spreads

Pics or it didn't happen! Oh wait.....congrats - awesome book - is this a flip since it's going to CGC? I'd be looking to hold it....

And then when this happens, you immediately offer 10% less than previously!

I would advertise. I only used it a few times, but it was responsible for the largest sale - I offered a slight bulk deal on a customer that spent over $500 on a batch of stuff with it. It's pretty awesome....

One of the big out of town dealers is quite vocal - but honest and polite - about this. I can't offer you this, because I have these costs: X,Y,Z. It probably won't help you purchase the item but it will add some sense to these type of sellers....more often than not, these guys will be back shopping the books....

I would have reached down to my lowest-dollar-denominated box and added a comic to the offer - 'here you go'!

Well, I think I touched-upon (and have been pretty vocal about this in other threads) how the macro-economy influences the collectible hobby as an industry. I don't know how we could measure the aggregate money coming into the comic hobby/industry, but I'm sure it would be a drop in the bucket to the trillions of dollars flowing into traditional financial asset classes.

Okay, maybe the amounts were off but a bit but the main takeaway is the period of time and what was going-on during the world economy at that time. When trillions of dollars are flowing into other asset classes while some comics are crumbling in price, I don't think anything further needs to be said about why you shouldn't 'invest' in comics.

You know what's even more starting and dramatically overlooked in those time periods - June 2009 was just a few months when the equity markets and the credit markets were in TOTAL DISTRESS. I mean, to take 30K and put it in a comic book, instead of any STOCK (or real-estate in most markets) is even more starting. It would be considerably different if someone bought a book in 2006 and 2007 and sold in 2009, but to buy right after the global meltdown and then sell for a huge loss after a 10 year period - where EVERY ASSET CLASS had a huge run-up - is even more ridiculous.

Oh and for my contribution to the thread....audit a random Image published title from 2012-2016 and you'll be able to find a good example. The sentiment here on the boards during some of this time was overwhelming positive how Image was crushing the other companies and couldn't miss with many of their titles...wasn't there a guy that made a huge bulk purchase of Manifest Destiny at $100 book or something crazy? Outcast was a big one too, I managed to sell a few issues of number 1 at $50 knowing the print run was sky high and it would come crashing down....

I don't think isolated examples like this, and even what Donut is referring to are what we're referring to here. I think we need to include criteria such as; an informed seller, an informed buyer, and a sufficient number of market participants to reach a consensus in price. About a year ago I found 5 copies of SSM 64 in a box at an antique store, clearly that was an inefficiency in the market and not representative of fair market value.

Ahahah this picture is wrong in so many ways.

Thanks WC for a detailed summary, very informative. Lots to comment on but I wanted to zero-in what I quoted above, and that is how variety really is key - the largest local dealer had told me on Sunday you need to have variety, it can't all be keys. We do have a few vendors that offer unique items, but a lack of diversification will hurt sales, even when you have items better-priced than other dealers you won't be able to capture random buyers that don't make their way to your table. Our show was very slow too, I don't know if that's regular seasonality (but it further validates my need to increase online sales). Great response with the irate buyer, you could have walked-away and eventually he would probably come back to you in time anyway. I have not had anything like that, but I did have a very awkward buyer chat with me a long time about which X-men books he thought I should recommend he buy (from someone else). After a long chat and then a subsequent departure, he came back ectastic that he was able to find the books for his price range elsewhere....umm, congrats?

That HOS is a great book! I have it in 9.4 in my collection; I love the grumpy cat that's swaddled in her arms.

Great books! What type of climate controls do you have in place? I'm looking at purchasing a dehumidifier, and then maybe a space heater in the winter....

That's pretty amazing. I just had our monthly show on Sunday and a few of us were chatting about the poor advertising; It's disappointing how much the interest is driven through word-of-mouth by us (the dealers) telling people about the show (a lot of people have never heard of it).

Turns out there were a mess ton of garages sales in the area that had books advertised; I didn't see much of anything I was interested in, however I did pickup these books below. I can't turn down Can. Price Variants when I see them cheap... 3.5 hours later I'm pretty wiped and sweating like a pig! I think I've earned a craft deck-brew

Some great books guys! Hopefully you managed to get the auction wins under budget. Beautiful day out today - so I took the opportunity to do some biking with some wheels I just picked-up. I'm looking to start biking 2-3 days a week into work; my company has personal budgets, I blew through mine on this purchase last week - and hit the streets this morning!

Shadow Man variant. It's funny to think that we mention Venom: Lethal Protector as scores nowadays.

It's good you're posting this stuff, the boards might not have seen such an exhaustive collection with a singular artist focus. I wonder if you could get this stuff pedigreed?

it's not the packing, it's the upside-down angle.

Thanks, it's been stressful we bought a cottage and a house four months a part. We have a white board in the office to keep track of what we need to do for both; and to add to the stress I just found out this week my company was bought-out by one of the major banks. I guess the timing is never great on something like that

Goodbye crummy book shelf! As for the shelving, I'll probably switch out my longs to short boxes and turn them laterally. I find this unit can hold a lot of weight and once it's bracketed to the wall I'll remove the longs off the floor. I'm only keeping them there to add stability to the whole unit...I'll also have to structure my books between my permanent collection and what's available for sale.

Mold of clay... Here's our basement - just moved here exactly two weeks ago; the first pics show what I had before (just a crummy shelf and longs on the floor). I picked-up an ikea shelf, the location will probably be moved to the back so the comics only take up about 1/3rd of the room, but for the time-being it's near the front. I've also sent up a folding table that I can use as a makeshift workspace. The second shelving I picked-up locally for free. You can see it has the generic gray Ikea is so known for, so I will most likely dismantle the unit and prime and spray paint the metal black. I'll probably replace the wood too, maybe stain it if I do....for now it does the job.

Did you guys roll over in a ditch?