1Cool

ComicLink auctions are great but their regular set up stinks. Plenty of times sellers leave up listing forever and then it's been already sold when you hit the BIN. I tend to not buy front ComicLink other then the auctions for that reason.

What do you do at that point? I stood there and said "sh*t" about 10 times and both of us stood there for a couple minutes. If I was him I'd have probably cried. People came running over and asked if anyone was hurt - thankfully no one was nearby since that much weight would have done some damage. My stacks of books I wanted to buy up to that point had been knocked over so we both scooped them up and kind of stumbled up to the front. To be honest I had this gut feeling I should run even though I hadn't done anything wrong. Kind of like in school when someone breaks a window - you run. Couple of the books I wanted probably got damaged but what do you do - quibble over $20? I said sorry and paid for the long box of books and drove home. Not really much I could have done to help him at that point - look at those books! Just glad no one was hurt but I still cringe when I see the picture of the destruction.

I was almost killed by comic books today. Not exaggerating one bit. I went back to the antique store to take one last look and see if I could work out a $40 long box deal for maybe 20 long boxes of the best stuff left since I knew I left some decent books in the boxes. He must have had a change of heart since he didn't seem in any hurry to make a deal today. I think he wanted to try out a couple Cons and didn't want everything picked. Oh well - went to work double checking the boxes to see if I wanted anything else before taking it off the list. Was working on flipping thru some of the long boxes on the end shelves and disaster happened! He told me to be carefully of the end shelves the 1st day since they were wobbly and a couple boxes had kind of pinned him. The shelving looked a little rickity but he had interconnected a bunch of them so it felt sturdy when I was moved my around boxes. I had turned my back and was searching thru it and heard a kind of cracking sound and the end shelf was tipping kind of toward my shoulder. I pinned it back up and yelled for help since I felt it was a heavy load pushing down - more then a couple long boxes of weight. The owner came running over and tried to push the shelf with me but you could tell the leg had snapped or something. I gave it one last push up and saw the other shelves start to topple. Thankfully the guy grabbed my shoulder and helped get me out of the way since the one shelf was kind of on my shoulder at this point. We watched in horror as one shelf toppled another and another. Ever seen 200 long boxes of books and magazines come toppling down? Not a pretty sight. Here is what we ended up with:

Bet those cats looked like this.

Isn't a ASM 129 CGC 8.5 a $1,000 book (per GPA) - so you sold your copy for 5% less then GPA and it was a deal?

Just curious - you had a dealer help you bag and board the books but they have not offered to buy them or connect you to someone who could buy them? I thinking a huge group of people would (myself included) would love to have a Tomb of Dracula 1 in nice shape and would be willing to pay well for books like that. If you had a collection of 1,000 books that contained books like complete sets of Cable or Power Pack then you would get picked to death since some people may want a Power Pack 1 but the rest are $1 books at best. You should have no problem selling your collection at a good portion of current FMV if you think TOD 1 is a hard to sell book.

Bet that $50 ASM 300 was gone quick. Love your price stickers by the way - very imaginative and easy to see.

1st off - don't be nervous since a majority of comic book guys are at the Con by themselves (we don't move around in packs). Heroes is huge but laid out well so you won't get lost in a sea of people. In terms of getting books signed you have to decide if you want the books graded or just want the signature without going thru the grading process. If you just want books signed then it's easy - wait in line for the guy you want and they will let you know if there is a fee or donation to get the signature. Hand the artists the books and they will sign the covers for you and they may even chat you up if you talk to them. Most are really friendly and only the big names like Neal Adams will charge you for a signature or two. If you want CGC to grade the signed book then make sure you stop by the CGC booth BEFORE you go get any signatures. They will walk you thru the process and the expenses involved with getting your first Signature Series slab. Good luck and enjoy!

Can you over hydrate a book before pressing? If you put a book in a high humidity situation for 8 hours is that going to damage the book? Not submerged in water over hydration but in a high humidity situation. I'm guessing the humidity would lead to mold if you leave it in for a few days but half a day shouldn't lead to damage, right?

I personally think Joey pays him to post all the books so people can see what he can do with a press.

