Sold my collection (sans pedigrees) to Flaming Telepath’s Comicana Direct

[mikenyc]

You got me

 

[Moondog]

I've never been compared to Michael Jordan before - cool!

 

[electricprune]

The bomb shelter will be so lonely.

 

(What are the odds that some of Brad's books end up annexing that space? )

[Detroit MIke]

i'm looking forward to a similar project, but in about 25 years. i still hope they're worth something then. and, i hope i'm still here to do it. i can totally relate to this thread. i hope you get a fair price for your books.

[PedigreeMan]

The buy offer from Lone Star Comics arrived a few days later. I had set a minimum price that I would accept for this 20+ years of work beforehand, and was truly hopeful that Buddy and his crew would be able to meet it.

 

Judging by the title of this thread, I can assume you’ve all figured out how that ended up. The Lone Star offer was actually pretty good, but not good enough to get me to pull the trigger. Generating income was never the goal. Yes, I wanted the books gone, but was still more than willing to wait for an offer that I felt met the minimum value of all the time and effort I had put into the collection. The books themselves were secondary -- in point of fact, the most expensive issue in the whole bunch couldn’t have been worth more than a couple hundred dollars. This was a labor of love and I wasn’t going to let it go for a song.

 

So I started shopping it around.

 

I started local, and with people that I knew and trusted: Moondog and klozd24seven. Both were immensely supportive and had great advice, but neither one could pull the trigger. I understood completely, but still figured I had to give my boys first crack after Lone Star couldn’t meet my price. I also called the main Graham Crackers store thinking that my $30 a month pull box might gain me some traction ( ), but the manager there kept deferring me to Jamie. That didn’t bother me as I figured I’d see him at Wizard World, which was now only a handful of days away.

 

I also made some national inquiries. Mile High was at the top of the list, of course, but they were more of a distraction than anything. I guess when you already have 100 copies of Darkhawk #5 sitting in your warehouse, adding another one actually starts to cost you money. I sent the Golden List to our very own Flying Donut who said he’d look it over. Again, I knew I would see him at Wizard World so there was no pressure. I called Joseph Koch and had a mind blowing conversation with him. Joseph managed to perfectly encapsulate into a quick 20 minutes all of the random tidbits and pieces of advice and general knowledge I had picked up over the previous months, and I could just tell that he did it because he enjoys imparting wisdom. It was pretty clear within the first few minutes that he wasn’t going to be interested in purchasing my collection, yet he still sat on the phone with me and transferred every last bit knowledge he had, solely because he’s a nice guy. I hope someone is playing the role of mentee to his mentor because everyone needs to know what that dude does.

 

And then Wizard World arrived. My base of operations for the past few years has been the Moondog booth, so naturally I checked in there first. Brad and Gary both had further advice for trying to peddle the collection at the show, so with this newly acquired info (and confidence!) I sought out to make a sale. I ran into Flying Donut first. We made a bit of small talk before I asked him if he had had a chance to look over the Golden List. He said that he had, and that he was seriously considering making the purchase. We then chatted some more before I made my leave. Since there was no firm commitment from Dan, I figured I’d peddle elsewhere. Next stop was Mike Carbonaro. Now, I’ve bought stuff from Mike in the past so I knew who I was dealing with, but still … that dude’s a force of nature. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing the guy here. He was totally honest and upfront with me about my collection and while he, too, came close to pulling the trigger, we just couldn’t get a deal done. It’s just … it was still Carbonaro. Nuff said, right?

 

Jamie Graham would turn out to be the final dealer I approached that convention. The less said about that encounter the better. All I know is that following this 3 minute conversation with him I was 99.9% certain that I was yanking the aforementioned traction-gaining ( ) $30/month pull list from his Downers Grove store. I ultimately chose not to, though, instead choosing to focus on the fantastic employees of said store rather than the shortcomings of their boss. But, still, Jamie … you need to treat the little guy better. Seriously.

