ft88

This is only my experience of late. Paypal won't disclose how they determine when to charge fees on payments. I am making assumptions that could very well be wrong. To be clear I am referring to personal payments that get charged a paypal fee anyway.

All paypal accts accept eBay. But if your paypal account never takes an eBay fee and only from outside eBay then paypal allows for personal. If you are taking eBay payments then paypal limits or disallows personal. Two paypal accounts solves this. Make sure one never takes eBay is all.

Paypal Personal. I think I have figured out when paypal allows you to take paypal personal, with no fees, and when they stop letting it happen. I'm nearly certain that if you have your paypal account accepting ebay payments, then you will no longer be able to accept personal. Or at best the personal payments you can accept are only up to a certain amount. Might I suggest opening two paypal accounts. It would take two credit cards and two checking accounts. Ed

The Taxman - Part 1 Do not blow this off. All the cliches apply - you can not avoid. Officially you must report any and all revenue, consult your accountant or tax advisor. OK, you can avoid but don't be an idjit. If you buy and sell very sporadically I wouldn't worry too much about tracking and reporting your $800 revenue and corresponding expenses. Ebay does not report to the IRS, Paypal does which is owned by eBay. If paypal does report your revenue it will be via a 1099. They will do this if you receive $20,000 in sales and 200 payments. To get a 1099 both must be fulfilled. My understanding is that this does not apply to personal payments. My understanding is that this applies to a specific tax ID numbers, ie social security numbers for individuals. Again, officially all revenue must be reported. If you get a 1099 from paypal by hitting the $20,000 and 200 transactions, that is treated as income that you will be taxed on. You must report that on your tax return or you will get in trouble. But you are also required to report any other revenue, not doing so is considered cheating on your taxes. All expenses should be tracked and documented. This will reduce the amount of tax you will owe. Revenue: $24,000, Expenses $20,000, tax on $4,000 at 15% will be $600 in additional taxes owed. The documentation applies if you are audited, you don't need to supply it with your return. Quite a number of thoughts on how to do this, consult your tax advisor. Here's a list of expense to apply, if they apply Purchase price Travel expenses Advertising Web design Internet costs Comic supplies Postage and postage supplies CGC expenses Subscriptions Home office expense (this changed in 2013 and is not the red flag it once was, consult your tax advisor) Tax preparation Business setup expenses. Anything else you can think of that is legit. Paypal has finally made their export function work pretty well, you can pretty conveniently download all your transactions and sort them in excel. Happy to give advice on that via PM. This helps with not only sales but postage and paypal fees, and ebay fees if paying via paypal. Any purchases too. Sales by Check, cash or Money Order and Paypal personal; it is up to you to report, there will be no 1099.

