Vixom

On 2/9/2023 at 9:33 AM, JDubeCT said:

Think you missed what I was asking - green vs yellow label aside; if I get a 9.8 green w/COA for colectors sake is it worth it? I was thinking it would be good to protect the issues I have with COA signatures - so grading makes sense - but not sure if it is worth CBCS verifying it or just going CGC and holding onto the COA (well hold COA either way but hopefully you follow.)

If it's for you it's whatever you prefer. No need to pay more to get a signature verified if you believe it's legit. For resale it might be better to have it verified. Personally I would most likely buy the cgc green label. I can verify it myself and will take the slab. Most people don't trust coa. Some don't trust verification label. 

On 2/6/2023 at 4:26 PM, lou_fine said:

 

Ouch    or awesome    , depending on if you are a speculator who brought during the pandemic times or a longer term collector who brought back in the pre-pandemic times.  

How about a speculator who bought during the pre pandemic times and sold during the pandemic times? I can't find the words or emoji to express how I feel. 

On 2/3/2023 at 3:09 PM, Stefan_W said:

People used to charge 99 cents for an item and them a hundred bucks or whatever for shipping to get around paying Ebay fees. The current system that charges fees on shipping is a direct result of that. 

Those were the good old days. Along with cash checks and money orders. 

I love global shipping program. Never had a package fail to get to Kentucky safely. Once there they can do whatever they want to it. 

I find shipping almost irrelevant. Free shipping according to ebay boost your visibility. A good listing without it will still be at the top of searches though. Some people fix on lowest price. Some are spoiled by Amazon and think free shipping is actually free.

A big notice for me was when they raised the minimum promoted listing to 2%. I stopped promoting and my traffic plummeted. I just use EBay for advertising so I bumped that up and a mega difference. 

My brain

All those are good ways. I give them to my dealer friend. He treats me good so he can have them but will usually pick me up a book or take me out. You could sell at a show yourself. If you have a garage sale just advertise it well. Whatever doesn't sell you do the social media sale. I would make sure no books are shipped unless you buy 20 50 or more. It's free money but you don't want to have to work for it. 

On 2/3/2023 at 8:48 PM, Tnexus said:

Allows buyers to stay even more anonymous? Though it does seem shilly.

That's the reasoning ebay gives and some inexperienced sellers believe. Good idea if you are selling std medication or enhancement pills or something. Most people don't even think about worrying about non private listings. Many more believe it is foul play so it actually eliminates potential buyers. 

Most likely to hide shill bidding. I bid a crazy price. If I it goes for something good I will pay. If it goes to high I won't pay. Rinse and repeat with another account next auction. They will either give up or I will get it for a good price. 

On 2/3/2023 at 11:58 AM, Robot Man said:

Sad and tragic. Unfortunately, a sign of the times. Small businesses like this often do not have the money to install enough security and it might not have mattered anyway. Hopefully, they have adequate insurance but probably not.

I say this every time this happens. At closing time, pullout your expensive wall and case books and either take them home or lock them up securely.

Hope they catch this scum…

It doesn't take any $ to take the 5 grand comic and 20 most valuable cards home with you every night or to hide them in a box marked 50 cent comics. 

Soft targets get targeted. Add in a not safe area and you are in trouble. Security is cheap and even pretty much free. Anyone who hasn't evaluated theirs and drastically improved it should consider doing so. 

No crystal ball needed. Chances are in the next month months or even year, prices will stay the same or go down. If they do go up it won't be anymore than your solid investments. 

1 huge exception. If you are looking at something that has a boom potential. Will books go down enough to justify the risk? That's how you can get hurt. Everyone knew the x-men and most watched the fox movies. Disney buys fox and boom. Some big announcement with them or ff4  and fomo hits. Any book with a 1st appearance that hasn't shown up anywhere. A doctor aphra trailer comes out of nowhere and it doubles in value over night. Most books aren't going anywhere price wise. 

On 2/2/2023 at 11:42 PM, COI said:

If the powers granted by hindsight could be used to accurately predict the future, we'd all be geniuses. And we'd all be rich. At some point you have to make a move, and there are always reasons to hesitate if that's your temperament. 

What I see when I look at that chart is that something drastically changed in 2021, and based on that change, I have no reason to believe that all of that data from 2002 to 2018 will be very relevant going forward. Whatever the market is now and wherever it's heading, it's a fundamentally different thing than it was in 2004.

Anything prior to 2012 is irrelevant. That's when enough people discovered speculation and flipping. Combine that with all the movies and shows. Market completely changed. 2020 2021 is just as irrelevant. 2019 is the year. Any natural growth is hindered by inflation. 

On 2/2/2023 at 10:36 AM, Dr. Balls said:

I am curious, how do you handle the reactions of sellers who are offended by that kind of offer? I recently looked at a spreadsheet of 90's books "valued at $32.000" which contained ASM 300 and - literally - $31,500 worth of drek that Overstreet values at $4 each that would sit in the 10¢ bin for the next thousand years. I have not bothered to contact the person again, as it's not anything that would remotely turn a profit on an offer they thought was fair - but I was curious to how you handle someone who thinks they have $10,000 worth of books that you offer $1500 for.

I try to find seller's who are either not knowledgeable or desperate for money. If I had your seller there wouldn't be a offer from me unless they under graded valued the asm 300. Nobody will make deal. Even a comic shop only has so much space. I don't come across many people who looked up every single book. I pretty much end up with every collection I look at because I know more books of value. If someone knows as much as I do about values, grading, pressing, restoration I don't even bother. Or if they just have unrealistic demands. No need for you to call seller back. Move on to another. 

