Tales from the Comic Box - Rookie Adventures in Buying/Selling/Cons 5 5

[thehumantorch]

[spreads]

2 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

You’d mentioned that you weren’t finding collections.  If possible visit nearby LCS regularity.   You never know when they will acquire a collection that they don’t really want and they only bought it because it was dirt cheap.  A couple of our best buys have been from LCS that prefer to sell new books and that stack of mouldy GA was just a hastle to them. 

To my partners horror I just bought 500 + Dells, Archie’s and miscellaneous books.  All published between 1952 and 1966.  They were owned by a piano teacher and his students read them while waiting for their lessons.  He gave them to someone else and they were then stored for 30 years.  They all have spine wear but we’re generally read carefully and they have great gloss and little damage other than on the spines.

i e been pressing these books and they’re responding nicely and many look fabulous in mylars

To my partners horror I just bought 500 + Dells, Archie’s and miscellaneous books. 

These books do look fantastic, something about old books with great colors really stand-out!  May I ask how you go about pressing (a PM is fine if you don't want to respond here).

[Wall-Crawler]

8 hours ago, thehumantorch said:

You’d mentioned that you weren’t finding collections.  If possible visit nearby LCS regularity.   You never know when they will acquire a collection that they don’t really want and they only bought it because it was dirt cheap.  A couple of our best buys have been from LCS that prefer to sell new books and that stack of mouldy GA was just a hastle to them. 

I touched on this in the past...I am a regular at my LCS. Have been since a teenager. Very good terms with store owner (who is same owner). My town only has the one store. Next closest is an hour and a half away and then about two hours.

The owner of my local LCS (for reasons that still perplex me) can't be bothered to buy collections and obviously knows I buy and sell. However, whatever comes in he 99% of the time passes along to a former employee - Well, he is on paternity leave - I am not 100% on the full story is but basically, the leads go to him.  I am also on very good terms with the other guy and chat regularly, but yeah, he gets the inside track on ALL the LCS call and walk ins.  Hard to compete with that.

...He got one notable score this year...Several years ago a collector donated his collection to a local high school library when he passed.  Library held onto them but didn't know what to do with them. I had heard of this collection too. Anyway, they decided to sell and put the $ back into the library. They called the LCS. The other guy got the referral and apparently they took his first offer. Sigh.

My LCS does advertise when I am setting up at local shows in-store and on their FB Page (other guy doesn't do shows) so that is something.  I basically get my leads from shows, general word of mouth, my FB page and the odd and rare Kijiji ad hit.

I would totally love an inside track though....

[spreads]

I've had a very busy week....dealing with multiple potential buys....borderline stressful....I'll post details later tonight.  I feel bad stomping on WC's thread, I just didn't want to start my own and I like hearing everyone else's stories.

[spreads]

Continuing on the momentum from Sunday's show I contacted a guy with a collection for sale; he had a list primarily of TPBs/hardcovers and a bunch of the walking dead comics!  I met the guy after a bunch of back and forth (nice man, older gentleman) and it turns out he was using an online database just to get an idea of what walking dead issues weren't included in the trades/hardcovers that he had.  I was very disappointed, but still interested in the lot since these books are the stuff that does well for me.  I didn't think he would come down a lot on his price, saying if he would do bulk he wouldn't do $2 each if he were to blow them out.  After looking through about half the boxes knowing most of the stuff is in really good shape and it's a wide variety of popular titles (Marvel, DC, Image, Vertigo, Valiant and some other stuff like IDW and small kids books) and a good mix I manage to snag the lot for what works out to about $1.50 each (around 350 or so in total).  There's a batch of floppies too, probably not worth much that I might throw into a random box with some other misc. comics I have lying around.  I'm pretty happy with the lot - and the best part - most of them are all in short boxes!  How great is that?  Just have to do a quick bag/price and they're ready for the show and then I have the short boxes to either use for the show or migrate into my collection when they empty...

 

[spreads]

During this time I was scheduled to meet this guy, there was a posting of a really nice batch of Batman books.  There were about 30 comics all in the low-mid 200s, lots of big books too - 232, 227, first reaper, etc.  One of my long-term collecting goals is a focus on Batman/Tec and I really wanted all of these books for my collection.  After some back-and-forth (mostly not getting responses) the ad was pulled and I have no idea whether it was sold or not - I didn't even get a chance to view them!     These books looked really nice...

The saving grace is I managed to pickup this gem!  A rare book and a super cool cover, don't know if I'll flip it or hold it but I'm pretty happy with it either way. 

[Scott =)]

This is the original view of this journal on the Chat Boards. This view is locked, so members can no longer reply here.

This journal is also posted in the new Journals section, which is unlocked. Click the link below to see any other comments about this journal and post new replies.

https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/blogs/entry/4649-tales-from-the-comic-box-rookie-adventures-in-buyingselling-amp-setting-up-at-shows/

[Scott =)]

You can also click "My Journal" in the main menu to quickly find your own journal, journal entries, and replies.

 

And you can search all journals by using the search tool.

[Scott =)]

You can find journal entries by a specific author by using the search tool and visiting their profile, and you can follow members to get notifications when they post new content.