 

By Saturday I was back harassing Dan about pulling the trigger when he said that he’d need to revisit the topic once he had blown through the current consignment collection he was selling. Wait a second … consignment? Nobody said that was an option! Dan looked at me and blinked a couple of time before saying, “You know, that might work.” We then sat down and started pouring over the Golden List trying to determine if we could make the numbers work. We ultimately figured that through a combination of Dan’s selling a select portion of the collection and my donating the rest to a qualified charity, I would not only be able to make the number I was looking for through direct sales and tax deductions, but that Dan would make a few bucks in the process, also. We parted ways with an understanding to touch base again at some point over the following months and see if we couldn’t work out a formal agreement.

 

Again, the title of this thread should tell everyone how the Flying Donut deal worked out. I’m still not sure what happened there. Perhaps neither one of us was all that enthusiastic about taking on as large a task as breaking up a 25,000 piece collection and working through selling part of it and donating another part of it and burning whatever was left (Darkhawk #5, anyone?) to save on winter fuel costs. Or maybe Dan just got a better collection in the interim. I dunno. I do know, however, that I was also corresponding with Buddy during the weeks following Wizard World wherein he said that I could accomplish a similar goal as the Donut Strategy by piece-mealing the collection out to him via Lone Star’s individual back issue buying program. It would take a number of months to accomplish, and I’d still need to perform the extra sorting required to pull the drek from the not-so-drek, but it was another option. Plus it was an option that would guarantee me a certain return, unlike Dan’s plan which involved relying on the kindness of cheapskates on eBay (and these boards!). Whatever the reason, while Dan and I came the closest to a deal that summer, in the end we just couldn’t pull it off. Sometimes life happens like that.

 

And sometimes life has a way of throwing you exactly what you need from the most unexpected of places. Which is where Nick enters the picture. (Yes, only 4000 words later. I warned you all about the navel gazing upfront!)

 

I sent Nick a PM through these very boards on September 23, 2009. The subject, however, was NOT about my comic collection, rather, it was a simple touching base / “can you believe what’s happening in the hobby now?” message. Nick responded with his usual gusto, and a conversation started. Buried somewhere in one of those follow-up messages was a parenthetical (yes, I do loves me my parentheticals) mention of The Albatross … and in his next response he replied with 2 sentences that basically said “Send me what you have” and “I may be interested.” Two days later he was pouring over the Golden List, and within a week I was shooting him representative scans of certain books.

 

By early October the PM chain turned entirely to talk of us making an actual deal. The one catch, though, was that because at this point Comicana Direct was still in the fetal stages any sale would have to occur in 2 parts, one at the beginning of 2010 and the other at the end. No, it wasn’t an ideal situation, but I inferred from the tone of Nick’s messages that his interest was highly genuine. And, again, I was in no hurry to liquidate and was still not looking forward to piece-mealing out thousands of books week after week to Lone Star or Flying Donut. So I chilled out, told Nick to take his time getting back to me, and settled in for the winter.

 

Then in December my wife filed for divorce …

[chrisco37]

After all the BS that has gone on this week, this tale is a welcome respite.

 

Hanging on every word.

[mikenyc]

After all the BS that has gone on this week, this tale is a welcome respite.

 

Hanging on every word.

 

+1

 

He knows how to tell a story and leaves us on a cliffhanger. It feels like Lost all over again!!

 

What is the *spooning* black smoke!!!!!!!

[TheShadowKnows]

The buy offer from Lone Star Comics arrived a few days later. I had set a minimum price that I would accept for this 20+ years of work beforehand, and was truly hopeful that Buddy and his crew would be able to meet it.

 

Judging by the title of this thread, I can assume you’ve all figured out how that ended up. The Lone Star offer was actually pretty good, but not good enough to get me to pull the trigger. Generating income was never the goal. Yes, I wanted the books gone, but was still more than willing to wait for an offer that I felt met the minimum value of all the time and effort I had put into the collection. The books themselves were secondary -- in point of fact, the most expensive issue in the whole bunch couldn’t have been worth more than a couple hundred dollars. This was a labor of love and I wasn’t going to let it go for a song.

 

So I started shopping it around.