The Attic Find and Profit Everyone dreams about this finding the Batman 1 as part of a nice attic find or the next pedigree. While I've been buying collections for over 10 years, the classic attic find is like winning the lottery. It is so rare that it may as well not happen at all. Hasn't happened to me yet. If I were a business consultant I would show a 2 x 2 box chart showing the kinds of deals that are out there. Large and Small, then Knowledgable and Not Knowledgable. I would always rather have a large collection vs a small collection and I would always rather have a Knowledgable seller than Not. The newbie will often be very wary of being ripped off. And that's fair. With the collector, he basically knows the rules of the game. He can't expect to get $10 for his $10 comic and when all is said and done, he simply wants out but wants something reasonable. So if you offer $700 for his Good Avengers 1, worth $1000, and $1000 for the rest of his VG 60's avengers, he'll generally feel pretty good about it. Everyone is happy and I get a $3000 collection with a key book for $1700. The newbie needs so much coaching and often multiple trips with multiple competitors / dealers in the mix, that the deal is simply a lot of work. The newbie will also more often simply back out of a deal. I'll be driving to see a 1970s Xmen collection and the seller will call telling me he's just going to keep these for his kids etc. There is the rare case of the attic find or something like it. A collection is worth say $10,000 and the buyer is completely in the dark and simply wants to get rid of them. What to do. Let's assume there is zero legal risks. I don't know what the law is or how definitive it is on windfall profiteering. I also know that it is tricky to let a newbie know that there is real value in a collection as that will often lead to major indecision, when previously there was none. See above. The Libertarian in me says that as long as you aren't saying anything fraudulent and they are a consenting adult, go ahead and live and let live. Still, I'd hate to be on the receiving end of that. Its fine to get a good deal paying $1500 for a $4000 collection as the Spiderman 1 grades higher then you thought. All's fair. But to pay $200 for 200 books worth $10,000 - there's something not quite right about that even if it isn't against the law. I do get the counter argument in that the expertise is that which earns the windfall. I suppose. I do like the method of paying what it takes to get the deal and then coming back later and giving more money. That can ease the conscience and they feel pretty good too. Simply say, that the books sold for more than you expected and you thought this was the right thing to do. Even do it over the phone and mail a check. Another aspect to this is that the second you offer a lowball price they may either be testing you or they bring in another buyer and you're dead. I've offered low prices on collections I didn't really want. $300 for a $1000 collection and sometimes that worked but a few times it was not a welcome offer. Usually its VG non key late 60s and 70s and I simply don't want the hassle. Or more often, I just bought a 20 box collection and I don't need more. I win some and lose some and I'm a bit agnostic. Really what happens is I think in my head to buy it at $300 as it will safely sell for $600, when in reality it is worth more. I think that's fair. The other thing about profit is that it makes up for the bad deals. Maybe you think I should pay 80% of value but that leaves so little room for error and excess expenses. Keep in mind, expenses really add up. Gas and auto wear, Ebay, Paypal packaging supplies, comic supplies excess postage, advertising, internet and phone usage (what is it, tax time?) and on and on. That's often 20% right there. Sure the evil dealer gets the bad press for paying 50 cents on the dollar but he has even more expenses in terms of running a store. I tend to target 60% of value and up to 80% for a really strong book. If I can get it for less great. You can bet I have bought more than 1 collection where I paid almost exactly what it eventually sold for. That is not fun.

Yes, but only a few. I've sold there as well - usually lots.

Travel I'd guess one of my competitive advantages is that I am willing to travel. Living in York helps in that I am within 200 miles of 50 million people. If I lived in Nebraska it would be tough. But unlike many dealers I am willing to travel to the collection. And while I much prefer the 20 GA comics worth $3000 type find, the typical collection is 10-20 boxes of 1970s-1990s books that the seller wants to unload and is not going to schlep them to a comic store. And most store owners simply don't want to deal with this type of collection unless its a firesale. Sure there's some work involved in flipping a 20 box collection that I paid 60% of value. But I don't have the overhead of a store and employees. I also don't try to extract every dollar and believe in throughput of inventory with this type of collection. I also don't mind the travel to see a small box of 1970s - not 3 hours but an hour away never killed anyone. One example over 10 years ago. Guy had a collection but he lived in the middle of nowhere Maryland. He said he called a couple of Blatimore and DC dealers but no one would come to him. Over the phone he told me it was from the 1970s and 1980s. I wasn't too excited (this was pre movie boom) but he said he had some Xmen and a few Fantastic Four 12 cent. Sure enough this was a real collector from that era. Mint condition Phoenix saga, a FF VF- 48 with Kriby and Stan Lee sigs. Lots of Portfolios, Hardcovers etc, from Adams, Wrightson, Frazetta that were sold off the back of Marvel magazines and on and on. Killer collection and the dealers who were called first missed out. It was a 3 hour drive each way. I love the hobby, love the business aspect, and love handling the comics. Traveling is tough and I have a wife and 4 kids. I treat it like an NFL game or long movie. It's enjoyable and worth it so I do it. I don't worry too much about space in my car. I drive a 4 door Volvo sedan which can hold upwards of 12 long boxes or 25 small boxes and that's enough. If they are far away and they have a bigger collection I can always bring the minivan or may rent a truck, but that hasn't come up yet. Short ways away I can just make two or more trips. Free advice: Bring a few empty long/short boxes and some bags and boards. So often the collections are a mess with boxes falling apart and unbagged and unboarded books. No big deal for the typical VG 70s box but best to be prepared for that VF unbagged Spiderman 129 you don't want sloshing around the trunk of your car or even the front seat. Be prepared for rain and transporting comics from house to driveway. Ask ahead of time over the phone to the seller, it's a great indicator of care anyway whether they are bagged and boarded or not. Use the fact that you traveled as a negotiating tactic (without any guilt), you are right there with cash on hand - very powerful. Long of the short of it is, be willing to travel and have the passion for it. Collections don't come to you.

