Slevit

No I am saying he got doubles when he could because it was a key issue, or origin, or first appearance or artwork etc. HE KNEW ALL THAT STUFF - crossovers etc. My brother started collecting comics when he was a child - he was born in 1970, and started boarding and bagging them then - AS AN 8 or 9 YEAR OLD CHILD and took care when doing anything with them. I'm not saying he had a double FF #1 but he bought doubles of comics that were 1st appearances and key issues because he would say you never knew what exactly what would be valuable/collected in the future. (See pictures). Before the burst pipe, maybe...20 years ago I counted the long boxes and there was 36 of them. His favorites where Batman, Cap, FF, Iron Man, X-men, Wolverine, but he had Hulk, Flash, Daredevil, Wolverine, etc. but he had lesser main characters too Hulk, Vision, Hawkeye, Green Arrow, Green Katern, etc. He read a huge variety of comics. So I took 2 short comic boxes to my LCS and they gave me $350 for what he said was worth about $850...that seems like a lot of money to be leaving on the table since I have a lot more to sell. If he already had a copy or if he hadn't sold a copy in a while he de-valued them. The store has been in business for 30 years and they press comics and they also send them out to be graded and have for idk...30 years. Here's some doubles that I have easy access to to illustrate my point. Here's also a picture of some old comics; some are banged up. (I have 2 of Spider-man 22 just not pictured here.) Now that I have a lot of them sorted, I have some runs/sets: Spawn 1-40; Savage and the Savage Dragon about 75 books of each; X-Force; X-factor; Spider-man (sold the ASM). I'm thinking Overstreet Price guide and ebay to get values. (It takes forever to look anything up on ebay. For instance, it can't tell the difference between ASM and just Sipder-man.) Putting them up 1 at a time on here isn't a real option. Also, since I dont know key issues, 1st appearances, etc. I just go to ebay and type Uncanny X-men in a general search or in the SA category and see which ones are graded that people seem to be collecting and what they sold for. But that takes a lot of time and mine are raw....so....thoughts? Also I have a bunch if 1st issues - just the first issue of about idk...300+ comics. So that will be fun to research. So just start throwing stuff up on ebay and see what happens...or....

Hello, I will try to make this brief, but I don't want to leave things out. Due to unfortunate circumstances, I recently inherited about 4000-5000 comics from an avid collector who knew the value of comics since he was a child and who always took great care of them. Unfortunately a water pipe broke where they were being stored and thousands of Silver and Bronze Age comics and earlier were lost; I get sick sometimes when I see how much they are. Complete sets and doubles of first appearances and key issues of everybody you can think of: FF, Cap, Spidey, Flash, Iron Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Thor, etc. He read everything - I have about idk 50-100 different independent titles too: Cyber Force; Powers; 100 Bullets; Savage Dragon, Spawn, Silverhawk, Sandman; Nyx; Deathstroke; and a bunch of others I can't remember and a couple are in different languages. Of course about 6 or 7 long boxes of West Coast Avengers and a bunch of 80's JLA survived but not the old FF or Cap or..... I have mostly Modern comics but I also have some Silver and Bronze issues; he would go to flea markets as a child and buy older comics because they were for a good price and they might have value....and they do. He also bought comics every week for about 20 years. He was a true comic book fan in every sense; I know very little about them. 95% of the comics I have are boarded and bagged since he bought them in the 70's and 80's; when he would read them he would take great care so he wouldn't cause any dents on the spine or any creases or marks anywhere - the opposite of how most people read things - and then they would go right back into the bag. Anyway, so I have all these comics I don't know what to do with. I have done some research and I know some of them are valuable but pricing is all over the place. I used gocollect.com and Ebay but that just gave me a general idea of what they are worth. Also, someone made the argument if they are rare enough to be graded and collected, than they might be worth more than the guide price since they are that rare in that condition. I understand commons are not worth much and condition is everything - I've taken a magnifying glass over a lot of them and I don't see any marks, creases near the spine, etc - they look brand new. This is going to sound stupid, lol, but when I took a few comics out of the bag to look at them I could actually smell the printing just opening the pages - like they were printed recently - that's how long they have been in bags and cared for. I sorted most of the major characters into a group of their titles and I am currently cherry picking the older titles to look them up. For instance, I have ASM starting at about issue 280-399 including about 20 doubles of some key issues and first appearances; I am missing about 10-15 comics in that range but I do have the ASM issue #300 and the other Venom Issues. I also have several issues of the Rawhide Kid; Ms. Marvel $18; Avengers Annual 10 I think; Transformers 1-7; several Crisis on Infinite Earths (# 7 Supergirl Dies is signed by someone but I cant make it out), the ASM issue #234 and Annual issue #22, the Flash #52, etc. My best picture (provided) is probably Batman's Detective comics #474 - you can see a small crease in the bottom right of the cover and a you can see where the comic was opened near the spine and slight wear marks but I wouldn't call it a crease at all but most comics don't even have that. (In the pictures, the white squares are my notes so I have an idea of how much they sell for graded, not what condition I think they are in.) I see issue #300 for different prices for the same grade on different sites - the same for Ms. Marvel #18. One site has MM listed as $850 for a 9.8 graded and another site lists the same grading for $400; quite a huge difference. If I am correct, not all comics graded 9.8 have the same value - there's higher versions because the cover is more eye-popping or vibrant than an average 9.8 or other 9.8 covers etc. I live in a bigger city so I was going to take them to a LCS (there are several) and see what condition he thinks they are in and what he thinks I should do but that makes me nervous. I want to sell most if not all of them - they do me no good and someone else should enjoy them. I have called several comic book places and the bulk prices are not encouraging. I was offered $1000 for all of them. Then I sent quality pictures of the better comics - Ms. Marvel #18 - $160 graded at 9.0-$850 graded 9.8 - and a picture of the stack of ASM and that offer rose to $1200. Now, I know they can't see the condition and everyone thinks their comics are in prefect condition and comic book stores have to make money, but.....Also, I have read several articles on raw vs graded comics. As an example, if I agreed with my LCS that something should grade at a 9.0-9.2 (I understand it can be higher or lower) and that that grade is worth $20, how much can I realistically expect to be offered by a LCS or any comic collector really? Is it a $1? $5? half price at $10? The 2 problems: 1) I don't now enough about grading to determine if I am getting a fair deal. I guess I could lug the boxes to the 2 or 3 LCS's in the area and see what they offer and what they think the grades are and compare. That seems like it will be very time consuming and is only going to be so helpful with pricing and they probably won't want all the commons; 2) I currently have about idk...100+ comics valued at least $25-$40 if they were graded. At $25 a comic, I don't currently have $2500 to tie up in comic grading. Plus once it is graded, can I expect full price for that grade? So, I am asking for help. I am reasonable and don't necessarily need top dollar but I don't want to just give them away either. So grade some, keep some, sell some as raw to the local LCS and I can expect 30% of the expected value or 50% etc. or any thoughts how I should tackle this? I still have thousands of comics to go through. I thought about buying a scanner but what software would I use? Any constructive help is appreciated. Very limited in size for pictures so the quality isn't great because I wanted to post more than 2 or 3. The Batman 474 and the picture of all of the ASM are probably the best I have currently using this size. Here's a little of what I have: