Shawnismaximus

On 15/12/2017 at 9:16 AM, 1Cool said:

I'll take that batch of New Mutants 1 - 100 for your original $300.  Flash books are all gravy!

Haha I know right!? I think I'm going to sell some of the keys on ebay then sell the rest at my local comic con. Though part of me just wants to keep it (and the 10 cent & 12 cent Flash comics) , I need to make some money back somehow. He even had the original New Mutants graphic novel in fantastic shape. 

90% of the people I've talked to that are selling their collections have wanted way too much money for run of the mill comics. He was the opposite. He had even priced out NM 98 on ebay but figured it wasn't worth the hassel.

8 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

 Not sure what he ended up doing with them but when you can't sell indi 90s books for $10 a long box you know how tough it is to sell those books.

Yeah that's actually pretty mind-blowing. The long box itself is worth like five bucks lol. 

$648.91

1 hour ago, spreads said:

Two years ago I helped a friend sort through 20k independent books; he asked for my help since I know a lot more about indy books than him.  The take-away was it ended-up being a colossal waste of time, and I'm pretty sure he still has the bulk of them left.  He admitted to me later on that it was a mistake and he wouldn't have bought the lot (even though it probably only cost him 1-2k).  

I don't mind buying a collection of indys if it was a collection, that's where you see more obscure (horror) or popular stuff (dawn, caliber comics, dark horse, quality vertigo, popular chaos comics, gore, rare indys from the 80s, etc.) that you can sell, but an old store stock or former dealer makes me think they weren't able to move it.  I hope that's not the case for you, but man going through 20k books and not even seeing more than a few hundred that had any kind of demand was super devastating.  I just bought a small collection the other day that had a bunch of Indy garbage: Now Comics, First Comics, Eternity Comics, stuff like beauty and the beast - straight to the recycling bin!   

I'm curious why you wouldn't want Valiants?  With that collection of 20k comics, the only saving grace was early and late issues Valiants.  At 10 cents each, assuming the Valiants aren't all Turok 1s or Rai 9s, good runs of any of those titles (even the commons) and especially later issues are books that you can actually move (granted it might be at 50 cents or 1 each) but people do want them.

Pretty crazy that he can't make his money back when only paying 5 to 10 cents a comic!  Really sounds like a cautionary tale for buying indie comics. I'm new to buying collections (I'm going to set up a booth at my towns local comic-con this summer), and I really don't know much about indie. Any advice on what to look for when looking through indie books? Any titles that are big sellers?

On 12/14/2017 at 8:40 AM, Artboy99 said:

It is exactly what we are doing, but he doesn't reply and seems reluctant.

I think he isn't all that ready to sell. He spent a lifetime collecting these items, and he adores them. To see them sold piece by piece just tugs at the heart strings.

He wants someone to walk in with $60,000 and take it all in closed cardboard boxes. If he sees the item he doesn't want to sell it.

Maybe he needs to sit on it for another year before he realizes that nobody is going to do that and comes to terms with selling it.

Time is (sometimes) your friend.

1 hour ago, DocHoppus182 said:

If it were me, I'd try to offload all the Flash books to the guy you originally talked to about them.  If he agrees on your price, even if it's lower than the lot you could sell on eBay, why not take it?  You don't waste time listing and the original goal is completed, keeping what you want and selling the rest to make your money back.  But then again, I'm all about convenience.  

Yeah I think that's the plan still. I Just gotta figure out what I would realistically net from selling on ebay and offer them to him for a percentage of that. 

49 minutes ago, Mackenzie999 said:

All he said was he'd come up with a price, but I agree he should give the guy first dibs.

Yeah I just told him what I had, and told him he could either make an offer and I will get back to him or I will do some research, look into what they are worth and give him a number. He opted for the latter. It's really the price that the incomplete run went for on ebay that surprised me and made me consider these could be more valuable then I originally thought since it is such a large run.  Regardless I will give him first crack at it, but ultimately if I think I can make a lot more money selling on ebay then I'm going to sell them on ebay.

I wonder what this means for Super-hero shows and movies Fox already has in the works.

Legion, for example, is AMAZING and I think season 2 is set to come out in February.

But I could see Marvel stopping a season 3 from happening so they can execute their own vision for the character and incorporate him into the marvel-verse (whether that be on the silver screen, or in some sort of X-men or New Mutants TV series). Which would be a shame because it's honestly so good right now. 

