W16227

It is against the rules of the boards to threadkrap in a sales thread. This includes bashing pricing. Many general comment threads have sprung up in other board areas discussing this. The reality of the boards, is the overpriced books sit. Same as eBay. Sellers that consistently overprice things do not get as many looks as those who price better. Same as eBay. Sometimes things sell here for more than one might think they should, same as eBay. The very best sellers have a good overall feel for pricing strategies and will have a lot of sales.

Who says its fine? Many books in the sales forum are way overpriced - and just sit there. People do not call them out in threads because it is not allowed. Some sell - might be for a good reason or not - but really - you were going to set a price at more than 2x FMV to see what "offer" you were going to get. No comparison. FYI - ebay has a way for you to auto-decline lowball offers.

Gabe - so many times you keep saying you have learned... but what? Market value is a real thing. Even if you really, really, want books to sell for higher. Even if you think someone somewhere will whisper the characters name during the 6th trailer credits in a movie- it does not matter today. Aphra - was not in any movie announcement or trailer. It seems like you want to market to yourself - hoping someone sees an $800 price tag and offers you $500 ( instead of the $400 you paid for them). On ebay - many have found sales that even suggest that $300 price is top dollar for the books ( that you do not even have in hand yet to grade). OBO - just means you are willing to listen to offers. I sell plenty of books at the listed cost. If your price is in the real FMV ballpark ( or lower) , people will buy to avoid someone else picking up the book. Go search out the sales threads here - many people state that they are open to offers, but you then also see the on the same thread as listed costs. The 15% thing Does this mean all of your "sales" are off? --- even considering that not all were ebay - 5% error on over $10K in turned inventory - is $500........ You should not put any more outside money into this. Only use what you already have committed. Forget any past financials - wipe the slate clean and think of all the comics you have now as your seed money. Get the most of them - but the goal is to turn them within 2 months so you can use that freed up cash to buy more. If you keep adding to the business bankroll - you will never see if you can actually do this with any level of success. Thinking you have to sell something for X because you paid Y for it - will hurt you. Knowing how to estimate market value ahead of time - and purchasing wisely - will take care of margins much better than micromanaging your pricing strategy. EVERYONE makes a bad buy - or has to sell specific books below what they paid. Happens in a collectors market. IF you can do this - then the seed money will grow. If you keep making bad decisions, it will dry up. A quick analysis for your ebay...... __________________________________________________________ FF 53 cgc 7 $222 Sales ~ $140 now. This peaked in 2015 and crashed. Change to $165 OBO. Take 140. FF 53 cgc 5 $109 One just sold for 110 ( white pages) - but previous sales ~ are much lower. Change to $85 OBO ( take $70) ASM 7 coverless $58 2nd appearance so non key with a big chunk out of it. Drop to $40 OBO - take 30. Or go auction route ( auction on this might get you best $$) Animosity rise 1 color $43 Highest sold on I can find is $25. Make yours $25 with BIN ( take 20 ) Animosity rise color and b/w $58 Sets all over the place from 25-55. Make $40 OBO ( take 30) Star wars Dr Aphra #1 Ashley Witter set of three $59.83 can buy now for $40. Sales between 30-40. set to $35 no BIN ( many copies at $40 - yours may move a lot quicker at $35) Darth Vader 3: CGC 9.8 $113 averaging $80 with two available for same now at $82 or less. Change to 85BIN - take 75 Daredevil 257 CGC 9.8 $51 You reprices this recently? might be your only book near FMV. Add OBO - take 40 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________ Even at the low end - this is over $400 to put back into the business. You should be doing this on your own - and WITHOUT thinking what you paid for them.

Q1: Usually. Depending on the extent of the damage, non color breaking creases or wrinkles can generally be improved by proper pressing. Q2: Send the book to one or the pros for a press. ( CFP, CCS, Hero). Post images here first and many boardies will be able to tell you what might show improvement and/or if the book is worth pressing. If you are thinking of doing this yourself, just know that proper pressing is somewhat of an art form. The real pros are not giving you a play by play as how it is accomplished, and really they should not. They have developed their skills over years of hard work. If you look in the newbie thread, there are links to several pressing threads. If you read all of them completely, you would have a good starting place as to "how" people press........ but much less time and $$$ consuming to simply go to the pros.

seller just relisted with $300 opening bid...... Gabe - this is the research you need to do before making wild claims about how much you will sell things for. So many people here within minutes - find examples of why your asking price is outrageous and will most likely not get you any real offers. You do not have to be as fast as everyone else - but be thorough. Given how you are "hiding" what you paid - I would almost think that you got them for a steal. If so - price them to move and get out quick. Stop trying to imagine trends or movers - and price right.

um .... FMV? people are willing to pay "X" for a given book, people are willing to sell at that number...... when you have a lot of that going on ( happens all of the time with moderns) - you get a trackable FMV I remember someone somewhere guaranteeing that her inclusion in a movie was guaranteed to be announced late last year.......

