loadstone

First: What a collection appraises for and what it sells for are 2 different things. Second, the bulk of the value in a collection is in the key issues and hard to find in grade issues it contains. Rarely will an end collector want to buy the whole thing as they probably already own the common and lesser value copies and not care about comics outside their focus. Usually it will be the dealers and flippers that will be willing to buy it all at once but have to base their offer on the resell value they can turn a decent profit on. If you are doing so for insurance purposes just use Overstreet price guide, ebay, heritage auctions, and search Google for rare comics to get a list of the items you have that might be worth getting appraised. If your doing so for selling, contact one of the big auction houses or major dealers on here to see if they are willing to do a free appraisal with no commitment to consign, sell, or list. For free you could scan/photograph the major keys and post the front and back covers for and get tons of opinions which may give a consensus. Or respond to the private messages you're probably receiving but don't agree to any sale without getting at least a couple of independent appraisals.

I think people who actually "sell" books for high BIN either probably didn't list it high enough especially if best offer was used or it was a fake/shilled sale. As for those who "list" books for sale at ridiculously high BIN, I don't have a problem with it. Makes it easy to undercut them especially when theirs is the only listing for a book in that grade that I also happen to have.

Sigh. This might be the issue where I draw the line on variants. Unless the cover is amazing, I mean, it would have to be, WOW! that is the greatest cover of all time. But I just don't see it. Buying the OA to a 1:1000 could be even worse if the art isn't that great and price is run up due to the hype. The question I have is how many stores are going to be buying enough to qualify? Ive read on here a few collectors may have some deals to pay a portion of the 1000 book requirement but realistically, how many copies of this variant will actually see the light of day? And how many is Marvel printing and possibly holding back? Does the same argument as the dell otto 667 apply here? If only 15 stores qualify for the variant, does only 15 copies get produced? Or will marvel print the standard minimum and redistribute them later somehow? I don't see any good coming of this for both marvel and collectors.

Man, your books are awesome. Many of us would love to find books like yours and have a hard time letting them go if we found them in our dad's attic. However, when it comes to condition and pricing, this hobby is among the most anal and OCD and CGC has set the bar high forcing seasoned dealers and graders to adjust their grading standards. With grades like Near Mint Plus 9.6, Near Mint/Mint 9.8, Mint 9.9, and Gem Mint 10.0 allowing only the most minute amount of defects often barely visible to the untrained eye, books with grades previously thought of as NM and VF have been pushed further down the grade scale. You say you're becoming your own troll but actually you're beginning to recognize defects that impact the grade and improving your grading skills. While no doubt those are great books and in pretty decent shape for the years and storage, we have all been through our own trials and years of tediously analyzing grades to the point where it has become second nature to callously assign a strict grade to our books since that's what it takes to buy and sell comics in this day and age. So I commend you for being receptive and learning the system as you should take the comments on the grades as very helpful starting points for setting expectations. You want to see harsh, check out the Please Grade My (PGM) book section and see what grading enthusiasts assign to books that other boardies post for advice. It definitely helps save us $$ when deciding whether to have a book graded or just keep raw.

Press will pobabaly correct the spine roll and any NCB bends/creases but the severity and size of the CB creases alone would bring it down to a 6.0/6.5. I have a few CGC graded SA spideys that look similar without the chip and are at that grade or lower. The chip could bring it down to 5.0/5.5 territory assuming nothing else wrong on the interior or back cover. Stains, fingerprints, detached cover/centerfold, interior tears, water damage, even musty/moldy smells can affect the grade further. Either way the cleaning and resto pros down in sarasota should be able to tell you all you need to know to decide what can be done to maximize value. Keeping it unrestored is preferable. Of course there's always the silver age grade bump that special books like this sometimes get if right on the edge of a grade. Good luck!