 

I started local, and with people that I knew and trusted: Moondog and klozd24seven. Both were immensely supportive and had great advice, but neither one could pull the trigger. I understood completely, but still figured I had to give my boys first crack after Lone Star couldn’t meet my price. I also called the main Graham Crackers store thinking that my $30 a month pull box might gain me some traction ( ), but the manager there kept deferring me to Jamie. That didn’t bother me as I figured I’d see him at Wizard World, which was now only a handful of days away.

 

I also made some national inquiries. Mile High was at the top of the list, of course, but they were more of a distraction than anything. I guess when you already have 100 copies of Darkhawk #5 sitting in your warehouse, adding another one actually starts to cost you money. I sent the Golden List to our very own Flying Donut who said he’d look it over. Again, I knew I would see him at Wizard World so there was no pressure. I called Joseph Koch and had a mind blowing conversation with him. Joseph managed to perfectly encapsulate into a quick 20 minutes all of the random tidbits and pieces of advice and general knowledge I had picked up over the previous months, and I could just tell that he did it because he enjoys imparting wisdom. It was pretty clear within the first few minutes that he wasn’t going to be interested in purchasing my collection, yet he still sat on the phone with me and transferred every last bit knowledge he had, solely because he’s a nice guy. I hope someone is playing the role of mentee to his mentor because everyone needs to know what that dude does.

 

And then Wizard World arrived. My base of operations for the past few years has been the Moondog booth, so naturally I checked in there first. Brad and Gary both had further advice for trying to peddle the collection at the show, so with this newly acquired info (and confidence!) I sought out to make a sale. I ran into Flying Donut first. We made a bit of small talk before I asked him if he had had a chance to look over the Golden List. He said that he had, and that he was seriously considering making the purchase. We then chatted some more before I made my leave. Since there was no firm commitment from Dan, I figured I’d peddle elsewhere. Next stop was Mike Carbonaro. Now, I’ve bought stuff from Mike in the past so I knew who I was dealing with, but still … that dude’s a force of nature. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticizing the guy here. He was totally honest and upfront with me about my collection and while he, too, came close to pulling the trigger, we just couldn’t get a deal done. It’s just … it was still Carbonaro. Nuff said, right?

 

Jamie Graham would turn out to be the final dealer I approached that convention. The less said about that encounter the better. All I know is that following this 3 minute conversation with him I was 99.9% certain that I was yanking the aforementioned traction-gaining ( ) $30/month pull list from his Downers Grove store. I ultimately chose not to, though, instead choosing to focus on the fantastic employees of said store rather than the shortcomings of their boss. But, still, Jamie … you need to treat the little guy better. Seriously.

 

By Saturday I was back harassing Dan about pulling the trigger when he said that he’d need to revisit the topic once he had blown through the current consignment collection he was selling. Wait a second … consignment? Nobody said that was an option! Dan looked at me and blinked a couple of time before saying, “You know, that might work.” We then sat down and started pouring over the Golden List trying to determine if we could make the numbers work. We ultimately figured that through a combination of Dan’s selling a select portion of the collection and my donating the rest to a qualified charity, I would not only be able to make the number I was looking for through direct sales and tax deductions, but that Dan would make a few bucks in the process, also. We parted ways with an understanding to touch base again at some point over the following months and see if we couldn’t work out a formal agreement.

 

Again, the title of this thread should tell everyone how the Flying Donut deal worked out. I’m still not sure what happened there. Perhaps neither one of us was all that enthusiastic about taking on as large a task as breaking up a 25,000 piece collection and working through selling part of it and donating another part of it and burning whatever was left (Darkhawk #5, anyone?) to save on winter fuel costs. Or maybe Dan just got a better collection in the interim. I dunno. I do know, however, that I was also corresponding with Buddy during the weeks following Wizard World wherein he said that I could accomplish a similar goal as the Donut Strategy by piece-mealing the collection out to him via Lone Star’s individual back issue buying program. It would take a number of months to accomplish, and I’d still need to perform the extra sorting required to pull the drek from the not-so-drek, but it was another option. Plus it was an option that would guarantee me a certain return, unlike Dan’s plan which involved relying on the kindness of cheapskates on eBay (and these boards!). Whatever the reason, while Dan and I came the closest to a deal that summer, in the end we just couldn’t pull it off. Sometimes life happens like that.