By day - I am an engineer. By night - low end flipper/collector ( flip collections to make some extra money so I can buy more GA books, lol) -- Once I found the boards - the engineer side of me to learn whatever I could about grading/slabbing/pressing. Helps all around with collecting. If I had my preference, I would rather pressing did not exist, but since it does and is used by so many, better to know as much as you can about it..... So it definitely is a nice thing to come across raw "unpressed" books that are graded/priced fairly ( my last pickup like this was a nice batman 14 from a boardie.) ... Still early for that particular book - so no idea of a real estimate of the final price - but it looks to have already been bumped a little more, so probably less of a bargain now. Will probably get more interest closer to hammer time as well........

are you looking only for reading enjoyment? --- http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/batman-various/1122313853?ean=9781401260095&st=PLA&sid=BNB_DRS_Core+Shopping+Books_00000000&2sid=Google_&sourceId=PLGoP75606 The reprints and books are reasonable and can cover a lot of the "key" issues and such. Otherwise, you almost have to look over the bigger sites ( sales forum here, comiclink, comiconnect) - and look for the more reasonably priced books. It is kind of random what shows up for batman/TEC GA at times.....

and the stain is not even that bad --- the cover is for sure dirty, but I can deal with that as well on a GA book. might be a tear on the BC as well ( near the stain at the top center ) --- but even still - presentation is (mostly) the FC and it is protected in the slab from tearing more.....

Agree on the 102 - the white pages + presentation were good. I even liked the stamp on the cover - gave it more character. Both prices ( IMO ) -- were fair as well. The 126 was more of an impulse buy as I missed out on the previous nights batmans ( have not done many CC auctions so I did not remember the hammer time, ) --- and others I was in the hunt for went for higher than I was willing to pay. The beat TEC 39 - was thinking about - but not for $800+ ( just too many things wrong with the cover ) - and the 156 were on the radar for a while.... later!

so - nowhere near the level of the big books you all have been pointing out, but a couple of CC pickups yesterday for my GA bats collection.......

So - pressing, even properly done by the experts, does not fix everything all at once. Some books - have been repeatedly cracked, pressed, and resubmitted with grade bumps. Most times, you would see a single grade bump ( or 2) with a decent press AND press-able defects. Improperly pressed books - CGC has articles with examples of what a poor press can do - https://www.cgccomics.com/news/viewarticle.aspx?IDArticle=3939&comic-book-pressing Can a bad press make creases worse? - sure. If someone with poor technique uses too much pressure and bad humidification techniques, the ink may separate further for a wider or deeper crease. They can also smash staples ( the example link). Many other bad press issues - can be resolved with a proper press. The items they show in the articles - would most likely be listed in the graders notes and affect the grade. Does this book look like a bad press job? - I would say no. Not really enough visual cues to tell. I am not a presser ( I use the pros for that when I slab books) - but I have gotten pretty good at spotting the defects. It is a great thing to find a book in the wild properly graded at a good deal --- but with awesome pressing potential. The only area that is visible which might give more clues - are the staples. The small circular stress areas ( more visible on the upper staple) - could be from pressure. On a modern book - this is an indicator of a press as the staples would generally be perfect. On a GA - could also be general wear. On a raw book- this would prompt me to examine the CF staple areas and interior areas of the book closer to see if there are more indicators of staple smashing. The thing is - unless you have images of the book from several angles with good light - it is almost impossible to tell if a book is a pressing candidate. Even harder to tell - if the book has been pressed at all. I would agree with Gator ( and he is pretty darn accurate on all things comics) - that any new books are best assumed to be pressed. from the book you linked -- "crease on the left center of cover" - this would be the defect that I would want to really see. I looked over the hi res images and cannot find it. That with the other notes - can really only tell you that it "might" be a candidate. BUT --- being a candidate and being worth your time and $$ to get pressed are not really the same thing. You and GAtor - are way more versed in what GA sells for - but assuming the hammer price is ~ 500 and you feel that grade bumps would be worth $200 for one bump, a 9.2 would be an additional $500. You will probably have to put $100 ish into the process.... You would have to be really sure that the book would get a 2 grade bump to make this worthwhile.