1 hour ago, Phicks said:

Same idea with comics.  Who would want 100 issues of Flash, that did not already have a bunch of issues of Flash?  "I have never been interested in this character before, but suddenly today, I am all over Flash!  I want every issue!"  I do not think such a collector exists.

I get your point, though to be fair I had an experience recently where I bought some daredevil comics on a whim (Mark Waids run) despite only reading a couple random Daredevil comics previously. I tore through those and fell in love with the character, and now I've been buying every daredevil backissue i can get my greedy little hands on. If someone had a decently priced 100 issue long run for sale I'd be all over that.

Do other people agree with Phicks? What do you guys think?

Backstory:
I've been purchasing some collections lately, in hopes that I can keep the comics I want, sell the rest at a local comic convention, and hopefully break even. I was lucky enough to find a collection for sale that had the below listed Flash comics, as well as new mutants 1-100 (and a bunch of 90s drek) all for $300. The other day I met a guy at a comic book garage sale that mentions he collects Flash comics. I tell him I'll come up with a price and get back to him.

Pricing problems
The plan was to cut this guy a deal by selling all the silver age stuff for a little cheaper then the sold listings on ebay, and then everything issue 220 and up I would sell for a dollar each. But then I came across this run of  Incomplete run of 53 comics from #256 - 349 that sold for $200!  Considering I'm 4 issues away from having a complete mostly-NM run of 216-350 (or 11 issues away from having 199-350) I'm starting to think the smarter thing to do would be to buy the missing issues and sell them on ebay as either one large run, or 50 issue runs. What do you guys think about that idea?

The Comics

236 comics total. I've uploaded photos of issues 115-255 as people might want to see them (the covers are awesome) and their condition varies. The ones I don't have photos of are almost all near mint. 

Flash comics:
115, 118, 120, 132, 145, 157, 160, 163, 164, 167, 169, 170, 173, 176, 177, 178, 181, 182, 183, 187, 188, 189, 191, 194, 196, 199, 200, 204 - 211, 216 - 220, 223 - 234, 236 - 345, 347 - 350

Duplicates:
227, 237, 240, 290, 300, 

New series 1987: 1, - 26, 29
Annual 1, 2, 3, 

1976 DC superstars 5 
1978 flash spectacular 80 pages
1985 crisis on infinite earths 8
1988 Annual secret origins starring flash 2

Fantastic thread. Is there a thread showing peoples booth set ups? I've been buying some collections over the past 6 months in anticipation of selling at a local small (like $50 for a table small) convention in my city this summer.

I'm also planning on having a comic-book garage sale this summer as well. A friend who lives within eyesight of one of the busiest roads in my city has offered to let me have it there. Any advice you guys might have for that is also appreciated.

Amazing Fantasy 15

1 hour ago, Transplant said:

This is pretty dumb.  Your text is "More info?"  What were you expecting?  What would be your reaction to that text?  It's not even punctuated correctly for what I think is your intent.

Are you asking (Do you have) more info?  Or are you stating, (please give me) more info (.) ?

I think his response is to the same level as your text.  They're both incomplete, unhelpful and generally dumb. 

You have a point, but I figured I would at least get some sort of information in his reply that I could work with and build some questions out from. 

p.s. I think I accidentally created two posts about this. My bad, my phone was acting up. 

I think "Ok. Less info?" is my favourite so far, but keep 'em comin' fellas.

This is a screenshot of his ad. There was only the one photo and no description.

The second image is a screenshot of our convo. Now granted I could have been more specific about what information I'm wanting but I figured he would at least give me something! I'm open to any funny replies you guys can think of. Right now I'm thinking of replying. "Oh wow that's a bit too much for me to digest, could you be a bit more vague?"

This is a screenshot of his ad. There was only the one photo and no description.

The second image is a screenshot of our convo. Now granted I could have been more specific about what information I'm wanting but I figured he would at least give me something! I'm open to any funny replies you guys can think of. Right now I'm thinking of replying. "Oh wow that's a bit too much for me to digest, could you be a bit more vague?"

I've skimmed through a few of the threads Cal has created. I'm not sure if it's just cuz' I'm new to the boards or if they actually don't make sense but I have no idea what the guy is talking about. It's like the more I read the less I understand. 