Pull list strategies for retailers: 1. Require a 3-5 book minimum but not much more than that. 2. Offer a 10% to 25% discount to subscribers and even more for large pull listers. 3. Never sell any Wednesday comics before A. Cherry picking the best copies for your best subscribers B. Allocating all comics to pull boxes. 4. Set a 1 month grace period with either A. A late fee equal to 15% of the total due B. No subscriber discount for all books in the box C.email notification D. Notification of subscription cancellation if no response received after 45 days E. Sale of all pull box comic after 60 days F. All of the above 5. Give all subscribers first crack at variants 6. Insert no obligation recommendations to subscribers. 7. Offer long term hold/storage with supplied credit card. 8. update your subscribers pull list for requests to add/cancel titles 9. If you mistakenly sell out or forget to include titles for your subscribers, go out and buy the best available copy from another local retailer or online retailer. 10. Sell magic cards and hold games to help bolster profits when subscribers go delinquent Strategies for buyers 1. Set a budget and make sure you can meet your pull list obligations weekly 2. Call, email, or establish a trust with your LCS if you can't come in every week to pick up your books. 3. Communicate changes to your pull list both verbally and written via email. 4. Make sure you get your subscriber discount. If not, bring it to their attention and if they say no, look elsewhere. 5. If you are a condition freak ask for the mintyest copies but don't blame them if a whole order got damaged. 6. If they continue to add titles or recommendations after you've declined, hand them back with a note. 7. If they miss titles or sell out of a copy you were supposed to receive, request they reorder or purchase for you from another retailer the best available copy. 8. Request variants and negotiate for pricing on retailer incentives. 9. If cancelling a title anticipate up to 3 months in advance or expect to buy 3 issues beyond your cancel date. 10. Unless you are actually earning 2% or more cash back or 3x or more points for cc purchases at comic shops, pay in cash to help the retailer out and build good will.

Beginning of the decline or just now noticing the decline? http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/07/entertainment/walking-dead-dystopian-dramas/index.html

This was one of those nice easter egg comedic moments.

cmzare, I think you're doing the right thing at this point with your ebay listing. Not sure if you had but I would actually have tried ebay first with your desired BIN and make offer option. Sure you'll get a lot of low ball bids but it is also getting exposure, you're getting a look at different offers and seeing the floor price for the temperature of the book at this point, and can always pull it to list back on here or on one of the other auction houses should you want to try them. Since you bought it for $1k, with ebay + paypal fees + shipping that includes insurance and signature your break even would be approximately $1185. I would set a filter to auto decline anything below that amount or perhaps round up to $1200. I would imagine you're receiving offers between $1000 to $2500 or a little higher. Sooner or later a whale or someone who wants it badly might pull the trigger or at least offer you 80-90% of your ask. You know you're guaranteed to at least double your money which is pretty good for a $1k short term investment. Since you don't need to sell right this moment, you can wait as long as you like or accept the offer that suits you the best. GLWTS!

New case stigma/uncertainty. Reserve auction with unknown reserve. More 9.8s now on the census than during previous sales. Increased frequency of listed copies in a year than before. Buyers saving up for other purchases or holidays. Buyers being busy on vacation. Etc. All valid reasons the sale didn't net better results. Frankly if you want this copy badly enough you will pay whatever the seller asks and won't care about the case, reserve or number of copies coming to market. Clearly none of those reasons deterred me from bidding my max. I clearly just don't want/need it as badly as the price the seller is putting on it...and frankly neither are any of the other "interested" parties...at this time. I think the seller may have missed the window for a quick high sale. But if he can wait it out or is able to locate that 1 or 2 competitive buyers he could get his ask or more.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. I was the top bidder on the reserve auction. This was only a $1000 book a couple years ago. It escalated in price quickly. That 3500 sale, which may have been someone's grail purchase or shilled, appears to be the current peak. That isn't the market now. The market at that price has been filled. Remaining collectors interested in a 9.8 copy that represent the current market demand are setting a market price that is clearly below $3300 here and $2,247 on ebay. 50 watchers... i bet some of those were owners looking to see where it would end. I agree a reserve auction limits attempted bids and interest but if the expected market price for that book was $3500 why didn't at least 2 bidders test the reserve price at that amount? Instead it ended below my max bid. I doubt my max bid would have met the reserve price anyway but I wasn't surprised the next highest bidder was only in at $2247. It's also possible buyers didn't want to expose what they are willing to pay in a reserve auction. Another possibility is many already have a 9.6 and are satisfied. Personally I value a 9.8 copy of this book between $1900 and 2200 but was willing to pay slightly more to see where the market for this copy was. You now have solid knowledge of the current market for this book between the board PMs and recent ebay results. For the time being it seems the curent market for that copy is somewhere between $2,000 and $2250. This could always change. Perhaps selling in the spring during tax return season might net better results.

