thehumantorch

Welcome to the boards. 17,000 books is about 60 longs, you've been busy.

While I agree it's a pain to go through all the over-priced consignment items it's difficult to come up with a policy to get rid of them. How much is too much? Who spends the time to determine that and what sales data do they use? And if you start using past sales data, of whatever form, to limit a consignee's listing price, you'll be restricting the market and a suddenly hot book that could sell for multiples of recent sales can't be listed. I think they've kinda got it right. Let people send in consignments and set their own prices and let the market decide. If the price is too high and a seller wants to make a sale he'll change his price. And design a policy that encourages consigners to reduce their price after a period of time.

I'm in. Look out fools, I'll fight for last place until the end...

I guess I follow you. If I have a bunch of worthless stuff it can't fall any further and will always be worthless. Of course all that worthless bulk takes up a ton of room and is tough to sell. A dollar over and over takes a long time to add up. And while the prices of key SA or BA or MA have generally dropped 50% the prices of many precode horror and quality GA books has doubled or more during that same time frame. For illustration here's Startling Terror Tales #11. I have a 4.5 that I thought was worth $4,000 to $5000 based on 3 to 4 year old sales of a 2.5, 3.0, 3.5, and a 5.0. Then a 6.5 recently sold for $33,000, a 4.5 staples cleaned sells for almost $10,000 and a 4.0 sells for almost $11,000. And you can see the price doubled between 2020 and 2023 on the 4.0 and 4.5 staples cleaned. While I don't see any sales this year on GPA I wouldn't be surprised to see another healthy increase. Based on those sales I believe my book is worth approx $15k, 3 times what I thought it was worth a couple years ago. And while I love all eras of comics and have a fair slice of all eras in my collection I'll always consider a classic book like Startling Terror Tales #11 and it's ilk to be virtually immune to price drops. I like owning classic books that rarely come up for sale and when they do they sell almost instantly. Rating 2022 Avg 2023 Avg 12m Avg 90Day Avg Last sale UNI 9.2 River City pedigree -- -- -- -- $6882Jul 2009 UNI 8.5 -- -- -- -- $19200Nov 2021 UNI 8.5 River City pedigree -- -- -- -- $2975Dec 2013 UNI 8.5 River City pedigree / Variant Cover -- -- -- -- $1625Jun 2003 UNI 8.0 -- -- -- -- $1972Jun 2013 UNI 7.0 -- -- -- -- $18000Nov 2021 UNI 6.5 $156001 $333501 $333501 -- $33350Aug 2023 UNI 6.0 -- -- -- -- $4525Dec 2019 SP 6.0 -- $31001 $31001 -- $3100Jul 2023 UNI 5.5 -- -- -- -- $3457Dec 2019 UNI 5.0 -- -- -- -- $4560Feb 2021 C 5.0 -- -- -- -- $950Jan 2018 UNI 5.0 Northford Pedigree -- -- -- -- $368Aug 2003 UNI 4.5 -- -- -- -- $621Mar 2014 C 4.5 Staples Cleaned $44481 $94991 $94991 -- $9499Aug 2023 UNI 4.0 $52801 $108001 $108001 -- $10800Aug 2023 C1 4.0 -- -- -- -- $2472Dec 2021 UNI 3.5 -- -- -- -- $2250Mar 2020 UNI 3.0 -- -- -- -- $1750Feb 2020 UNI 2.5 $32262 -- -- -- $2851Aug 2022 UNI 2.0 -- $32011 $32011 -- $3201Oct 2023 UNI 1.8 $33471 $29001 $29001 -- $2900Aug 2023 UNI 1.5 -- $23052 $23052 -- $2750Aug 2023 UNI 1.0 $20001 $21352 $21903 $23001 $2300Mar 2024 SA 1.0 -- -- -- -- $88Jul 2008 I could show you some similar charts for classic Timelys, other precode Horror, Matt Baker romance, LB Cole covers. And I believe we just had a record sale for an Action #1. Comic collecting isn't dying, the money has just shifted to classic GA. And in MHO now's the time to start buying up key SA and BA.

Takeit

As someone who worked at a storage facility I wonder, how much did you know about what was stored at your facility?

I only dealt with Bob once. It was when he came here asking boardies to buy comics from his ebay store to help him out. I never got the comic I purchased and I spent a frustrating year trying to convince him he owed me a book. I believe his medication may have been part of the problem but at that point his emails to me were confused and irrational and frankly drove me crazy. To his credit he did eventually send me something. But he did love comics and his research and knowledge of the hobby was legendary and he will be missed.

Appreciate your detailed post. First time I sent books I also went through each book doing research and building a spreadsheet. Then I went to price books and realized they provided a ton of pricing data. Out of the approximately 100 books I've sent all have sold but 4. 3 of them I've kinda dropped the price as far as I want and I'm just feeling stubborn. 1 is Comic Reader #179 9.8 - Death of Stan Lee parody - and it was a $300 book when I sent it in and now it's a $100 book and frankly I'd rather keep it than sell it for $100.

Tom Foolery has been an active boardie for a long time.

That’s cool Wait a darn minute, that's hot

I can't wait to get my Spawn #1 signed by George Washington authenticated.

I'm glad you don't referee MMA fights...

Hip Hip

Looks better than a 5.0 even with the rust. Cleaning should help

I'd like to suggest that we refer to these as wedgies from this point forward...

Difficult to give you a value without knowing the approximate grade of the book. Assuming it is a Batman #7 from 1941 a CGC 6.0 recently sold for $4300 usd. Higher grades are worth more and lower grades less. There's no Bob Kane signatures recognized by CGC because he died 2 years before CGC was created and CGC has to witness a signature to authenticate it. As vevat points out CGC is in the process of acquiring a company that authenticates signatures so you would be wise to hold off submitting until that happens

sigh, I'm so sorry. Mike has hurt too many people.

It would be interesting to find out what type of work he has completed?

I think they were deserving of bags and boards.

I have a few books left from a consignment, about 2 years old, and in the My Consignment page the listings turned red. I took that as a hint and dropped my prices.

Something that's been bothering me about all this. Just spit balling here. What if Hero Mike was proficient at some aspects of restoration but not all? What if he took on these jobs and the appropriate payments but he didn't have the experience and skills to do all of the work? There's no university degree for what he does and I don't believe he apprenticed under anyone. I think he was essentially self taught. What if he just didn't have the skill to finish some projects and put them aside and continued to accept new work? That might explain why he hadn't finished books for near 10 years and why some books were only partially completed after many years.

Do you think there’s a difference between witnessed and authenticated? Absolutely. If it's witnessed there's no signature opinion required, just eyeballs. If it's authenticated it's essentially an expert's opinion and as good as an expert may be I'm sure they can be fooled.

Well this stinks. I would chalk it up to different graders and in the case of the book with a huge discrepancy I'd imagine the first grader just missed the defect. I can see how frustrating this would be.

The harder it is to find the more satisfaction you experience when you find it.