Yes, I know one of the waitresses there her daughter and mine are in the same classes. Hey, where's your One Man Comic Business journal, Joey? The comic masses want to know how you do it.

Yes

Cash Have some. The cliche, it takes money to make money applies here as with anything else in business. What's nice though is it doesn't take much, but you need to be prepared for success. I'd estimate that out of 10 deals where I actually purchase the books, 8 of them cost under $1000. 1 will be $1000-$2000 and 1 will be for greater. Some folks that buy collections or comics to resell only deal in higher $$ items and that also works as a business model. I like to think I apply the Target business model as opposed to Tiffany's. But back to cash. Have at least $1000 ready cash available. One technique is to hold $400 in actual cash and then a Debit card that can typically retrieve $600. H ave the discipline not to spend the cash on hand. Gain access to relatively quick lending. More on that later. This should be obvious but the reason cash is so important is often this is the only thing sellers will accept. Check or MO folks worry they'll get stuck and will only take cash. Simply put, there is a lot of distrust on one time deals with someone they just met. Perfectly understandable. It is so much easier and effective to go to a collection of 2 boxes of 1970s stuff, offer $200 for it in cash and walk out with $500 worth of comics. Crisp and clean, no caffeine A few other stories and examples. Classic big potential deal. Lifetime collector original owner with 20 small boxes of 1960s - 1970s marvels. 1960s are VGs and 70s are VF to NM with all keys present. We come to a deal for $5000 and shake hands - this is on a Wednesday night, banks are closed. I tell him I'll bring a Money Order noon Thursday. I call at 11 am telling him I'm coming and he renigs on the deal saying that they are worth a lot more. There's more to the story but that's the basic gist of it. This was 10 years ago and it still sticks in my craw. At some level carrying a bunch of cash to a strange and new place is an issue and with this specific deal, we came to agreement on my first visit. Often it takes more than one phone call or visit to get to a handshake. I simply don't like to bring a ton of cash on the first visit. But what I could have done was at least given a down payment and taken some of the books. Maybe he wouldn't have gone for that but it was better than what happened. Or I could have brought a Money Order. Despite that some folks don't take money orders, many do take them and much more often than personal checks. Another story. I buy a Showcase 4 but didn't bring enough with me. I had a Money order for $2000 and some cash and had to add a personal check for less than $1000. He clearly didn't want to take that but eventually did as 1. He was a police officer and 2. I was already paying him cash and MO and I supplied a copy of my id and business card which helped. Other than repeat purchases, and even with those I don't typically pay by check; the only time I can get away with using a check is if it is only a portion of the purchase. Even then it's always a point of issue which I don't like. Final story. A very large collection I borrowed money from my father. This was for Superman 2-100 so you get the idea of magnitude. Paid it back within 6 months. Plan ahead for this sort of thing. If you don't have access to capital, get some. Discuss with a family member if you can borrow. When borrowing from friends and family, provide some capital other than comics. Figure out ahead of time how long a home equity loan would take. Or set up a personal line of credit with a bank. If you have liquid investments, figure out how long would it take to access the money. You just never know. Yes the majority of purchases are going to be in the $100's that should be affordable. Its when that big big deal comes along that makes the difference. Again, this isn't grannies Action #1 for $5. Usually it is a collector who knows what they have but wants to get out in one fell swoop. Why not pay $30,000 for $45,000 in books? Or $150,000 for $250,000? You just never know what may come along. You don't want to be the guy who passed on a $50,000 slam dunk comic deal simply because of lack of funds. Other ideas for raising funds. Partner with someone you trust. I'll gladly partner with someone here on the boards, but there should either be a lot of trust or a lot of safeguards. Use a credit card. While there is huge danger here, if credit card funds are the only thing you can do short term, it may be worth it. Best bet is to use the credit card to raise the funds immediately and then pay that off with other methods once you have the books in hand. Friends, family, bank, whatever. If you can't run the numbers, then don't go the credit card route. Quick back of the envelope use 20% interest. Pay $4000 collection you'll need to resell $5000 within 7 months. That's fine for a 100 book Silver Xmen run but not for a 50 box 1980s collection. Another smart way is to have your big book available as collateral if you are comic book rich but cash poor. So you have $500 in the bank but own a sweet Amazing Fantsy 15 CGC 3.0. Agree ahead of time with someone like me or anyone else you trust that will provide $7000 for the book with the understanding that you'll pay it back short term. Basically a customized pawn type arrangement. These are ideas that I haven't done and may have legal issues but the idea is to plan ahead if cash is an issue. Bottom line is have a way to pay for the books. Have the funds or immediate access to funds. Plan ahead for access to capital and understand the timing for the various levels. A deal at $400 should be done same day. $4000 a day or two. $40,000 a week or two is understandable, but faster is better. Trying to figure that part out after you've seen the books or worse agreed to a price to pay is often too late. The seller is already in selling mode and if you can't come up with the funds in time, they will often be gone. Relooking the credit card gambit. The real risk here is not just the high cost of funds but its the risk of getting in over your head. At the point where you need to use a credit card to raise funds, generally speaking, its due to you not having enough money to buy a collection, and not the speed of access. If you misjudge value, or loss & destruction hits your inventory it could be financially catastrophic. It's not simply the buying of a $7000 collection for $4000 with credit card money. That seemingly makes sense but be careful is all, there's more to it than simple revenue vs expenses.

