1Cool

PGM Strange Adventures 205 Nothing overly tricky but need a gut check for this book since I've come up with a difference answer both times when I graded it. Centerfold tight and no internal damage from what I see.

There has to be a way to market this stuff to people who just like kitschy stuff. Maybe start up a business of selling 20 punisher comic book with each punisher shirt that sells. Sell comic books along with paper mache product and have people cover lap shades with them. Make spinners out of them that can be set fire! They just sit in long boxes all over the country collecting dust but now has never been a better time to get those books into the general populous. Better minds have to have come up with some good ideas by now but I'm still looking.

What the heck - I'll take it plus The Boys 1

I like your statement about the quality of 4x$1 books. They are quarter bin books! Use to be you had ok books in the $1 bins and the quarter in books were tattered junk which were destined for the junk heap if not sold soon. Now the $1 bin books are the old full price books that have not sold in a year and the quarter bins are filled with the old $1 books. Strange market for sure.

There is definitely no shortage of buyers out there even if there is a shortage of collections. I've got 10 long boxes of ok 90s books that are slated to be donated this year so I thought I would try to sell them via Craigslist / Facebook sales before going the donating route. My Facebook ad accidently did not mention 90s books but I instead said they were all 25 year old whereas the Craigslist ad specifically mentioned 90s books in the title. I got 9 responses for the Facebook ad in 3 hours and no responses with the Craigslist ad. No difference in picture, no difference in price but one had 90s in the title and the other said 25 year old comics. I'd change the Facebook ad but it won't let me so we will see if the Facebook guys go running for the hills after getting my detailed response.

Is that a ASM 300 for $50? Is it just the cover?

Been thru hundreds of long boxes and never seen even one of the gold versions but I keep looking. I still like grabbing high grade Deathmate Blacks for $1 unless you get buried in them. Look what is happening to Spawn 1 ($10 - $20 books at this point) and you can't get more copies available then that book. Gen 13 is a great concept for a tv show or movie so I'd be happy to store away 50 unread high grade copies for $50.

I seriously doubt it - which is unfortunate. For run books (especially 70s-90s) to become somewhat valuable again you have to have a demand for the books and that would have to come from readers/collectors and there is simply too many books to go around. Unless for some reason a ton of 35-55 year old guys (or girls) decide they wanted to go back and read comics from their youth there will not be a huge uptick in prices and to be honest most of those books have not aged well from a reading material stand point. Ever tried to go back and re-read copper Defenders or Conan books from that era? I liked them as a kid and even I can't handle more then a few at a time as an adult. There are still a select few hardcore reading, collecting fans but those people have found they quickly get buried in long boxes of books if they are willing to pay $30-$40 a long box. A few years ago I had a guy who would buy large batches of late bronze or copper books for $1 a piece since he was putting together a collection for his son. I completely swamped that guy within a year since he was the only guy paying that price for lower grade run books and I had an unlimited supply. To answer a question asked earlier - I don't think the dealers/sellers have devalued books one bit. Why would they - it's against a sellers nature to offer a lower price then he can. Pre internet days you had a select group of local comic shop owners who controlled back issue prices in each town or city (if you discount mile high mail orders). They charged whatever the market would bare and people paid that price if they wanted the book. Now that everyone has access to pretty much an unlimited variety of books and possibly collections the sellers have to be really careful on what they pay since the buyers can easily go elsewhere and get cheaper copies if the books are priced too high. If the buyers were still willing to pay $2 - $3 for any random bronze/copper filler book then dealers would be happy to buy them in bulk for $0.50 a piece. The sharp rise in competition and lack of reader/collectors has driven the price for most mid grade filler books into the ground which has nothing to do with the dealers attitude or buying decisions.

$5 each for those IG 1s but they looked untouched so I'm happy to buy up the batch at that price. I've been looking all over for that stupid New Mutants 14 and he had 10 copies sitting there waiting for me. Hopefully a couple will be high grade. Not sure if I really neede 70 copies of New Mutants 100 but since they are mostly high grade and for $1 each I couldn't say no. The guy had done a pretty good job of picking out the big gems (or the guy on Friday) but I was happy with my haul. I've already order a case of new bags and boards so I know what I'll be doing this week while watch tv.

