Short answer: $8,000 for my collection of approximately 500 comic books. Collection core was/is mid-high grade X-Men 94-350 + GS #1. Also Wolverine related books, all Frank Miller Daredevil, early (and worthless) Alpha Flight, and smatterings of Copper Age Spider Man, Thor, Hulk and FF. I did have a few random keys in Hulk 181, ASM 121, Secret Wars 8.
If you want to read about the process, see below:
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I'm selling my entire collection, and started actually selling on eBay two months ago. Most of the valuable stuff is gone and the total sales price on eBay so far is $6,500 with another $1,500 to go.
Final accounting estimate: $8,000 gross - (eBay and PayPal 13%) - $1,700 CGC grading fees and misc expenses means I'm netting about $5,200, or about 2/3 of sale price. It is a very modest collection in terms of both size and value compared to some of you here. It has been a fun experience. I am glad I took my time to prepare.
My process in general was:
1. Find websites that seemed useful to get educated. Found this forum, GPAforCGC, and learned about the CGC process this way.
2. Re-educated myself on grading. I hadn't even looked at my collection since finishing it in 1999 or so.
3. Catalogued and graded my books.
4. Selected a subset for CGC submission based on grade and GPA value. Anything $50 or over went to CGC, about 60 books out of a total of 500 books.
5. Set myself up as a seller on eBay, linked my Paypal account, etc.
6. LEARNED TO PROPERLY PACK COMICS FOR SHIPPING. Bought mailers for raw lots. Bought bubble wrap, popcorn.
7. Learned about the USPS shipping options, and which were best for slabs or raw books. Ordered medium flat rate boxes and legal flat rate envelopes from USPS (free).
This all took me seemingly forever, from December 2015 through February 2016, when I sent off my 60 books to CGC for grading. Used this to fine tune my grading eye. Frankly, it stunk.
Selling:
1. Slabs first, to establish a good seller rep. Got basically what the GPA guide suggested. Hulk 181 (7.5) $1,630, GS X-Men #1 (9.0) $1,200, X-Men 101 (9.6) $580, GS X-Men #1 (4.0) $390, X-Men 98 (9.6) $350, X-Men 102 (9.6) $230, and quite a few $100+ books.
2. Low value but still desirable raw lots (usually of 10 books) for X-Men 142-353. $350 for the bunch, average grade 8.0 before X-Men 200, 9.2 for 200-350. Gained faith in my grading, ready to move onto the more interesting raw books.
3. Raw lots for X-Men 115-140. Did fine. The shocker was $100 for X-Men 115-121 in average 7.0 condition. Way more than I expected.
(all X-Men before 115 went to CGC - some shouldn't have)
4. Now moving on to the last batch submitted to CGC. Some nice ones, include X-Men 110-112 in 9.4, Secret Wars #8 in 9.8 and 9.6. Should move fairly well.
5. Figuring out what to do with the really worthless stuff. Who wants two sets of Alpha Flight 1-34? Anyone? Bueller? Elektra Saga? Ronin? Contest of Champions? I'll whittle those down in lots, and probably give some of the stuff I liked best to my nephew.
Almost exclusively putting them out there for Auction, with no buy-it-now, with an initial price of 75% of what I hope to get. I want to move these books, not get every last dollar possible for them. Seems to work. A few disappointments and a few awesome surprises. In the end a wash and I got fair value IMO.
Lessons learned (or affirmed): Be a good seller - pack very well - communicate - don't bite off more than you can chew and don't list more books than you can reasonably pack and ship in a prompt and careful manner. I listed about 10 slabs and/or lots per week and that was manageable. About 6 of the books I shouldn't have bothered having graded - I wish I had used the pre-screen service but somehow missed learning about it. Well, at least I didn't sell overgraded raw books.
Guess what? I'm now starting to go to yard sales and flea markets, and my enthusiasm for collecting has been rekindled. But more from a standpoint of treasure hunting, not from holding onto books.