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Hamlet

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Posts posted by Hamlet

    Copper's Heating/Selling Well on Ebay

    in Copper Age Comic Books

    Posted

    30 minutes ago, fastballspecial said:

    Because its not seller's techinque. They sell a few books once a month or so that are high grade and puts a large price on them.

    A few sales a month on books that are well overpriced. Nothing wrong with it all the seller can ask what they want.
    Its the buyer responsibility to know what they are getting and the price they are paying. 

    Learning to grade takes time and effort many don't want to do both.

     

    I would also say that the difference between getting “top dollar” and a clearly overpriced book isn’t a slam dunk.  What is a fair price for a raw 9.6/9.8 candidate?  People tend to look at the price of a slabbed book and back out the fees, but there are plenty of buyers who don’t value the plastic cases at all, especially ones who dislike the pressing/cleaning games that you can pretty much assume have been played with a slabbed book these days.

     

     

    Let's talk about out-of-touch pricing and forum ettiquette.

    in Comics General

    Posted

    I really don’t see the value of thread-crapping on anyone’s pricing regardless of how out of line it is.  It drops out of site faster if you just ignore it.  Regardless, it is poor form and is not going to serve a useful purpose.  
     

    I go to conventions and there are a couple of dealers that are just not competitive on pricing. Would it be useful for me to tell them that?  I doubt that they are going to suddenly going to re-price their books based on my criticism.  If they want to spend their time hauling books around to not sell, that is their business.  Ironically, since the last few years have had prices on a strong upward trend, they do eventually sell some books as the market catches up to their prices.

    My LCS has terrible pricing.  Should I let them know?  They are still in business, so they must occasionally be selling stuff.  
     

    Allowing people to comment on pricing in threads here would end up being a disaster, IMO.

    Copper's Heating/Selling Well on Ebay

    in Copper Age Comic Books

    Posted

    On 6/27/2020 at 11:08 AM, mr_highgrade said:

     Also a Barry Windsor Smith cover to boot.

    He did a bunch of the New Mutants covers from that time period. I was pulling them out of 50 cent boxes before this lockdown ( I wasn’t seeing this one at that price, obviously).  They are pretty awesome covers, IMO.  The insides of the books are so-so, but for 50 cents I’ll buy them just to look at the cover.

     

    Eerie 23 Club

    in Comic Magazines

    Posted

    On 6/19/2020 at 9:00 PM, This is Who We Are said:

    Can't wait to post my CGC 9.2!  I'm guessing it'll be in hand in just a couple short weeks....I mean first the auction has to end and then they have to process it and mail it...  (::baiting:

    So did you take it down?  😀
     

    Strong price for a rare and awesome book!

     

    Where do you see the hobby in 25 years

    in Comics General

    Posted

     

    On 6/20/2020 at 4:17 PM, lou_fine said:

    Well, the way to resolve this problem is simply to eliminate the BIN "not so auction" like format whereby hopeful consignors are putting books on eBay at stratospheric prices hoping to snag some sucker who doesn't know anything at all.  If these consignors had theactual  balls to put all of their books into a true open auction format, they would have no problem having a 100% sell though on their books, but most likely at a much more realistic market price which is probably at a huge discount of what they was hoping for.  hm  :cry:

    I’m fine with sellers charging whatever they want.  I’m just saying that the lack of buyers at their silly asking prices isn’t an indication that the market for anything is dying.  There are plenty of people willing to buy a huge variety of vintage comics at more realistic prices.  Almost everything I am interested in sells at higher prices than I am willing to pay when it goes to auction.  
     

    Sellers looking to get top dollar ( or more )  will need a lot of patience.

     

    Where do you see the hobby in 25 years

    in Comics General

    Posted

    10 minutes ago, World Devourer said:

    Well, I think the focus on variants speaks for itself. You only have to run an Ebay search on certain Spider-Man, Star Wars, Thanos etc. issues to see that. I have also noted many CGC 9.8's of old titles not moving. These days it really has to be a key issue - and usually in a good grade - to move. Another aspect of the hobby is also the strong emphasis on the cover - people don't buy a CGC comic to crack it open and read it. There are paper and e-versions for that.