unread does not mean 9.8 --- and the books were handled at least for packing and shipping..... Were they pressed? a poor press job may not be visible in the case - but could definitely lower the grade. Any grader notes??? as far as resubmitting goes - kind of up to you but this could be costly if you plan on doing this every time you are unhappy with a grade. Hi res scans would help -

Some of it is a matter of perspective, no? (and are you counting inventory in that expense total?) The big guys with the biggest books - would want that to be a high target. They have outlets to sell the books in other areas, but keeping an active presence helps them move the books at a show with ( hopefully ) better margins overall ( as you stated - lots of fees being tacked on in other locations). Smaller fish - can easily live with that lower number. I do not have a storefront to support or the non show overhead ( not much anyway) that would make me overly focused on margins. With my family schedule, I have not been able to do anything other than the one medium local show I set up at every year. It is a lot bigger than a hotel or VFW show, but still has more of a comic feel to it overall. It is set in a nice fairgrounds layout - they get about 4000 ish people in over 2 days. Over the past two years, my overall profit is actually fairly low. BUT - that is including the physical expenses of set up that I do not actually need to worry about any longer. Signage, table covers, pipe/drape extra tables, magazine racks, shirts for my worker bees, are all now "free" (ok - paid for). So this year and beyond, the margins get a real kick. In many ways, I have used this show to build up the infrastructure to do other shows.... With us kicking one kid on to college next year, I will actually have some more time to explore a couple of the smaller one day shows in the area. I gauge my level of success on profit for sure - but in the shows I also want to MOVE the low cost books. I can sell $20+ books all day on on the bay and be happy. BUT - buying collections to get those books also gets you the dollar bins that you need to move or they pile up. I use this show ( and I will hopefully get into some other local ones soon) - to blow out the lower and stuff as much as I can. I would honestly rather blow out $2000 in dollar books for 20% margin - then 4 $500 books for 60% margin - at a show!!! Other things to consider --- Did you have fun? --- for me this is a side business for picking up some extra cash and keeper books. I like the social interaction at the cons. Count I Con is one of my favorite weekends of the year! Did you make any new contacts? - business or other - networking makes a huge difference Did you get any good leads? See above - but also my best overall score came from a show connection (where I got that ASM 3 ) .... and I am waiting on another contact to be organized for me to make an offer on his collection ( I have first shot at it) . Did you score some cool books????? - always helps to pick something up you want To summarize --- for me volume ( low dollar books) is king!

2nd printing for pre-packs - kind of like whitmans

This is probably the best attitude to take. Even if you see press-able defects in the slab - it still might already have been pressed ( many times multiple presses are needed to take out all press-able defects) ..... When I have the "dealer" hat on - I can identify books that I sent in for press/slab ( my inventory is not that large, ) .... But even then I tell people that ones I purchased in slab are likely pressed.

- that can work too --- for me, the different numbering systems they keep bringing in just make my sorting more complex, lol! If you did not see - there were several ASM lots in the sales forum this weekend - one had 15 and a couple others you were looking for ( though a coverless 2 is probably not what you are looking for) . Maybe a bundling offer might get you a good overall deal. For me - digital gives me a lot that I can read - and then even go back and read some of the ones I have already slabbed - or books that I really do not want to dig through the boxes to find.... If it was just a couple of books a month, I could see buying a copy.

how? not on that credit card, I hope.......

All a matter of taste and enjoyment... - for your 'run" - I would really say that 700 is a (way) more than reasonable stopping point. Once they decide to go off number ( to me) - the "run " really stops. For reading the new "floppies" ,,,, - myself , I do not really purchase new books except for my kids. They get more enjoyment from having the book in hand. I read either trades or "marvel unlimited" ( wish DC had a similar offering). More due to the fact that I have way too many boxes of comics lying around anyway. If I bring in stacks to read - I will easily lose them with the other stuff - or create a bigger mess......

I use blue tape ( painters tape) - for interior packaging when I ship. It has a very low release point - so much lower chance of an accidental tape pull if someone is rushing to unbox the package. From the picture - it looks like they are protecting the edges of the bag with this - so making the window somewhat stronger to prevent pulling. I would not recommend putting right on the book. I did test the tape on some modern books - did not appear to do any damage, but the adhesive on my "blue" ( 3m painters tape) - does change a little over time. Plus - with a modern you are really hoping for that 9.8 so I would not really want anything to touch the book.......

All American 51 -

True on two fronts - Some collectors consider pressing restoration - and do not want pressed books regardless if it is "detectable" or not. Some - look for a grade bump in any book - and books that have never been pressed many times can get a bigger bump ( some pressed books - can still get a bump)...

Here's hoping you have at least TWO hunters looking for it............