Marketing Here's a mistake I made, though not a big one. Only this past year did I finally create a business card. Except for the logo, feel free to plagiarize this one, should you choose. (I'm not worried about anyone contacting me, maybe I over worry about my phone number and email being out there on the web) While I set up myself as a business etc, more on that later, I never got around to generating a business card. Other than the logo. This one took me about an hour of fiddling on Powerpoint. An hour. And 200 cards via Staples cost maybe $30 and they had it ready same day. Why I didn't do this years earlier I'll never know. I can't say how successful this will be, or how many leads the business cards might generate as I don't have any history to judge. But talk about a minimal risk. Maybe I shouldn't disclose my acquisition methods but nothing I'm doing is rocket science for finding and buying collections. Here's one that the business card is perfect for. There are plenty of pawn shops to go around. Pawn Shops Every pawn shop owner wants to be the next Pawn Stars where at the snap of a finger he can bring in his expert on Civil War guns or Hollywood autographs. Or comic books. I fed into that. One pawn shop / jewelry store owner called me with a small collection of comics. I went to him and bought them for maybe $200 and they were worth $400. No big deal, 1970s stuff with a VG Marvel Spotlight 5 and VG Spiderman 122 with other Bronze VGs that are easy sellers to lot off cheap. The beauty here is, he has called me with collections 5 times over the past 4 years. Nothing yet has broken the bank but I'm his guy. I took that experience and went to a pawn shop in my home town and sold him on the idea. The first pawn shop only deals in jewelry and gold/silver coins type stuff. Now as they come across comics at estate sales, they have an easy out to sell it to me. Far as I know, I'm the only one he calls. Gotta love that. The sceond pawn shop is the typical DVD's, games, music equipment, TV's, cell phones etc. They've now called me twice and in both cases the collections were long boxes of schwag but I was able to cherry pick from out of the collection. Bunch of Deadpool books, Spawn, and some other decent stuff. Weird part was, right in front of the guy he offers him $100 (for maybe 4 boxes) after I told him they were worth about $200 as a lot. The guy took it the $100 just like on TV. My plan is to wander around the local area and hand out my new business cards, convincing the manager/owner that I can be "his guy" giving free estimates and hopefully buy some books. Nearly all pawn shops understandably don't want to buy comics, its simply not their thing or expertise. As the comic guy, my job allows them to do find collections for me. Since I don't have a store front, this is a partial way to have one.

Yes small postage scale I got free from Stamps.com when i signed up 10 years ago and promptly cancelled the subscription. It only goes up to 25 lbs so I have some issues with long boxes. I can zero it out with a negative weight (up to another 25 lbs) but I think it loses a lot of accuracy. Yes indeed I remember the Xmen 6 well. I think I overcharged that one at $35 or so but the 33 and Defenders 1 Were $10 or something and were decent if I recall. The ASM starte at issue 3 and then up to 300 with a few missing early issues. 4 9 for sure. 25 years ago, man.