     

    I think the lack of movement often reflects unrealistic price expectations more than anything else.  If people put things into auctions, they sell, and they sell for what look like pretty decent prices to me most of the time.

    There are a ton of books where there are several copies sitting out at X dollars when the actual market value is half of X. 
     

     

    Where do you see the hobby in 25 years

    in Comics General

    Posted

    3 hours ago, 1Cool said:

    I'd say yes - Babe Ruth cards still sell.  Inverted stamps still sell.  Heck - I'd think the key beanie babies may still sell.  The true key books should do very well over the next 25 years - the rest of the stuff I'm more worried about.

    I just did a search on beanie babies on EBay, and there are still thousand dollar sales for some of those beanie babies.  Of course, there are also $1 sales with free shipping for some of them, and a lot of sales in between.

     

    Where do you see the hobby in 25 years

    in Comics General

    Posted

    On 6/11/2020 at 2:40 PM, Bookery said:

    1. Comics didn't become noticeably collectible until the 1970s.  That's less than 50 years.  That's a blip on the screen of historical markets.  Books were collectible for 500 years.  Except for the big and ultra-rare stuff... that market pretty much died almost overnight.

    2. How is collecting at an all time high?  By what standard?  When I started all back-issues were considered a premium item.  A comic was released at 75-cents.  Two months later it went into back-stock as an out-of-print item for $1.00.  Or more.  Today, a $4.00 comic is discounted by 75% and goes into the $1 bins a few weeks after its release.  It's been 40 years of inflation, yet back-issue comics still sell for $1.  People confuse what the big keys do as an indicator of the health of a market.  It's not.

    3.  Movie have little to do with book sales.  James Bond has been a massive box office hit for almost 60 years.  Almost everyone has seen a James Bond movie.  How many have read the novels?  And though the books will popular in the '60s, even more so how many read them today?  M*A*S*H* was a huge movie and TV success.  It was based on a series of books.  Did the show make you run out and buy them?

    I agree that the new comic market and recent back issues market does not look healthy.  It doesn’t provide much bang for the buck entertainment-wise, and it does not seem to be attracting all that many people to it as a result.

    I would say that the vintage comic market looks pretty darn robust though, if people have realistic expectations of what it should look like.  Most Marvel and DC keys are obviously doing extremely well.  They are doing so well that I’m generally just too cheap to buy them.  A lot of prices are down some from last year, but are still much higher than they were five years ago.

    I’d also say that the non-key market is very robust if people have rational expectations.  Think about how many tens of millions of comics are out there.  It is amazing to me that it all finds somewhere to go, often at pretty decent money for stuff with collecting interest.  I’m finding less junk SA in the $1-2 boxes these days. Books I used to see for $5 are now $10.    Even the early 90s drek is moving for the people who sell it at the 50/$20 price point.  

    Frankly, I really do wonder where it all goes sometimes. Are there really a million people willing to pay $10+ to own a Spawn 1? Or are there 200k of them, and bunch of guys with long boxes of them trying to sell them for $10+ ? 
     


     

    MCS - new consignment terms

    in Comics General

    Posted

    13 minutes ago, Wally's Comics said:

    and for the record, all those that cheering with the notion that all of a sudden the MCS consignment prices will be dropping like rain, think again...

    There is solid reason why the prices are what they are, I can assure you. I've been selling there for over 8 years so my knowledge is pretty solid.

    Here's the way I see it: #1 - MCS absolutely doesn't like any returns from books (its a loss they incur so I don't blame them). #2 MCS under grades raws big time to avoid returns. Whenever I send in raw books I can guarantee MCS will call it a full one to two grades lower than my grading. I have been grading comics for over 30 years and I have a solid standing here in the grading competitions. I have submitted hundreds of books to CGC and it is ultra rare that I am surprised by a CGC. But on the other hand, MCS will call a VF a Fine or less in a heart beat. Now, how do I deal with this issue you ask? I do the honest "right" thing and price the book on what I think it is.