 

And sometimes life has a way of throwing you exactly what you need from the most unexpected of places. Which is where Nick enters the picture. (Yes, only 4000 words later. I warned you all about the navel gazing upfront!)

 

I sent Nick a PM through these very boards on September 23, 2009. The subject, however, was NOT about my comic collection, rather, it was a simple touching base / “can you believe what’s happening in the hobby now?” message. Nick responded with his usual gusto, and a conversation started. Buried somewhere in one of those follow-up messages was a parenthetical (yes, I do loves me my parentheticals) mention of The Albatross … and in his next response he replied with 2 sentences that basically said “Send me what you have” and “I may be interested.” Two days later he was pouring over the Golden List, and within a week I was shooting him representative scans of certain books.

 

By early October the PM chain turned entirely to talk of us making an actual deal. The one catch, though, was that because at this point Comicana Direct was still in the fetal stages any sale would have to occur in 2 parts, one at the beginning of 2010 and the other at the end. No, it wasn’t an ideal situation, but I inferred from the tone of Nick’s messages that his interest was highly genuine. And, again, I was in no hurry to liquidate and was still not looking forward to piece-mealing out thousands of books week after week to Lone Star or Flying Donut. So I chilled out, told Nick to take his time getting back to me, and settled in for the winter.

 

Then in December my wife filed for divorce …

That sucks dude.Im really sorry...

[thehumantorch]

After all the BS that has gone on this week, this tale is a welcome respite.

 

Hanging on every word.

 

+1

 

He knows how to tell a story and leaves us on a cliffhanger. It feels like Lost all over again!!

 

What is the *spooning* black smoke!!!!!!!

 

Interesting thread and well written.

[FlyingDonut]

As the Donut Strategy didn't work out (mostly because of a combination of my "real" job getting insane and general apathy at my end - not Alan's) I'm really glad there was an apparently good resolution to everything.

 

I know how many books we're talking about. I'm assuming Alan and Nick have bought a ship, as that would be cheaper than shipping these books to England.

[HouseofComics.Com]

Great story so far!

[thirdgreenham]

Great story so far!

 

Yup, and it just took a wicked turn.

[thehumantorch]

Great story so far!

 

Yup, and it just took a wicked turn.

 

Indeed. Sorry to hear about the break up. Seems all too common these

days but an awful thing to go through.

[Moondog]

I'm still on after being compared to Michael Jordan!

 

Air Moondog!

 

[TheWatcher]

I'm still on after being compared to Michael Jordan!

 

Air Moondog!

 

I had heard you have a mean fade away jumper

[Green]

I'm still on after being compared to Michael Jordan!

 

Air Moondog!

I would wear your shoes.

[chrisco37]

I'm still on after being compared to Michael Jordan!

 

Air Moondog!

 

I had heard you have a mean fade away jumper

 

And with the third pick.

I made the earth sick.

M...Jay...Hem...Jay...

fade away, perfect.

 

 

(Best Jay Z rhyme ever).

[Green]

I'm still on after being compared to Michael Jordan!

 

Air Moondog!

 

I had heard you have a mean fade away jumper

 

And with the third pick.

I made the earth sick.

M...Jay...HemHim...Jay...

fade away, perfect.

 

 

(Best Jay Z rhyme ever).

How can you pick just one?

[chrisco37]

I'm still on after being compared to Michael Jordan!

 

Air Moondog!

 

I had heard you have a mean fade away jumper

 

And with the third pick.

I made the earth sick.

M...Jay...HemHim...Jay...

fade away, perfect.

 

 

(Best Jay Z rhyme ever).

How can you pick just one?

 

Cuz I know that one is my favorite.