I collect and keep high grade 1st app cartoon characters and spiderman.

Storage Depends on your situation and I've been at both extremes. City apartment 1 bedroom when I was single. Large house with basement now that I'm married w children. It also depends on your current collection and any collections you may buy. With low storage options like at an apartment, something has to give. Wherever the computer is, that's where the comics go basically. You can stack your comic boxes easy enough but you'll have to live with the stacking and unstacking PITA as you go to scan or just look at your books. All this was pretty easy for me with a small personal collection and the collections I was buying were either small or I would sell fairly quickly in lots. When I lived in the apartment and bought that huge collection, which eventually made it to my bed room and out of the kitchen. I received another call where I purchased another 6 long boxes. Mostly 1970s marvels but still good stuff. I'm selling off a bit and I get another call with another 15 boxes of magazines and comics. Mostly high grade Warrens and 1970s comics. This is what I mean by being ready for success - it presents its problems as well. At this point I bit the bullet and rented a storage unit. And that's when inventory starts to get expensive. Something like $40 a month for a year - a necessary evil and also very inefficient when organizing what to sell. As a business rule, Inventory = bad. Working out of a storage unit is no fun at all. And there is additional risk of loss, damage or theft. With a house and a basement office, I do things a little different and it is a lot easier. I set up two gorilla shelving units and store about 10 short boxes there, the shipping supplies, printer, plus some other odds and ends. Add in a coffee table with 4 more boxes on top and 3 below on the floor. This is not a clean or a really nice room and it is small in its own right, about 10x10. And I just bought a 15 box collection that is now spilling over. With my own space I do have the luxury of spending more time selling books for higher prices by selling them as singles rather than as lots. Don't get me wrong I still lot up the VG Archies, but now VFNM Bronze Flash comics can get the singles treatment. More on this aspect later. My personal goal is to not have comics spill over out of my office. Of course this gets violated all the time but when it does I get in selling mode and try very hard to sell in lots. Until I purchase the next Lost Valley pedigree I'll continue to do it this way. Risk here is that my comics are in the basement. High risk of flooding, which almost requires the comic get up off the floor a few inches at least. Everyone's situation is and will be different especially with storage issues. But it has to be dealt with and thought through. Comics are heavy, bulky, and can get unorganized very quickly. I'm pretty bad with labelling boxes but pretty good with memory. I do waste a lot of time looking for that sold book or two that I just can not find. You can be better. Think about damage risks like smoke, fire, and flood or even unbalanced full boxes falling over. Think about theft. Bad stuff happens all the time.