    If this is why you think the raw prices are high. I would employ anyone here to just look at the book and make your own assumption.

    I am not trying to throw dirt on one's business practices, it is what it is. I sell so much there I felt that what I was just saying was a no brainer.

     

    Peace.

    I think there is a difference between pricing books correctly to account of MCS’s often extreme under-grading and the overpricing that leaves books sitting on the site for years.  
     

    I think most buyers at MCS have learned to look at the scans and pay up when the book is clearly under-graded.  
     

    I see a lot of issues on their site that have 10-20 copies of a book consigned where almost none of them are priced at market.  It happens a lot with spec books that got hot and then cooled off.  None of the owners will auction the books because they know that the market is half what the have them priced at.  How long should MCS be willing to store for free all of the Thor 134 failed flip attempts? 😀

    Or the books where MCS has a dozen copies of the book in comparable grade to the consigned book that is priced at twice the MCS price?

    I’m a seller on the site as well, so I’m not looking for anything that will force down prices below market.  I have to think that storing and insuring a massive number of books that aren’t likely to ever sell is not sustainable though.

    It’s not like they’ve introduced crushing fees.  0.25% per month is not going to force prices down for seller that believes the book will sell at that price.  It will clear out the riff raff listings of people looking for a sucker though.


     

    MCS - new consignment terms

    in Comics General

    Posted

    2 minutes ago, mycomicshop said:

    Yes, we’ll reopen accepting multi item lots probably at the same time that we lower the threshold for submitting raw books back to where it was before. We haven’t done so yet because we still don’t have all of our graders back at work and don’t want to take on more books than we can keep up with. 
     

    When multi item lots do reopen, the rates will be the same as they were previously. 

    Sweet!  Thanks!

    MCS - new consignment terms

    in Comics General

    Posted

    43 minutes ago, mycomicshop said:

    Just updated today, plan to email consignors soon to discuss the changes. A few notes:

    New terms fully go into effect August 1. Until then, if you already have items consigned with us, you'll get whichever commission rate would be lower, either from the old rates or the new rates, until August 1, then all will be at the new rates. There's not a huge difference between the two, mainly that all auctions are a flat 8% now, and that the minimum commission for raw books (sold as auction or BIN) increases from $5 to $7.

    Auction rates are 8% across the board. BIN rates are 10% for first $300, 8% on any amount past $300.

    Commissions are capped at $1000 for both auction and BIN sales.

    We're taking two big steps to start encouraging pricing that's more likely to result in sales:

    One, books have a set amount of time they can be listed as BIN: 6 months for market value below $50, 12 months for market value $50-1000, and 24 months above $1000. After that time is up, you either have to auction the book, or you have to opt in to start paying monthly storage fees on the book if you want to continue it as a BIN. Storage fees are not intended to be an income source for us, they're intended to be a disincentive against keeping books stored with us long term at a price where they're not selling. Unsold books take up a lot of space, both on the shelf and in safes and vaults where space is at a premium.

    And two, at our discretion we can set a maximum price that a book can be listed at, and we may periodically lower that over time. The goal with this is not to remove consignor flexibility, or force books down to a sale as fast as possible. The goal is to provide a mechanism where we can gradually start bringing downward pressure on books that are overpriced and not selling. If we set a price lower than the consignor's currently listed price, the item will be temporarily delisted until the consignor takes action. The consignor can either set a new price at or below the current allowed max, or they can put the book in auction (or have it returned if unwilling to do either of those).

    I feel good about the changes and think there will be significant benefits from them for us and consignors.

    I didn’t see any information on comic lots.  Once things get back to normal, will you resume allowing groups of books to be auctioned?
     

    Will there be any change to those fees ( 25% with a $12 minimum ) ?