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BUILDING YOUR COLLECTION....

Started by Mr.Silvestri,

41 posts in this topic

Shark

Shark

Posted
Posted
Between about 1971 and late 2001 (30 years) I didn't own a single comic book. Then in early 2002 I started perusing eBay and was amazed what kind of prices the comics on there were bringing. My first comics purchase was about a week later at a local book store (Toad Hall) and I spent $275.00. About 50,000 comics and about 100 complete runs later I'm still buying but selling off duplicates and what I don't want to fund what I do still buy.

 

Yeah, I kinda went crazy there for a while. :insane::acclaim:

 

Shark

 

WOW !! You just went full force into this hobby didn't you Shark ?? lol

 

I know people are reading this so chime in and let us know how you got to where you are to day.

 

Well, early on in 2002 I was only going to go after an Amazing Spider-Man run (my favorite character when I was a kid). But things snowballed badly (obviously) from there and I started going after Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four, X-Men and Thor issues as well. After the snowball got halfway down the hill it kept getting bigger and bigger and I started branching off into some of the more offbeat Marvel titles (Marvel Tales, Marvel Premiere, Tomb of Darkness, Where Monsters Dwell, etc.) and even some of the DC titles (Action Comics, Batman, Flash, Detective Comics, Superman, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, etc.). I decided to go after full runs of most of the major titles and have accomplished that with over 100 Marvel and DC comics.

 

Most of the financing to do this early on came from charging comics to credit cards (absolutely a no-no nowadays) or cash from my regular job as a Manufacturing Engineer. My initial theory was to go after the early, higher priced issues first. Why? Because if issues gained 30% in value over a 5-year period I'd rather spend the extra 30% on $5.00 comics instead of $500.00 comics those 5 years later.

 

Where have I purchased the comics? Many have come from eBay and a few from Yahoo Auctions (when it was still viable) but the majority have come from auctions, estate sales, garage sales, flea markets, my local LCS.....pretty much anywhere I can find them. From what comics I have sold I notice that I average about 50% of guide so I try to purchase most of my comics at 10 to 30% of guide unless they're for my main collection. I do pay a much higher percentage of guide for those.

 

Almost all of the financing these days comes from the sale of duplicate comics or those I just don't want to keep. Through my efforts to complete full runs and just the fact that I can't pass up a great deal, I've managed to accumulate probably 10,000 duplicate issues. Most of my selling efforts these days is concentrated on those duplicates.

 

Shark

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piper

piper

Posted
Posted
One comic at a time. First I completed my FF collection, it seemed impossible at the beginning but eventually I tracked them all down. Strangely enough #97 was the last. I guess I'm the buy and hold mutual fund investor type. I've been buying comics for over 30 years and once a comic goes into my collection it tends to stay there.

 

(worship) That's my plan too... :o

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innocuous

innocuous

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The base of my collection comes from the comics I purchased new off the shelf. Although most of those have been upgraded by now. When I upgrade, I sell the undercopy (but, I'm doing very little of this nowadays). About a third of the money I spend on comics is from my discretionary income. The rest comes from my income from ComicSeeker.com.

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otherworldsj33

otherworldsj33

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First started buying new comics as a young boy, then in my sround ten back issues, and then a cycle of purchased and sold, purchased and sold, again and again, as my tastes changed, refined, so did my collection. Sometimes I sold lamost everything, other times maybe a half or three quarters of my collection. Sometimes I used some of the money to re-invest in other comics, other times used all the money for something else and had to wait a few years til I had money again to buy back issues.

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Flaming_Telepath

Flaming_Telepath

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What you do is start up a law firm, win some settlements on behalf of your clients, don't pass their money on to them but instead use it to purchase a mess-load of sweet, sweet Marvels for yourself. :cloud9:

 

You will finally get found out, and disbarred for misappropriating clients' money, but by then, who cares? You'll have a thriving comic business, a collection that sits at the top of the ultra-important 'registry', and you'll get awards from industry bodies for the quality of the books. :acclaim:

 

Only in ing comic-land... meh

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djpinkpanther67

djpinkpanther67

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What you do is start up a law firm, win some settlements on behalf of your clients, don't pass their money on to them but instead use it to purchase a mess-load of sweet, sweet Marvels for yourself. :cloud9:

 

You will finally get found out, and disbarred for misappropriating clients' money, but by then, who cares? You'll have a thriving comic business, a collection that sits at the top of the ultra-important 'registry', and you'll get awards from industry bodies for the quality of the books. :acclaim:

 

Only in ing comic-land... meh

I Schmell a rat! hm

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Flaming_Telepath

Flaming_Telepath

Posted
Posted
What you do is start up a law firm, win some settlements on behalf of your clients, don't pass their money on to them but instead use it to purchase a mess-load of sweet, sweet Marvels for yourself. :cloud9:

 

You will finally get found out, and disbarred for misappropriating clients' money, but by then, who cares? You'll have a thriving comic business, a collection that sits at the top of the ultra-important 'registry', and you'll get awards from industry bodies for the quality of the books. :acclaim:

 

Only in ing comic-land... meh

I Schmell a rat! hm

 

lol

 

:applause:

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Flaming_Telepath

Flaming_Telepath

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I've been spending my own dough since the winning the bar lottery. What a *spoon* I've been. You are my hero.

 

I think this might be directed at me, although you've responded to somebody else.

 

My post was sarcastic, insofar as it's not my tale.

 

However, it is the tale of a certain BSD. (thumbs u

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thehumantorch

thehumantorch

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I've been spending my own dough since the winning the bar lottery. What a *spoon* I've been. You are my hero.

 

I think this might be directed at me, although you've responded to somebody else.

 

My post was sarcastic, insofar as it's not my tale.

 

However, it is the tale of a certain BSD. (thumbs u

 

Pretty sure it was directed at you. BSD?

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Flaming_Telepath

Flaming_Telepath

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Posted
I've been spending my own dough since the winning the bar lottery. What a *spoon* I've been. You are my hero.

 

I think this might be directed at me, although you've responded to somebody else.

 

My post was sarcastic, insofar as it's not my tale.

 

However, it is the tale of a certain BSD. (thumbs u

 

Pretty sure it was directed at you. BSD?

 

Big Swinging D*ck. (thumbs u

 

One of the movers and shakers of our little hobby.

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