Packaging and Shipping Early on I was a little too cheap and loose about packaging. Basically my rule of thumb now is VF or better, more than 4 comics, or higher $$ book, I box it after protecting it in cardboard flats and cushioning. Otherwise a $5 Fine Peter Parker #3 can go in a flat. I charge a $4 flat rate for US. So I profit a bit on the single purchase and lose a bit on the large lot buys. I don't mind losing a bit in postage for someone buying multiple books. It's easy enough to either price in or think of it as discounting. And I think it's fair to make a bit on someone who only buys one book. Without wading into the controversy, I do use Media Mail and my return rate due to Media Mail is maybe 1 out of 1000 or even less. The detriment to Media Mail is two fold. Any postal employee can inspect the box, and you are put in the back of the line behind first class and priority. This later is only an issue during the holidays, otherwise you are basically getting the same service as first class in terms of shipping times. Again, I don't want to wade in the controversy of using Media Mail, if you don't want to use it, all is good. I use Paypal/Ebay postage labels. If you sell comics via mail and aren't doing that then learn and start right now. The discounts alone are worth it. 2-10% off postage. Tracking is either free or 23 cents if Media. This is not the case walking up to the counter. And by the way, once you have all your packages pre paid and labelled, either the postman will come get them. Or, do what I do and walk past the postage line and drop them off at the counter with a quick wave. So convenient. Also, I find postage label stickers very expensive and tough to use with my printer. I simply print them off paper and stick them on with my cheap packing tape. USPS pricing First Class: 1 comic is 4 oz and is just over $2. 3 comics is 9 oz and shipping is around $2.90 same as Media 1lb. 10-13 oz you lose money vs Media Mail at 1lb. Media mail: Only goes in 1 lb increments. So don't waste your time typing in 1 lb 4 oz within Paypal if using media mail. 1 lb with tracking is $2.92, 3 lbs is about $3.88, and on up. A full long box weighs about 45 lbs and costs $25 media. I ship CGC books media mail too and have never had a problem. Priority: Anything above 13 oz must go Priority instead of first class. Shipping varies by region. By you can ship 1-3 lbs within your own region for maybe $6. International: Do not be afraid to ship internationally. Take the business risk, it's worth it. I use USPS and have an account set up on the USPS site. Paypal labelling and customs forms can be spotty at best. USPS is pretty easy - user id, password and credit card/paypal account. The key I find with international is keeping it under 4 lbs. Its already expense, even to Canada, but it really jacks up once you go over 4 lbs. 1 lb to Canada is about $9 and $12-16 overseas (country dependent). 4 lbs is about $24 to Canada and $32-40 overseas (country dependent). One issue with International is it is tough to track. Normal first class USPS won't be able to track a missing package. And Customs often holds things up, especially hard are the more non-modern countries like Turkey, Greece, even Mexico. One trick you can try is to buy minimal insurance, that can at least get you a tracking number. Either way, you are taking a chance and you should understand that. It's easy to give the lawyerly advice of setting terms before you ship. I've found it easier and more beneficial to simply take on the risk and work with the buyer if a package gets lost or destroyed. It happens but not often. My threshhold for pain is about $500-$1000, anything above that and I'd take more precautions. Again, country dependent. Canada, no problem. Ukraine, hmmmmmm,

Packaging. This was a learning process for me and a growth experience. In the early years I was buying small collections and selling exlusively on ebay. I'd sell the key books as singles and then some lots. Finally, I'd sell everything left over as a large lot. I lived in an apartment in Baltimore at the time so space was at a premium. This method of selling cost me too, as I bought a huge collection (The Charm City collection for those that remember) and got a little freaked out by the magnitude of it that I sold off quite a bit in lots. 100 comic run of Flash 25-50 centers for $250 that sort of thing. Left a lot of money on the table. At the time but before this big purchase, I was basically scrounging for boxes and cardboard, cutting my own cardboard flats. Selling maybe 10 items a week on ebay so not a big deal but it was becoming a hassle. But my thought was that I could not afford buying boxes from the post office or Staples for $3.50 each. Little did I know that there are cardboard companies in basically every small town, let alone a city like Baltimore. These are the kind of experiences I love. A part of life I would otherwise never know about let alone experience. That this is part of making money is only icing on the cake. ABC boxes http://www.abcboxes.com/ was my store of choice. Located by/under the interstate within walking distance of the football stadium and Camden Yards. A seedy part of town and a part of downtown Baltimore that is going away but used to be what the entire city was like in the 80s and early 90s before it got pretty. The place is basically a warehouse of cardboard. 100 feet high and maybe 3 acres of warehouse. It smells like cardboard. Workers have full arm and face tattoos and the manager offices are something out of Sin City. Long story short, boxes are not $3.50 each they are 50 cents each (3x9x12 if you buy a 100). And flats are 10 cents each. Yeah, I think I'll stop scrounging now and no more cutting my own flats, thank you very little. When I moved to York PA, I thought was going to have to travel back to ABC. Nope, H&A corrugated right in this small little town is perfect and even cheaper. 100 boxes for $40 and 200 flats for $10. I bet every small town has a cheap box/cardboard place When it comes to tape and envelopes, I buy a box of 36 rolls for ~$40 and box of 100 9x12's envelopes for $8. I find bubble wrap to be too expensive but do reuse what I get from CGC or other deliveries. Peanuts you can get free from trophy stores. Again, that little nugget of advice is free. Otherwise, peanuts I reuse as I find them too expensive to buy and store. So all in I can ship 100 boxes and 100 envelopes for $100 in packaging or 50 cents each all in. If the 200 shipments average $20 each, that's a 2.5% cost. Pretty good for a small operation.