[PedigreeMan]

 

Here’s the funny thing that I never realized about divorce: Huge aspects of your life go entirely on hold for the duration. Every dollar spent and every asset bought (or liquidated), every remark said or person talked to, every bowel movement made -- it’s all under the microscope, and one slip-up can derail months of settlement progress. Your life truly enters into a state of Limbo that you have little chance of controlling. Consequently, the comic sale went into hibernation.

 

Outside of being one of the factors why it took over a year and a half to actually close this deal, the details of my divorce are irrelevant to this story. I will, however, share this one funny anecdote about it. The value of the to-be-liquidated collection was a spot of contention with my ex-wife’s attorney, who kept saying it was worth at least what I had shelled out for it over the years. The dude just didn’t understand that buying a new comic book off the racks is akin to buying a new car off the lot -- you pay $3 for it and the instant you take it home it’s worth 10 cents. Yes, a handful of them may go on to become worth something over time, but for the most part so much of what I owned fell into this category. Now remember, these books meant nothing to me at this point (the pedigrees were off on their own balance sheet, so they didn’t apply here) and I walked into the first settlement meeting with that attitude a-blazing. When the attorney whipped out his contention that the books were worth 60 bazillion dollars, I just kicked back, grinned at him, and said, “Okay, they’re worth that much … and the wife can have them for that amount. I’ll take that in home equity, please. But I tell you what, since I’m a nice guy, I’ll even pay to have them delivered! Just tell me where she wants them.” After he sat in silence for about ten seconds, my grin got even wider and I said, “Okay, you know what? I’ll give the books to her for HALF of the 60 bazillion dollars … just because I’m feeling generous today. Same deal with me paying for delivery.” Needless to say, he came into line pretty quickly following my all-in raise, and the rest of the negotiations went fine following that.

 

(After the fact, when my ex and I were able to sit down and perform a humorous postmortem of the whole ordeal, she just rolled her eyes at her lawyer’s intractable attitude. I mean, she had seen all of the offers I received over the summer of 2009, so she knew I wasn’t hiding anything. I just wish we had been on speaking terms during the actual divorce negotiations and been able to hash that out beforehand. But I digress...)

 

And then finally after 14 months it was all over. The divorce had left me changed, a bit for the worse but a whole lot for the better. For the first time in my life I actually felt like a full-blown adult … yet I still had these remnants of my childish past to get rid of. During all of this time I had still been sporadically communicating with Nick so I knew that he was still interested, and also that he and his partners had shaken out a lot of the website problems that had been plaguing them over the past year and which had also contributed in no small part to putting the sale on hold. So I dropped him another line. And it’s funny, I’m looking back at the PM chain now and that message was sent the day after my divorce finalized. I didn’t remember that -- I must have been truly and utterly ready to have these things gone.

 

Exactly two weeks later I got a phone call from Nick’s business partner, John. We chatted for less than 20 minutes about the collection -- how long I had been collecting for, what percentage had been bought new versus second-hand, general grades, why I was getting out, etc. -- and then came the time to talk price. “And so you’re looking to get what for all of this …?” he asked, and I told him the number, bracing for the reaction. It’s not that the number was unfair -- I had a complete understanding of the value of my collection, and while my price had never been met outright by anyone, I still knew it was a decent wholesale number. I just had to find the right buyer … and it turned out to be Comicana Direct.

 

John didn’t even try to haggle. All he said after I told him what I was hoping to get was, “How do I send you the money?” It was really that easy, and I about fell out of my chair in shock. Almost 2 years of trying to liquidate this sucker and the only response to my price was, “How do I send you the money?” Awesome. Totally awesome.

 

Which brings us to today. John was supposed to make it out to the Chicago area last month, but ended up sidetracked because of website issues. He needs to perform some sort of special wizardy on the 57 long and 50 short boxes that comprise The Albatross, then we can throw them them all on 3 pallets and ship them off across the Atlantic. Plus I’m sure he’s making the trip out just to see the thing in its native glory -- a few board members have done so over the years, and they will tell you it’s a wondrous sight!

 

He arrives at my house tomorrow at 9am …

 

TO BE CONTINUED!