Local comic store: priced or price at the counter?

[Flee-Marquette]

Definitely priced. I was at a comic shop in Dallas about 12 years ago and the guy had some silver DC stuff in mid-grade that was not priced. I asked him how much the comics were and he said to pick the ones I am interested in and he would price them. So I spend about a half-hour picking out some Legion Adventures and bring them up to the counter. He gets out his guide and looks them up, puts them in a bag and hands them to me and says "That'll be $75.00" I said "I thought you were going to price each comic so I could determine which ones I would like to buy." He said "If you don't want them, that's fine" and then proceeded to go back to whatever he was reading. I went out to my car and looked them up in my Overstreet and he was about 2X guide. I hate when I invest the time to make selections and then find out the stuff is overpriced.

[aardvark88]

In today's hustle and bustle world, everything in the LCS HAS to have a retail or asking price on it. Visitors or tourists in town are not going to wait 30 mins while a staff member grades & prices out a stack of back issues at the shop or comic-con.

 

Decisions have to be made at the speed of the internet now.

[toro]

Most of my LCSs are unpriced. Of course I prefer priced. There was one place in my area years ago that would put a price on the back issue and never re-priced it again. She got stuck with many New Teen Titans #1(second series) at $25 but if you were lucky you got some excellent buys on many books that turned hot over the years that she had for cheap money.

[lizards2]

Dont buy Back issues at your LCS you will probably pay too much. That being said you shouldnt have to sheepishly arrive at the counter and feel like a cheapskate because you dont have enough for what you have in hand

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Many of my best grade mid-dollar flips ($10-$30) have come from buying LCS pricing mistakes, particularly when they make the mistake/don't bother researching 5-15 copies of the same book.

Do any of us actually READ comics anymore? It seems that all we talk about is how we FLIP books at a profit.

 

Does it matter whether people read them or not? I do, it sounds like you do. So what if people flip books? What if people just like the art or just the covers. What if all they read is the letters page? Isn't that their right? Maybe they enjoy flipping comics so they can buy Webkins or model trains or tentacle porn. Lately everyone on this Board wants to tell people how to enjoy comics. You enjoy them your way and let everyone else enjoy them theirs. How about that.

 

 

I enjoy mine with mayo...., my comics, that is. Hot mustard for the tentacle porn.

[KEY ISSUES Comics]

Yes, I have long boxes of 50 cent - $1 books I have fished out of those same bins with the intent of reading them (and having read some of them) and in the land of comics, they're probably worth about what i paid or less, but we're talking about "paying too much" for, and pricing of, back issues at an LCS, not whether they have anything to read. But if something is 50 cents or a buck and is a $10-$30 book on ebay, I'm going to buy as many copies as I can and flip them. I have a family to support and my government paycheck sux.

 

I know. I do it too. It just seems that we often talk of $$$ and flipping more so than the books themselves.

[KEY ISSUES Comics]

A back issue of Marvel Premiere in crappy condition was unmarked. The guy priced it at 10 dollars. I was like what the *spoon*. But I still bought it cuz it would have felt weird to put it back.

Don't feel bad. Your money is yours and you shouldn't feel obliged to fork it over out of a false sense of guilt.

 

Mile High has a habit of overgrading/pricing LOW grade books, so do not cave in again.

[KEY ISSUES Comics]

Most of my LCSs are unpriced. Of course I prefer priced. There was one place in my area years ago that would put a price on the back issue and never re-priced it again. She got stuck with many New Teen Titans #1(second series) at $25 but if you were lucky you got some excellent buys on many books that turned hot over the years that she had for cheap money.

We too had a LCS like that (closed down recently - surprise, surprise). Certain books were overpriced because they were hot in the 1990s, but dead in the water today. But, you could find some books at cover price that were worth 3-10 times cover, so it was a great place to find some deals.

[kidcolt]

Must be priced.

[kingofwhales]

Priced.

[Sal]

only an imbecile would run a comic shop with unpriced back issues. it's the first sign that should scream "he doesn't know what he's doing" to you, the buyer. a lack of interest in the customer and a messy store would be the next two in line

[WOXL]

There was one shop that had unpriced 90s Marvel foil comics up on the wall Amazingly enough, they did actually have some decent back issues in long boxes that were priced (and priced reasonably to boot).

 

-Bob

[Dick Pontoon]

Every store I frequent is priced. I can't stand unpriced books, and at a show will usually skip those dealers even if they have books I want. Pricing over guide seems to be SOP in those situations.

[nik]

Only time I see unpriced books is when my LCS calls after he gets a new collection in

[OrangeNemesis]

the fav thing for my LCS to do is once he sees a modern selling well he will pull 2 or 3 off the shelf and once he sells out will immediantly jack them up to 10 bucks.

[nik]

Said it before but I'll say it again, your LCS suks

[the blob]

only an imbecile would run a comic shop with unpriced back issues. it's the first sign that should scream "he doesn't know what he's doing" to you, the buyer. a lack of interest in the customer and a messy store would be the next two in line

 

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Time Machine in Manhattan is unpriced (though they have a huge $1 bin section, which occasionally yields some "treasure"). It has been around a long time and actually has a pretty decent vintage selection. They know their comics. They look the books up and start discounting. So, they use OPG, but unless maybe it's some tough GA book or a high grade SA Key, OPG is the starting point for the discounting process. And they guy looking up the books isn't a compulsive overgrader. So, while I find the whole process a turn off and only go through it if I REALLY want something, the net result is not that the books are more expensive for me.

 

But I prefer pricing, particularly at an old time store. It has since closed, but one of the shops run by the Koch brothers had been around a while and by the time I started shopping there again in the early 90s they were clearly hitting the last copies of some SA books they had probably once owned a palette of and the books had been priced 5-10 years earlier. So when they had a 50% off sale I picked up a nice stack of third tier Marvel SA titles like TOS, TOA and ST in 5.0 - 8.0 for like $1 - $2.50 each. that was nice. (And no, I haven't flipped any of them...YET! I've been letting them age the last 10 years so that I can sell them here for $1.25 - $2.75 each.)

[ashrael]

Priced. I hate unpriced unless it is a back issue that is under-valued in price guides (which rarely happens).

[spongerob86]

the fav thing for my LCS to do is once he sees a modern selling well he will pull 2 or 3 off the shelf and once he sells out will immediantly jack them up to 10 bucks.

The shop closest to me does that as well. Any new book that comes out gets at least a $5 sticker once it's two months old. I've seen many, many cases of his 2.99 books being marked up by $2-$7 when they still sell for cover price at other shops in town.

 

[spongerob86]

If back issues were unpriced and a shop I'm browsing in, it would really discourage me from buying. If I had to walk up to the counter and ask every time I seen something I might want to buy, the shop would by missing out on a lot of business from me.

[OrangeNemesis]

the fav thing for my LCS to do is once he sees a modern selling well he will pull 2 or 3 off the shelf and once he sells out will immediantly jack them up to 10 bucks.

The shop closest to me does that as well. Any new book that comes out gets at least a $5 sticker once it's two months old. I've seen many, many cases of his 2.99 books being marked up by $2-$7 when they still sell for cover price at other shops in town.

 

funny thing is ill find some of the same books he has marked for 10 bucks behind other misc books on the rack and then he will change his story.