spreads

I'm in a similar boat to you in that I encounter trades in collections, the rare stuff (FF omnibus variant) I sell locally around a little under ebay selling prices. I've also sold some trades in bulk, but it's usually crazy cheap. I find at shows I started doing I can get around 60% off most some of them, some of the obscure stuff I'll discount even higher. Really I don't want to be lugging at most one long-box of trades around because the damn things are so heavy and just want to be rid of them.

I had a paid ad up for a short period of time and was contacted by someone that took months to actually provide any kind of list of what he had.....and never got to any pricing or idea of what he wanted. Buying collections you have to deal with the duds, it's a sunk cost that's part of the game. I have a story of a bust, I had someone contact me about 35 minutes away. I usually never drive that far with someone whom provides very little detail on their comics (never a good sign), sure enough the stuff he had was nothing I had any interest in. I still treated him cordially and after politely declining he directed me to an estate store where I scored a pile of good comics! (check the gargage sale thread, five copies of SSM 64 for $1.5 each, etc.).

Not to de-rail this thread, but I have an enlightening story that might make people feel better. Several months ago, I was looking to grab the last of my comic stuff I had stored at my mom's place - a box full of mylar and half-backs that accompanied a collection of all CGC bronze/silver books (my best collection buy!). The box was stored in the basement, in an area where her adopted cat was known to spray! Crash course on cat spraying, male cats (even this one who was fixed) spray locations to mark their scent, this is not urinating, it's liquid that shoots out of their anal glands! The first time I saw this cat spraying a neighbor's deck I thought 'haha, that's so cute, look at his butt dance.....hey, wait a minute!" And then when he started spraying indoors it was time for him to become an outdoor cat, cat spray absolutely reeks and you cannot get that smell out of anything. ***If you want some chuckles, type lion/tiger cat sprays and see some of the videos of people at zoos being sprayed*** At this point, you're probably thinking, let me guess, he sprayed the box? Correct! The box was tossed, but on top of the box were some loose mylites I had to toss as well. And just underneath the cat spray, oh so close to being destroyed was this scrap of paper.....

So for a super beater if I can go back and buy that comic, would you spend $16 on it?

Well it turns out that book was scooped on in my dollar boxes at the last show I did, I thought I may have put it there. I think I remember the guy who may have bought it, good deal for him. Like I said, it was a beater, I almost tossed it in the recycling after confirming I had 324 in my batman collection.

Is there any available publishing data on Whitman books, so we can get a figure of the print run? I'm almost certain I saw this book in a recent collection I purchased, but I might have either tossed it out (due to condition) or tossed it in a dollar box. I know next to nothing about whitmans, but I do remember seeing a batman Whitman with a white cover that didn't have any on ebay so figured it wasn't worth much!

I would never buy a used-couch, but those chairs with the black throw cushions are nice.

I would jump on that ASM collection, offer to pay more than what you did for the Batman....if you don't grab it, someone else will!

Wow, I would think that collection would go quick....surprised she asked for so little!

Haha, that's alright....seriously though, did you buy the comics?

Pics or it didn't happen!

Much further out, but yes.

Great parenting, you should have tossed the kid a candy bar in front of the dad. I just got a small batch of books, four longboxes, big runs of vertigo/dc popular titles like Sandman/Hellblazer (that will be subbed into my collection). On average the condition of these comics is the best I've seen in any lots I've purchased, many NM/NM+.

There's a big local dealer like that here (although big might be more based-on quantity then quality) that did that to me a few years ago. I was the second guy to contact a seller that had a number of keys for my collection, one being a beater copy of ASM 129 I needed. This dealer scooped this book away from me while I wanted to add it to a pile of my books I did manage to buy, I found out after he told me he flipped for a minimal profit. I probably would have paid his premium even knowing he snuck it out from me, meanwhile thinking, why would you go to that effort and cost for such little gain? And he barely got this book from me (last minute arrival at the buyer's home), from what I know of his inventory he doesn't have that large of a bankroll - probably a result of these types of transactions.

I've stopped putting any effort into garage sales for those reasons above, unless it's very close to me or a block sale with many households, it's not worth the time.

That's not true at all, go back a few pages, I made a lengthy post on where I spoke about the weekends spent going over that 20k collection.

I don't know about that, there is a lot of supply of artists and writers that love this medium and want to get into this industry. I don't think there will ever be a point when Amazing Spiderman is discontinued from lack of talent.

There are collectors that buy these bulk deals with not the intent to sell - they have money and they spend it on comics - if that's who you're competing against then there won't be any profit margin.

Agree 100%. I think there could be shifting interest out of collectible comics, sure, but the industry isn't going away anytime soon. What has stamps done to evolve and attract new interest? Comics are backed by big money, and every collectible spiderman: shirt, playing card, toy, movie, show, video game, is a derivative of the comic.

Ya but I sold everything, like 600 comics in under 90 minutes. I was just clearing out space of a recent collection, and offered big runs on all the popular marvel books from the 80s (and none of these books were bagged/boarded, they were all reader copies).

You're saying it's better to price them at $2-4? Don't undercut your price since they're not selling anyway? Hindsight is 20-20, I had a garage sale advertised at 50 cents/comic real cheap a few years back and it was a feeding frenzy, then next time I ran one no one showed-up!

Plus, you're going to Edmonton!

I have a few copies of the gold because if anything comes from Gen13 that will be the book to have value.....Deathmate was just so terrible all-around, and almost every over-priced copper/modern collection for sale has some!

People hoarding Deathmate Blacks! We are in a bubble....

Oh man that sounds horrible! Remember my story of the friend above? He paid less than $10 a box for the independents, and a lot of the stuff was NM/NM+....he's still sitting on massive inventory despite his constant advertised sales; I don't, however, setup at shows, can anyone confirm how many of those $1 books will move? Taking away semi-keys, how many books from a title like Conan would move at $1 each?