hassle lugging those boxes, storing, sorting, pricing, etc. I'm guessing you're not a dealer? There is significant time and energy that goes into the show, the preparation is several time multiples to the actual event time...just like going through collections, it is very time-consuming....

5-10 boxes of $1 books take up A LOT of real-estate; you have to understand it's huge effort to lug and haul those boxes. I had a stack of 50 cent books I was bringing to early shows and even though I was dumping them on a free table I brought, and was moving a fair amount of them, it wasn't worth the effort.....I only have one $2 box, it moves well but it's stuff you cannot find anywhere else for $2...bigger shows where it costs serious money to setup at it's not economically feasible to bring dollar boxes.

Looks like batman will crank open that window and catch some crooks in the park!

These are great! And who knew that superman was a foot guy!

No way dude, bring them across the border so we can all read about it in the news.

Oh actually, they might think there's drugs in the comic slabs. Just to be sure, they will have to break the book out of the slab, and start tearing away pages to inspect for contraband.

If you were bringing books like the OP has, several thousand dollars worth and didn't declare it you're talking a very serious offense. And don't take the guards lightly, don't think they won't ask a pile of probing questions, if they see comic books especially graded ones they will take the time to research them on the internet to find their approximate value. I have a former roommate from university that worked at a Canadian Border crossing. He told me a story of scanning through, page-by-page the internet browsing history of a guy's laptop - I think he had some kind of illegal porn or something on there. Meanwhile while this search of books is going-on you're sweating it out thinking, why did I ever start that thread sell my CGC keys from Canada....

Great story, an even more better story would be if it was a comic guy bringing slabs!