tpetty

No, but I should take some, and can post then. Half my books that I want to display still sit in my closet, because I've been too lazy to make more frames. With no work to do these days, guess I should get cranking!

I display medical (especially surgical) themed comics in my exam rooms. From 1940's WW2 medical themed ones to mid-century Nellies & horror. Patients ask me about them all the time. I made my own wood frames, and routed out the backs differently - so that both raw books (in a mylar bag with a glass cover) and slabbed books look the same. (The slab edges/label is hidden.)

I am not a "high roller" when it comes to comics. Don't think I've ever spent over $1500 or so on a single issue - so my experience likely doesn't hold true for those that are spending 5-6 figures on a book. I'm a surgeon - and all elective surgery is effectively banned. I won't earn a paycheck until I can operate again (although I still have overhead costs, nurse, etc to pay), and that is going to be AT LEAST a month without income, and probably more. I run my own 401k/savings (I know - physicians are notoriously poor at finance) and when my cumulative stock accounts declined by a million dollars a couple weeks ago, coupled with no money coming in, my comic purchases will be basically nothing for now.

I don't think there is a penalty if bids are cancelled, and the listing goes unsold on ebay. For example, businesses may have something for sale listed both locally and via ebay. If they sell it locally first, and cancel ebay bids & close the auction, I don't think there is any fee associated.

Yeah, it's certainly an inexact science. If anyone has a better proven way of comparing sales, I'd be interested. (However, I'm looking at books that don't sell frequently, so it's not like comparing ASM 129 or something like that.)

It looks like buyers don't really care where the issue is sold - they pay similar prices at the different sites. Now, this is probably not universally true - but seems to be true based on the issues that I follow - which is largely Fiction House and other GGA covers. I thought that the nice glossy catalogs and polished website at Heritage would draw more bidders, and higher prices. (That's what Heritage's ads all say, and previously I figured it made sense.) However, when I actually start looking at all my old sales data, and the issues that seem to be fair comparisons, I don't see a Heritage sales premium that would be required to compensate the sellers for the large buyer's premium (which buyer's certainly seem to take into account.) I would be interested if others have either noticed the same thing, or found that the opposite is true for a different genre.

Hasn't affected my buying, but I was just going through some original art folders, trying to decide what to auction off (I've decided to start cutting back on some of what I collect), and then decided to put it all away. Probably not the best time to be a seller if you don't need the money.

I have never sold there, so have no "bone to pick." I am considering selling some this summer, so was trying to decide where to sell them. That's why I started looking at past results of the type of books I have. I do account for time, as much as is reasonable - all comparables are within a calendar year. ( I am not stupid enough to compare auction results that are years apart.) It would be exceedingly rare for multiple auction houses to have an identical issue selling on the same day, so I don't know how you compare otherwise. When I said I was only comparing results from the last couple years, I meant sales in 2018 vs 2018, 2019 vs 2019...

Yikes. $250 seems crazy. That thing can't weigh more than what, 25 pounds?

I won't keep posting examples (I've got a lot more.) I am not trying to bash Heritage - I like buying there - but don't think I'm going to sell there. Anyone else noticed this?

These sold for almost the same price ($3000 vs $3100) but again, that's a big take home difference

Here, the 7.0 sold on Heritage for $1920 ($1344 for seller), and the 7.5 on CL for $2265 ($2040). I don't think that extra 0.5 was worth $700.

Once again, a nicer issue sold at Heritage. But the first issue sold via CL brought $800 ($720 for the seller) and the nicer issue at Heritage brought $1015 ($705 for the seller.) Again, the seller of the nicer comic does not do well.

First sold via ComicLink for $1026, 2nd on Heritage for $1560. The Heritage issue is MUCH nicer, but look at the seller take home. $900 vs. $1000. Almost the same take home. Heritage did not do that seller well.

First issue sold on CL for $521, 2nd on Heritage for $528. Again, similar sales prices - but not similar take home for the seller

First issue sold on ebay for $655, 2nd on Heritage for $660. That's $590 for the ebay seller vs $462 for the Heritage seller.

I've bought from Heritage, ebay , CL, and CC in the past. Even when I already have a specific book (largely GGA) I still track similar issues though out the years, with a saved pic/price/date/auction site. I was looking through this recently, and noticed that Heritage seems to fairly routinely be worse for the seller (at least for the Golden Age GGA genre). It's hard to compare precisely at times, and I know that even within a specific grade there are cosmetic differences that can make one 6.0 present nicer (and so often sell for more) than a different 6.0. That being said, I will post some examples below. The key to this is to remember that the sales price that Heritage shows includes the 20% buyers fee, so the seller is getting about 30% less than the sales price, so only about 70% of the final sales price. With CC/CL the seller is getting 90% of the hammer price. I haven't included much of the ebay comparables - because I know that some people don't trust ebay sellers. (However, from my brief comparisons, it looks like ebay is pretty comparable to CC/CL for sales prices, and the commission is similar as well.) I tried to find the same/similar grade of an issue, with sales within a given year. I have only included examples from the last couple years. (although I have data back a lot further than that.)

I hadn't realized this was a problem that particularly plagued Fiction House. Since that is one of my main collecting areas, I guess that explains the wide variability in color that I have recorded. As an aside, I didn't know you could search old auction results on CC. I typically monitor Heritage, CC, CL, and ebay and either bid (or watch) every issue of those that I collect (even the ones I already have), and then save the image/date/price. Getting quite an image collection.

OK, maybe my specific example was bad How about in general - how many of you would pay more for a lower grade better colors, than a higher grade/faded?

top one is mine. bottom one is currently in auction. bottom one is graded higher - but there is no question which one I would rather have.

I typically save a scan (and date/price sold) from all auction sites of the comics that I'm interested in. Helpful since other than Heritage, nothing is searchable long after the fact. It's interesting how different colors are. I presume mostly sun exposure, but some very high grade comics have terrible colors, while some low grade comics have colors that look fantastic. I realize we live in a "slabbed" world when it comes to pricing - but do you tend to notice significant price differentials just based on color? Would an 8.0 with fantastic colors bring a large premium over an 8.0 with poor colors. It should, I just don't see it routinely in the ones that I pay attention to. I would personally much rather have a 6.0 with super bright colors than an 8.0 that looks dull. This is just a recent example that I see from perusing the latest CC auction -

Yeah, the software that I downloaded direct from Epson looks a lot better than the vuescan that I tried for free. (GT-20000)

How about 10% off the listed prices?

Action 265 in strong mid grade. Fine or so? Has a small dust shadow on the front cover, otherwise looks great. $36

This is a lot of Sugar & Spike comics. 79 around Fine, 96 Fine-, and 97 GVG (with a 1.5" lower spine split) $17 for all 3.