31 minutes ago, Bookery said:

It wasn't so much an over-pricing as sheer incongruity.  I remember years ago a family coming in, and they'd given their 2-year old in diapers a copy of the 1970s overisize reprint of Action #1 to carry around.  They strolled around the store for quite awhile as the infant dragged the book across the floor behind her the whole time.  Then they had another kid (maybe 7) finally bring it up to the counter and ask what I'd give for it.  I was polite and said it really wasn't anything I could use at this time.  The child dutifully reported it back to the father, who exploded and loudly announced that I was a crook because that book was worth 50-grand! (or something like that).  The family then stormed out.  I'm not sure which was more confusing... the fact that I'm a "crook" for NOT making an offer on something... or that an item you think is valued at more than your entire net worth is something you give a baby to play with until you're ready to sell it.

The craziest part of this story is the guy let a toddler handle something that he thought was worth 50 thousand dollars. 

I don't even let my 5 year old niece touch any of my comic books because she doesn't have the motor skills to be delicate with them yet. I tried showing her a comic one day (she saw Spider-girl on the cover and was asking about her) and she kept grabbing at it while I was trying to read it to her.  The comic went from probably a 9.6 to a 4.0  in the 2 minutes I had it out of it's sleeve. 

p.s. does anyone else cringe at how other people handle comics out in the wild?  I was buying some golden age/silver age romance/cartoon/western comics from a lady at a garage sale this summer. Some were in rough shape but some were in really good shape. Well she gets the idea that she should put some aside for her grandson. She starts flipping through them (bending them at the spine) and throwing the one's she wants hap-hazzardly into a pile while I'm struggling not to have a conniption fit. 

I think this might be up there, I saw it this morning. Originally posted at $4000 (CAD so $3150 USD). 

Cool. Thanks!

bump

It was always my goal to do this with Spider-man but the older I get the more I realize this is basically impossible.

That being said, I'm debating maybe doing this but having a cut-off date of 1990 or something (like Mysterio's comment above).

Also it's very likely I will never own Amazing Fantasy 15 or Amazing Spider-man 1 due to the price. Unless I can get it very cheap. I paid 80 bucks for a VERY low grade ASM 3 a couple months ago and it makes me happy. The back cover was completely missing as well as the top 1/3 of the front cover. It aint pretty but it's MINE!

Ah man I've been reading Ultimate Spider-man since issue #1.  It's sad to see him leave.  I would like to see his take on Batman though. 

2 minutes ago, mschmidt said:

You offered way too much.

The seller is  for not jumping on that $300 CAD.

Yeah. In my defence I was pretty much biding blind (he hadn't posted the photos or description yet) to see how flexible he was on the price if I were to look at them in person.  I'm kinda hoping he comes back and asks me if I'll still buy them for $300 so I can say ""Ha no I'm good. Thanks" right back at him. 

The ad is for sale in Calgary, Alberta on Kijiji if anyone wants to make an offer. I don't want to link to his ad becuase the guy can see how many views his ad gets and the number would be artificially inflated from this forum. But feel free to find it and send him an offer if you're interested or live in the area.

Here's the info from the ad. It's 3 longboxes of stuff.

"Comic collection selling as lot only -The west coast average - infinity (45 comic's) -Star hunters -star trek ( 94 comics ) -Superman (112 comics) -Iron man ( 82 comics ) -Squadron supreme (23 comics) -Legends (2 comics) -Legion of super heros (234 comics) -Legion (43 comics ) -Millennium -icon , Indiana Jones, Inhumanoids,losers, And lots others Well not separate"

He has it listed for $600.  When I first contacted him he only had the first photo and a description that there were 3 longboxes of 'older comics'.  So I offered him $300 thinking that if he agreed I could at least have a look and back out of the deal if I didn't think they were worth 300.  The guy passed on the offer, saying "No sorry to low . Thanks for the offer" I told him to contact me if he changed his mind to which he said "Ha no I'm good. Thanks" Which at first offended me but now I'm thinking it's pretty funny. 

Now that he's posted more photos and a better description I'm thinking I offered too much! I'm curious as to what you guys think and what you might value the collection at (based on the pictures). 

Keep in mind these prices are CAD.  $600 CAD = $470 USD.  $300 USD = $235 USD