Only a bit off topic on business acumen. I mentioned before that I attended business school and I wanted to apply what I was learning to buying and selling comics. So while a motivator for me, you clearly don't need an MBA to buy and sell anything. However, there are things I learned, and learned just enough to be dangerous, as they say. Like any college program, the value is 20% education and 80% networking, acceptance filter, reputation w corporate America, instructor ability and reputation etc. The education part can be 90% learned on your own or through a decent community college. This can be done in about 6 months to a year with $1000 in books and a few $1000 in class credits - intro to accounting, finance, marketing, operations, etc. There's no replacing the 80% part and the $150,000 I paid for it, grumble grumble. Still, the business learning is pretty vital IMO and if it only takes $5000 and some discipline, I'd highly recommend doing that in lieu of a $150,000 MBA. And it can only help in life in any capacity. I have some opinions on what's important in my business approaches in later posts, but here are a few. Accounting: Inventory throughput and cashflow. Inventory is generally bad, especially selling online where you don't need wall books to show off. Cashflow is king. If you don't have it and don't have a legitimate credit line you are out of business. And not a credit card, jeez. Marketing: This is more than advertising. Have a written plan. Brand, goals, partnerships, expertise, expansion etc. Operations: Efficiency, expense control, quality control, leveling the steps of the sales cycle. As in, you don't want to keep buying and buying with no time to sell. Have a way to store things while buying and selling. Entrepreneurship: Get motivated, think originally, new ideas all the time, don't be afraid to fail, prepare for success and failure. Understand your risks and prepare for them.

So my photobucket folders are named MarvelBronze and the files are scan0001, scan0002 Which is fine by me. In fact its much better than naming them ASM361, Sup233 and so forth. Why? When I sell on the boards I can easily list comic after comic without going back to photobucket List a comic ASM 361 VF $20 http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v37/ft888/DC%20Bronze/scan0260.jpg (and with the proper IMG tags) By the way a quick lesson in efficiency I simply couldn't teach my brother when I asked him to help me. CTRL C - copy CTRL X - cut CTRL P - paste ALT TAB - alternate between browsers - also a good "boss" button CTRL Z - undo CTRL F - find There are others but memorize these and use them over and over. It is now second nature to me and I couldn't work in an office without them nor sell on the boards or ebay without. OK back to images and selling on the boards. First post: list all the postage stuff. I'll get to a rant about that in a later post but the business details is your first post. Small rant: Have at least one book ready to sell with pic, grade, and price and don't start a thread selling a hot book like Spiderman 300 CGC 9.8 with all the EULA BS and then make folks wait an hour to post the first books. Uncool. Second post is the Spiderman above. Then click back on he browser. Guess what, the text from that second post is now in the box. Whaaaaaaaaatttttt! If you've never done this and you try it for the first time and it works for you, I expect a thank you. This one was free. Change ASM 361 VF $20 to ASM 344 NM $10 Edit type the "scan0260" to "scan0261" click preview. If all good, click submit. Rinse and repeat x 100. I like to keep the now bagged and graded books in order and then as I list them for sale I know the next scan is the next book. Simple. Or you can work from a list if that's how you graded, either way. So much easier and efficient than starting from a blank text box in post 3, 4 and beyond. And now you see why I prefer scan0260 then scan0261 as opposed to naming files. I only have to change one digit and its in order. I really don't have to alttab or cut/paste from photobucket either. Sweet. If I have 100 comics scanned and uploaded all with grades and prices, I could list them on a board sales thread probably in less than half an hour. Think about that. Granted pricing is tough and inefficient as it takes a little ebay research etc but no way to really get away from that. That's fun though IMO.