Turns out the guy from last week runs a small antique store in the area and has amassed a huge collection over the years with a bunch coming from closed out comic shops who just sold off their excess inventory to him and he seems to find a lot of comics in the houses he is hired to clear out. Needless to say he has 75 long boxes in his store and a store room filled with 250-300 long boxes. The boxes in his actual store looked pretty well picked over but that storage room was a pickers paradise. He said he spent a week sorting thru the boxes and picked out 30 long boxes of books he felt to be $10/$25/$50 books based on the guide and then offered 1/2 bulk discounts so that was the stuff I picked thru last weekend. I called him on Monday and he was busy until Friday or Saturday but said I should come by. He said a guy came and bought $3,000 from the storage room (only mentioned a couple MGN 4 that he sold for $25 each) so I'm sure I missed out on some prime stuff because I had to work and get my daughter (adulting getting in the way!). I booked out there saturday morning and the guy was right on time and explained all the books left over from his sorting were $1 but he would have to check out the guide if he saw a book he knew was hot. I started digging into the 1st box and in walks another guy who was at the sale last Sunday - awkward! Turns out the Johnny Come Later was looking for single issue of the key books for his "son". He was nice and since he wanted only 1 copy we got into a rhythm of sorting thru a box each and yelling out titles in the boxes and going thru 250 boxes went much quicker with two sets of eyes. He really didn't know much of the new hot books so I told him to grab a New Mutants 14 and put it on his stack - he thought it was a strange book but I told him to trust me it was worth $1. The owner kept coming back and checking on us and he even went to get us cokes since we were both dying from throwing around long boxes to and from the shelves. Great guy all the way around but really just wants to get out of the comic book business due to back issues and I'm happy to help his transition lol. He also kept grabbing the long boxes full of books I wanted and looking up books in the guide to see if anything "was good" and I kept thinking he was going to check e-bay on some of the New Mutants books I really wanted but the only books he hit on was the X-Force 2 and the Infinity Gauntlet 1 which he jacked up to $5 a piece. I grabbed all the IG 1 but only took the 2 or 3 best X-Force 2s and put the 30 other copies back. He was ringing me out and said he had made an offer for all 250 long boxes on Sunday to a local dealer for 10K but may take a bit less (especially after I paid him $800 for 750 of the best ones). I'll probably go back next Saturday to pick the bone clean but he seemed very motivated to clear them out so let me know if you have any desire to go negotiate for the remaining 250 long boxes. Lots of 80s books with about a quarter early 90s books but damn that is a lot of books! Here is the pictures from the sorting this morning but I won't bore you with the pictures of the Maxx 1s and a stack of other books that were border line $1 books that I thru on the stack since I was tired.

Saw it again today with my daughter and she loved it. She said it felt long but was pumped with the ending. I thought it was just as good the 2nd time which is rare for me. Definetely an A- movie which is the best comic movie in awhile.

Giving away a book to the kids worked great at the Cons I set up at last year. Even if the kids didn't buy any other books the mob around the table prompted other people to stop by and take a look. Worse thing you can have is an empty booth. There is a tipping point where it's too busy but I'd rather be closer to that end. Giving away a free book to anyone under 18 led to me selling 1,200 $1 books at one 3 day con with all of them being 90s drek.

Looks like a bunch of 2x$1 books due to the bad condition of them. Most stores would pass on buying them or if you get lucky they will offer $20 for the long box. Putting them up on Craigslist for $40 may be your best option. Ebay will get them sold but shipping cost will make it tough to find a buyer even for $20. Read them and sell them for cheap is my suggestion.

Very nice batch of books! Tired with a mountain of keys is a good feeling.

Probably 50 long boxes of $15 per long box books like Valiant and crappy 90s books. There is 100 long boxes of 80s books like Alpha Flight, Kazar, X-Factor, Marvel Two In One. But the last 100 long box is nicer books like New Mutants, Justice League of America, Flash, lots of Conan, Wonder Woman and Flash. With all the 80s books it seems like a decent deal for $0.10 a book ($30 a long box) but you would of course be able to move a ton of books at $1 a book.

I'm so beat. Went over to see the rest of the collection from last Sunday. 6 hours of sorting later I grabbed 3 long boxes of good stuff out of the 250 longbox collection (all old boxes with 300 books per box) at a great price. He mentioned a good price for all 250 long boxes ($9-$10k) for all but I really do not have the time or pactience to clear out that many books (75,000). I may grab some more next weekend when I have more time but if someone is in the market for a dealer (mostly 80 but a quarter early 90s) overstock collection of that size - send me a PM. The collection is only a few hours from Niagara Falls so it may be a good collection for a Canadian buyer. 250 long boxes are no joke in terms of storing and just moving around!

Knew it! Both my 1st Klaw cover books sold last night at full price. Only way that is going to happen is if the trailer came out.

Ah - that makes sense. Glad you got some nice books.

Yea - I can't imagine what kind of work would go into that big of a collection but considering your last set of pictures included some pretty nice books and those were the pickings from the last 90 long boxes. 310 long boxes worth of books were bought and you still grabbed those from the completely picked boxes! My head is swimming thinking about what books would have been pulled out if you were the first couple guys in line.

Knowing what you know now do you wish you would have done and looked at the original collection and maybe worked out a time payment plan for the 100,000 books considering what was left over when you got there? That's 400 long boxes which would be crazy logistically but considering the collection had a ton of high grade key books would it have been worthwhile? I know it's a bit of speculating since you do not know what was there for the 1st-9th guy but if you got those gems after all this time do you think $1.50 a book for 100,000 books would have been the way to go? Just curious.

I usually take into account for the typical 10-20% discount so I bump up my ask price 10% over the higher end FMV for the book. If I get an offer asking for 40% off (especially hot books) then I consider it a low ball offer and may or may not respond depending on what I'm doing. I can definitely understand buyers avoiding sellers who mark stuff up 40% over FMV to try to get a "sucker" to bite but on the flip side I avoid buyers who start off negotiations with a 40% offer.