I'm not sure which section of the boards would be more dead. The dealers would all be over checking out what the collectors are looking for or possibly selling at a discount and the collectors would be over buying the books the big dealers have that they want. Selling a collection to strictly collectors would be a time consuming and difficult task unless you dropped your prices to pretty much what the dealers would have offered you in the first place. The comic book market is definitely big enough for everyone to get along.

I'll take both Preacher 1s per PM

That is what irritates you about Greggy?? Of all the million things to irritate you about him, this one seems pretty small to me.

That is a good point. Days past a large collection (or even a mid sized collection of nice material) would have to be bought by a big dealer who then sold specific books to a waiting list of buyers. The casual buyer did not have the time, money, expertise or desire to buy a large collection and try to sell the books they did not need. Now almost any knowledgeable comic book collector with a decent bank roll can compete for pretty much every collection except the mega ones. The flippers do have some use in the fact that they find the in-demand books in uncharted locations (or maybe just johnny on the spot) so the collectors do not need to spend weekends looking for books at garage sales or auction houses. I can see why a collector would be put off by flippers since they end up paying quite a bit more then if they bought the books directly from other collectors. Is that how the boards use to be? Collectors selling books to other collectors as a discount compared to the big dealers? I've been here for awhile and although I do hear people say the boards use to be friendlier I still remember the dealers swooping in and buying up batches of books below market so I don't think much has changed except maybe the number of collectors/sellers has exploded over the last 6-7 years.

1st Venom Cover? It's got that classic McFarlane cover going for it and with the dark cover it's toughish in high grade

From a buyers perspective is there a way to see what others have offered on a book. I can't find it since it seems to show me the counter offer price when I look but people must see what others have offered based on how people respond when a couple offers come in. The next person always seems to go up just a bit or match the previous offer if it's a hot item.

The guy doesn't sleep already - don't freak him out anymore!

The chances do go up using your technique but also is a lot of work for quarter bin type of books. I did put in the description that people can pick out titles they want in order to make their own long box of books and the boxes included a ton of hot titles like Punisher, X-Men, Spawn, Spider-Man. The problem is the people that would enjoy a long box full of readers just do not actively look for books on Craigslist or Facebook. Those people seem to like going to Cons, hitting a LCS after work or sitting on E-Bay on a Sunday night. The people who contact sellers about comic book collections on Facebook or Craiglist are 99% flippers (myself included) who just have no interest in a picked over set of comics so there really is nothing you can put in the description to entice this group of people to come look at a long box of filler 1990s books no matter how cheap it is. The guy I bought 70 long boxes from early last year ended up contacting me early this year to see if I wanted his remaining 50 long boxes of 90's books. I know he has been picking and selling books from the boxes and based on what he has been posting on Facebook I know he has gotten better at picking out any book that is worth any money. He dropped his price to $15 a long box and I still said no because it just was not worth the time and effort to get them and sell them. I think he got a LCS to buy them for $10 a long box but that just shows you the difficulty selling huge batches of 90s overstock once they have been picked over.

Yep. I'm betting on it but we will see.

You sure it was soda stream and not the CGC enforcers?

I had the same experience. 1st garage sale was crazy but the next two were snooze fest. Once people know you are not giving away keys they don't come back.

If the goal is to promote a feeding frenzy then it may be better to price them at $2 a piece and then have a 1/2 price sign. People love 1/2 half even if the original price is 2x the price you want. But I think it just does not matter what price you put on a bunch of stuff. People just are not interested in Savage Sword of Conan in mid grade. Other then #1 there is no keys so people just skim right on by and on to the key book chase. I've seen it where dealers put $0.00 and a couple magazines and people don't look enough to notice the magazines or comics are free. I love it when guys pull out binders with issues they need - those guys will buy non key books and they don't mind paying for the books they need.

Don't do it - it's a trap. Starlin still hates CGC.

No wonder - terrible reading especially for an adult imo. So there is no shortage of drek collections since no one is clammering for those books. Key heavy collections have become very rare since everyone wants em and very few have them. I'm up to 13 responses with my Facebook ad and still none from Craigslist. No one is rushing over once they hear what is in the boxes though. Should have just donated them and eliminated the hassle but cash is king.

Now that you say it like that 4.0 does seem like the obvious solution. I had it as a 3.5 one day and then a 4.5 the next so 4.0 is probably close enough for government work.