spreads

Agree 100%. One of my best buys was getting a collection of 66 books worth 10k for 3500. The payback period was very short, and the effort was minimal (still have a number of those books, CGC 9.4 MP#15, gorgeous book!). If you're turning it down, it's that much more worst for a Canadian buyer. Currency conversion and duties makes it at least 50% more costly.

Probably not a good spot to keep it in the winter!

Good Stuff! And we don't mind group pics.....You made the right call on the estate auction, more often than not they are not worth the time especially considering you just grabbed some great stuff!

Wow is that book still shrink-wrapped and unsold at $9? Was it buried in the floorboards?

Who would be willing to do that? You are greatly underestimating the amount of time and effort this requires.... Last year a friend of mine purchased a collection that had 20k comics, he solicited my help because they were all independents (non-marvel/DC) and not something he's familiar with (at least nowhere near my level of knowledge). I did it partially as a favor and we worked out a low level of compensation in the form of some books I wanted to keep. This took several weekends of my time, despite all the books being organized, we still had to go through everything - and unfortunately it was a massive disappointment! I cannot believe how few books of value there were there (despite spanning all the 80s and 90s). And this was just organizing, we're not even talking about the actual sales which would have been several more time multiples. Second story....two years ago I met up with a girl that had a collection of '500-1000 books' (the story kept changing). And after meeting her and spending time going through the collection, I realized for me to sell these books on her behalf - which is something I initially proposed - would not have been worth my time for whatever finders/seller's fee we could come up with. And this was a collection of solid stuff, all silver/bronze, loads of low grade big keys....I tried to negotiate a sale but she was having a few people cherry-pick books and nothing became of it in the end. I couldn't even imagine how much work would be required for a collection of 200k comics; this is not something that can be done in a week, it would be many, many weeks (unless you plan on moving stuff cheap in bulk and then you wouldn't be maximizing return). It sounds like these two guys know what they're doing, as I said before the greater the quantity of books - the less you want to touch it.

Yes, but don't underestimate some forms of mental illness. I'm not saying this is the case here, but for someone that's a bit off this is definitely possible. There's also lots of people who have full mental capacity that have better to do than waste other people's time....

Sounds like you guys took the right approach, 100k is a serious amount of money and if there wasn't a plethora of big key books the marginal return on labor gets worst in worst the more books you have......

Not to derail the thread, but it almost merits a separate thread of amusing/entertaining stories of false or terrible leads. I got at least one funny one I can think of...

I think you have to be partially crazy buying 100k comics....even with the CAD dollar as low as it is!

This is all great AB, thanks for posting....in terms of how Alberta has turned from a prosperous economy 5-12 years, to its current state has that impacted the saleable of books? I think it probably goes both ways, people get hit hard financially and then are forced to sell....I just grabbed an X-Men#1 last week as a scenario of someone who parted with the book because he needed the money.

Would it be hundreds? I've heard of people paying 50 Basis points of insured valued on their comics, so $75 a year in this case... But I think you bring up a good point, if you were to liquidate a comic collection as a bulk sale, you'd probably only get 50% of the value, more or less on what you have....so do you need to insure the full amount in the event a disaster strikes and everything is wiped-out at once?

Thank you. I guess you would have to look at each insurance policy and determine the additional premiums of insuring comics...

Are you referring to insurance in general, or comics? I'd be interested in hearing what other Canadians do for insuring comics....

The honest approach is the only way to go, be open and transparent with this guy. I purchased a 7k collection of comics not that long ago, because my correspondence was professional (well-written), genuine and courteous (always thank people for their time) - it was a deciding factor in landing the collection. And to echo Mr. Donut, DO NOT CHERRY PICK. You lose a lot of credibility if you just want to pick apart a collection, you can mention the time/cost of acquiring a large collection but I wouldn't go into that granular level until final negotiation of sale. If it really is a preventative cost measure, offer to buy a large chunk of titles, sorted in some way that it shows you are serious and fair (title, years, alphabetical, etc.). 40k is a crazy amount of books, good luck!!

There are a surprising number of card dealers at our local shows, I didn't think there was a lot of value in cards....who knows maybe you'll find some old CCGs like Magic or Pokémon...

Well maybe taking in better case scenario, but if the range of prices being asked have been around sales prices at some point, I don't think the price is that bad. Especially considering these guys are looking to sell to a collector/not a flipper, not saying there's anything wrong with flipping just be aware of the circumstance. I see dealers price stuff way above ebay all the time, for example Spawn #1 for $30-$40 but I'm not going to make a comment about it - and I definitely do not expect dealers (at some shows) to have FMV prices

These prices don't seem that bad, what are you expecting to pay?

Your avatar says it all! J/k, hopefully you find some WDs and not 30 copies of Turok 1.

The barcodes will always tell you the printing, as well as variant number (if it is one).

Thanks, that's interesting! I might hold onto my purple comic, it's like the runt in the litter.

Hey guys, I'm going through a long-box of a collection I bought, in it contained several copies of DR. 29, one of the copies has a distinctly different coloring than the others. What could cause this, a print defect or light exposure? I'm pretty sure it's been buried in a box for years, so I don't see that as a reason but I have no clue. And does anyone else have one out there? Thanks -

Thanks! What about the other issues...I've seen #3 and 4, and I think it goes up to issue 9? I'm guessing they would be around the 300-400 mark. I also think any high grade copies would be very few and far between.

Thanks, any idea on the print run(s)? I have issue 1,2,6 as well as what I've been told is an original hand-drawn and colored piece. Out of the two people that I encountered whom owned these books, both had some direct connection to Blair himself, and have had them in their possession during the whole time. This could explain why the ones I have are pretty beat-up...

Hey guys, I apologize if this has been covered in this thread or not (I haven't read all the pages). How rare is the Elf Lord Night Wynd books? I'm talking about the black and white ones? I'm asking because I picked up a few issues lately and tried doing some research but couldn't turn up anything...