On 2/1/2023 at 11:13 PM, Rob said:

Serious question: with recent sales data showing most prices coming back down to earth from the pandemic bubble, why is anyone buying now?  Good chances you can get the same book cheaper later.  Or to put it another way, next month your book is going to be worth less than what you paid.

Waiting would require intelligence and patience. 

On 2/1/2023 at 8:11 PM, Phillip K said:

I called earlier today and they said the time limit had passed. I messaged the retailer and am waiting to hear back from them now. 

Those should have never left cgc. The retailer should have notified you of the scuffs or shipped them to you within a week. Cgc should take them back anyways. Failure all around. 

On 2/1/2023 at 6:26 PM, LordRahl said:

None of the sky is crashing people want to admit this publicly. Here or FB or anywhere. Everyone seems to think that if books aren't always on an upward trajectory, then the GCC has come. Even though prices now are 50% higher than they were pre-Covid (which was less than 3 years ago), all anyone can talk about is how they have fallen from their "highs". Someone wake me up when, as you say, prices are back to or below 2019 levels.

They got a education and most people pay for a education. As someone who sold all their inflated books I appreciate their business. Nice of them to be willing to sell them off at a massive discount in 2022 2023. 

On 2/1/2023 at 6:04 PM, Kripsys99 said:

 

I fell like you probably don't win many auctions bidding 50% less than you would otherwise!

Only 30. Not 20 plus 30. Although I think I would still win a few hundred each month if I was at 50. I don't go after the mega keys or hot spec books. 

On 1/27/2023 at 9:21 AM, alexgross.com said:

thats amazingly fast shipping. i have yet to receive anything from them faster than 3-4 weeks, so i hope it's improving across the board. 

as for their website, it blows my mind that people make this comment. compared to comicconnect, whose site uses much newer software (i'm told), comiclink loads about ten to twenty times quicker, images are better, and the organization is easy to understand. i'll take comiclink's site any day. please do not update it! just add pics of the backs of each slab-

I love CL site. Can't remember any site changing and people liking the change. Keep everything the same except the sticker needs to go. 

On 1/27/2023 at 7:32 AM, MAR1979 said:

Thankfully no stickers.  I've not bid on items in past because of that.  Hey Josh, if you read this, while it may seem solid business move it is not. To your customers the sticker is a true dee-bahg move!

Because of the sticker I bid 20 percent less vs other places. It's easy to remove but it's still a minute or 2 of my time. I haven't found a fast way to remove it without usually having scratches where the sticker was. Do a poll. No sticker would easily win. It's not even advertising. Most sellers remove the sticker before selling. 

Also is it just me or is it impossible to get a scratch free case from CL? It's hard to get one anywhere but CL cases all seem to have fine scratches all over the slab. Much more than books from anywhere else. I bid 30 percent less because of this. 

On 1/31/2023 at 6:03 AM, Grendel72 said:

Thank you all for your comments. Really appreciate it.  I was thinking to sell it off in bulk knowing I will be taking a bit hit. The hope is that there are some out there who want an instant collection of  relatively complete" sets of DD, Xmen,  Conan, Star wars etc . I will probably try to reach out to some local comic shops to see if there are interested.  Was thinking of a ballpark figure of 10k. Failing which I will consider as what many of u have suggested and cut the drek and work on selling the rest. 

Revat gave you the best advice. I buy large collections all the time. I have no interest in $1 $5 $10 $20 books. I will go through real fast and will only pay you for the keys and take the rest for free. I never loose a collection to another buyer nor do worse than triple my investment. If you don't have all silver and bronze you are in trouble. Nothing wrong with trying though. Grading, photos, shipping, record keeping is all work. I would sell the keys and elite grades for retail. Take the rest to a show or convention with low fees and have them priced to sell and Sunday is 80 percent off day. Give dealers and craigslist a chance first. Maybe you get lucky. 

On 1/31/2023 at 11:48 AM, O Doyle Rules said:

Has anyone had success trading a large raw book collection for a number of graded comics with one of the larger dealers? Is this possible or just a pipe dream? Any advice is greatly appreciated. I reached out to a dealer to see what their response might be. Thanks to all who respond. 

Many times with the exception of all raw for all cgc. Call a bunch of dealers and tell them what you have and what you want to do. I always traded high demand for low demand to win the trade. If it's the other way around you might not do much better than consignment. 

Are prices back to 2019? Until that happens the market is incredibly strong. 2020 21 numbers weren't sustainable. 

Before cgc majority of collectors couldn't detect it unless it was obvious. Restored books sold for full price because the buyer had no idea they were restored. Obvious ones sold for a lot less. I love a bargain so love restored. I can remove it, do a better job, or add more. Not uncommon to find a purple label that has no restoration. 

Only thing more lame than Mr Fantastic is Stan Lee who seen the lame plastic man and did a knock off and actually named him mr fantastic. Can't believe people pay so much for the 1st appearance of the thing. A stretch man, invisible woman, and a human torch I have all seen well before the fantastic four. 

Amazing Spider-Man. Most of the 800 or how ever many are nice. Many iconic. Spawn has a nice long run. Silver surfer is fantastic but short. Basically any serious that has good artist for a long stretch. Ross Horn are pretty strong and steady. I haven't seen many lady death or notti nice covers I didn't like. Vamperella especially early ones are strong. Too many to add pics and everyone has seen these covers hundreds of times. 

I would call and make arrangements and put note with book. I think non low grades get green label but I would try to make sure someone doesn't mess up. 

Whatever way it worth the most. I am not a fan of spine splits either way so I would sell it and get a book more to my liking.