Scanning and Photobucket I really like photobucket, in the past 10 years I can remember two time periods where it just didn't work right or they forced me to drastically change my habits. Not too bad all said. Regarding scanners. I use an old HP that I really like to use. So much so that I can't give up my desktop that uses Windows XP. The driver with any newer Windows won't let me scan properly. I set up with a pile of comics I want to scan and unbag everyone of them. I also get rid of any tape on the bags. I take the lid off the scanner and throw it away. Set dpi to 100, format scanning LxW so all corners show. Scan, put in new pile, scan, put in new pile repeat x48. No more scans and they download to a folder on my harddrive automatically. Grade comics as you rebag them. I do this while watching TV unless its a big book. Don't make the mistake or cutting down the scan box to a modern comic and then the next 49 books are early bronze and you've just cropped the spine on each one. Done that a couple dozen times. I don't rename the picture files. But I do open a dozen or so folders in Photobucket. MarvelBronze, MarvelSilver Batman Spiderman etc and then drop 100-200 pics per folder. Uploading to photobucket is pretty straight forward. Summary: Goal is to scan books as fast and efficiently as possible. Start to finish, try to knock out a long box - scan, grade, bagged in about 4 hours.

Let's say you have a nice small collection of Silver and Bronze with a bunch of Copper and Modern, maybe 1000 comics worth $10,000 in the guide, $5000 on ebay and $2500 to a dealer. You basically know how to grade but you aren't an expert. You know your key books but not every key book or variant or character, there's just too much to keep up with anyway. That about describes me and my collection 15 years ago. I basically sold off about 80%,by bulk, of my collection over the course of a year on ebay and here's what I learned. Selling is work and it takes up front money. A lot of these things are easier now and you may already have them but in case you don't. Get a credit card (or two) and a checking account (or two) Set up an ebay account. Set up a paypal account Set up a photobucket account Learn the basics of how to use all three Research and buy a scanner. Repeat when it doesn't work right. Acquire boxes, tape, and packaging materials That only took a few hours right? Now you can sell a comic.

Funny collection, one of them. There were about 1000 Marvel bronze comics and Every comic had the issue number colored in with green marker. Including the Hulk 181. I have yet to come across any of them in all these years later. I think I sold them as a lot except for a few keys and the Xmen and Spiderman runs. Anyway, besides my free flow of thoughts, I figured I'd share some business practices that worked for me.

Ah, first entry successful.

You too can start a comic business! Basic Journal to note my experiences buying and selling comics. Your mileage may vary if you replicate or emulate any of my experiences. But the enjoyment I've gotten out of this hobby and how I've approached it is something I thought I'd share. First, a little background. I collected back issues in the mid 1980s mostly in the Boston area spending my paper route money on 1960s Spidermans and 1970s Xmen. I won't bore you with those details but formative years are formative years. Kept my books through college and an 8 year stint in the Army and then went to grad school. I now work in finance making a comfortable living supporting a wife and 4 young girls. While in business school I wanted to apply what I was learning to buying and selling comics. I did do this with comics and baseball cards in the 1980s by renting a flea market table and setting up my wares. Fun stuff but I remember it being more work than profit. So basically I put the word out that I was buying collections and received a couple of calls. Indeed, bought a couple of nice collections - mostly 1970s. Date was around 2001 to give you an idea of where the market was. CGC was still new but basically established. Ebay was all guns blazing and I had a year or two of ebay experience buying and selling. See more journals by ft88

You too can start a comic business! Basic Journal to note my experiences buying and selling comics. Your mileage may vary if you replicate or emulate any of my experiences. But the enjoyment I've gotten out of this hobby and how I've approached it is something I thought I'd share. First, a little background. I collected back issues in the mid 1980s mostly in the Boston area spending my paper route money on 1960s Spidermans and 1970s Xmen. I won't bore you with those details but formative years are formative years. Kept my books through college and an 8 year stint in the Army and then went to grad school. I now work in finance making a comfortable living supporting a wife and 4 young girls. While in business school I wanted to apply what I was learning to buying and selling comics. I did do this with comics and baseball cards in the 1980s by renting a flea market table and setting up my wares. Fun stuff but I remember it being more work than profit. So basically I put the word out that I was buying collections and received a couple of calls. Indeed, bought a couple of nice collections - mostly 1970s. Date was around 2001 to give you an idea of where the market was. CGC was still new but basically established. Ebay was all guns blazing and I had a year or two of ebay experience buying and selling. To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.

I've always thought of Barks as leaps and bounds ahead of his peers in a way Rosa never was, even in the world of "kiddie" comics. So Rosa compares well directly to Barks, even better in many of the ways you describe. Compare Rosa to the European artists and writers - and he comes across well, though many are good all around. "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Isaac Newton