I found the ASM 546 variant in the wild. First at Heroes con on a dealers wall last year in cgc graded 9.4 White which I bought. The seller was so happy he found a buyer (period) that recognized what it was he cut me a deal on the price as I was the only person that showed any interest in it at all in the last 3 major shows he took it. He said he found 3 of them in dealer modern stock he bought from a store that went under a few years prior. I offered to buy all 3 but he hadn't brought the other 2. Second time was later that year at the baltimore comicon. I asked the dealer if he had any modern asm variants. He said no but I could look in his ASM stock. I sifted through and found a great looking copy that looks like it would grade out at 9.4/9.6 priced at $8. It was only in a dirty bag, no board. I found a few other variants too. It pays to look anyways. Unfortunately it came back a 9.4 white. I'm currently looking for a 9.8 white.

I have a 3 or 4 copies of the asm 330 jcp. Gotta check if i have any of the others now. Didn't realize how many different years and issues were involved. Pretty cool.

The terms and conditions and fair usage seem to make it clear but the legal standing of those terms and conditions does begin to break down when you get down to the core of what is being sought: raw item and sale price. The article seems to imply that the clarity and definition of what constitutes a true violation is vague an still being defined but centers around anything that harms the business, violates copyright content, and violates trespass chattel of the business systems. Based on that, as you: 1. Do not infringe on copyright (which raw sale item and sales data may not be) so long as you don't totally copy the content directly from their site and reproduce it in the same manner it appears on their website 2. Do not traverse or tresspass their servers/systems to obtain that data 3. Can prove that usage and resale of that raw item and sales data produces no harm to the business which can be likely accomplished via: a. Completely disassociating the raw data from the site. (i.e. unlike heritage, if the sites do not grant access to all sales data, then there should be no reasonable way to trace a sale item and price back to it's sales location. b. The site is not already providing a similar subscription service to users to access sale item and data. If there is a lucrative exclusive agreement to license that data with another site, then I can see this being an issue. c. Arguing that sales comparison data can both generate higher bids as well as lower depending on the free market demand for the items potentially listed for sale. I believe there is a way to obtain the raw item and respective sales data without violating those 3 currently defined legal restrictions to the data. If so, then this raw data should be legally permitted to be: 1. made available for free 2. made available for a fee IMHO, these sites should be trying to sell access to their data and make a bit of extra money. However, if the above still doesn't hold water, someone in China, Denmark or some other country out of the reach of US Fair Use laws could probably get away setting something up via Tor and thus the US loses out on tax revenue, employment growth, and business growth. Well I hope they open up about sharing or at lease selling their data outside of exclusive agreements. I wonder if they would agree to share/sell the data if you promised to reference their site when sale price is strong and leave it as anonymous if the sale price was weak. Thoughts?

Jeff, I hear you and wish they would cooperate with you. However, a bit of scripting could get the job done so long as selling it is legal. Should be if big data companies are allowed to plant cookies on our browsers and sell our shopping habits to companies. Why nit the other way around. Do they at least offer it for sale to you? Heritage may b the simplest to mine since all you need is a free account to search the archives. The rest may require you to have tracked the books. Comiclink, thought about this one for a while. The results for the last 5-10 books are cached for a bit while the auction is in progress and as other books are ending. Might requine downloading every auction as it ends to capture final bid. I participate in nearly all the comic auctions from those sites. If legal, for a free subscription to your site I'd be willing to send you the final hammer price on everything I track and bid on along with certs, page quality and even notes like eye appeal, centering, defects. If I could provide significant auction data would you be willing to pay a small comission for it?