Best option for selling Original Comic Art?

[BattlegroundGames]

Hey folks!

 

I own a comic/gaming shop in Georgia and have came into about 200-300 pages of original comic art. Looking to know what the best avenue would be to sell these pieces. They range mostly of booka ftom the 90s from Marvel, DC and primarly Image/Chaos.

 

Thanks!

[JadeGiant]

PM me directly and I will set you straight

 

(you will get a flood of PMs of this nature)

 

I would imagine a bunch could sell here. Mid range stuff via eBay and any nicer pieces could go to comic link of Heritage

 

I better sense of what you have would be useful for this conversation.

 

Good luck!

[Doc Joe]

Post some group shots

[mister_not_so_nice]

I'll take that 90s VERTIGO drek

[eewwnuk]

Any batman in there?

[AKA Rick]

Hey folks!

 

I own a comic/gaming shop in Georgia and have came into about 200-300 pages of original comic art. Looking to know what the best avenue would be to sell these pieces. They range mostly of booka ftom the 90s from Marvel, DC and primarly Image/Chaos.

 

Thanks!

 

If you own a comic shop, then it is reasonable to say you are a businessman and professional in wanting to monetize your inventory.

 

With that, the first thing I would recommend is not to accept any offers from people on these CGC boards (or anyone else for that matter from anywhere else), not to disparage them nor insult their integrity, but when dealing with a buyer, generally it is an opposing relationship with a seller from the initial point of contact. Truth be told, a buyer wants to pay the least amount possible. The seller wants to charge the most amount possible. Their motivations are opposing, and the middle ground is the land of compromise and reasonability.

 

I do find, especially with comic related collectors, some competition and passion, as well as throwing the rule books of ethics out the window when it comes to buying and selling.

 

You have some sellers who thinks it's cool to throw out price lines that are gauging hoping it is the birthday of their lollipop... As a sucker is born every day. So, both buyers and sellers have their own unreasonable tactics.

 

Then, you have buyers who see inexperienced rookies not only accept beyond cheap prices, but try to do lowball negotiation offers to buy everything from that seller. You see that at swap meets and garage sales as their hands tremble with excitement and they can barely contain the drool from their mouths from getting onto the merchandise.

 

With that, you need to do your own homework. Research before you sell anything.

 

Figure out what you have exactly. Sort it all out. Generally, our OA hobby is dictated by "artist" so, identifying artists is going to be more key than characters.

 

Some published pages have the title and issue number on the top. From there, just Google search that comic book for the credits of who penciled and who inked it.

 

When you get your final list done, and there may be some pieces for the life of you, you can not identify. Go to ComicLink, contact Doug, he's a high level helpful executive there. He can evaluate your pieces for potential consignment. With Doug and ComicLink, there is no hidden agenda or alterior motives. They only make money when you make money. They are compensated by a commission %. So, in truth, they do their best to earn you the highest sales figures for your pieces, as that then garners them a better piece of the action.

 

The consignment fees are worth it. If you are uninformed, the help they provide is invaluable and it is very penny wise, pound foolish to try to sell on your own without that guidance. The experts at ComicLink can also identify what you may not be able to just by looking at the piece. They can sift through the trash and find the treasure, or vice versa.

 

Also, they have an auction model where the highest bidder wins. Unlike taking offers or putting price tags that may accidentally prompt cheap sales not realizing their full price potential, the auction model generally allows the cream to rise to the top and everyone who is interested in the piece has a fair opportunity to step up, bid and purchase it.

 

Alternately to the auction houses, you can consign with reputable art dealers, who you should consign with, not sell to. This maintains that "skin In the game" relationship where they are motivated to sell the pieces for the highest amount. The dealers often have that proverbial Rolodex of clients / customers and a deep knowledge of values/pricing to result in a sale.

 

The worst feeling you will have is if you sell a Todd McFarlane Spider-Man page to someone for the $300 price penciled on the corner, only to later find out it is being auctioned off by that buyer who nickel and dimes you for over $30,000. It can and will happen, maybe not at such huge extremes, but when left to their own devices, collectors will be very self serving in that way when they smell the blood of an inexperienced seller.

 

On the same hand, don't be greedy and overvalue your art either. Unless you have the mindset of not minding keeping pieces as a collector or future appreciation in value as an investment. As you know, as a store owner, the more value in inventory you have as unsold assets and less actual revenue you have incoming, the greater likelihood a retailer has of having to close their doors and shut down shop.

 

That's my advice.

 

BTW - if you have any McFarlane Spider-Man covers, I am paying double the marked price or $1,000 whichever is lower! J/K

 

Good Luck!

[Bronty]

Paying 1100

[Twanj]

good advice!

 

I would say first start off with cataloging what you have, both pictures (smartphone shots will do) & a list including artists, title, #, etc.

 

someone is also going to post their standard answer to "what's my art worth?" which will help you get comps.

 

people here can also help identify art, or at least they have in the past for others.

[Bronty]

Just send it to the auction house (all of it) and be done with it

[Doc Joe]

doesn't ANY buyer want to pay the least amount possible?

 

When I am bidding on Clink do I want to pay more?

 

No, just the seller will reach a bigger audience but lose 10% and get their money a while from now; I don't think selling or getting offers on the boards is a bad thing...

 

 

just sayin'

[JadeGiant]

You really need to assess what you have. Some of it is not likely candidates for auction houses and some might be. I don't subscribe to the notion of not considering sales here - that is waiting with a broad brush as I am sure that you will find people willing to pay a price in the neighborhood of FMV (or a slight +/- thereof).

 

Again, good luck!

[alxjhnsn]

Here's my best advice on pricing what you have. Spend the time to learn the market, you'll be glad you did. Spoiler tag used because I post this so often regulars want to skip it.

 

 

 

You might want to explore the following resources:

• The OA auction archive at Heritage Auctions - This archive presents the results from all of their OA auctions.. Once you sign-up and get an id, you can search for pieces by your artist and see what they have sold for.
  
• The CAF Market Data - More auction results (more than 1,000,000) are available if you join the Comic Art Fans site, pay for Market Data access, and access eBay and other auction sites as well as Heritage.
  
• The Comic Art Database. It contains transaction records entered by the owners of Comic OA.
• Dealer sites. Dealers, generally, post their art with fixed prices though there are exceptions. There is a list of dealers on CGC OA board and the Dragonberry site has a list as well. The CAF site will search the inventories of several dealers for you.
  
• Blouin Art Info which tracks sales at major art auctions. It can turn up some Comic OA as well. Look for the “Art Prices” item on the top right of the screen
  
• Jerry Weist's Comic Art Price Guide - Heritage published a third edition of it. In my opinion, it's a good history book and might be useful for comparison work, but it was out of date a year before it was printed.
  
• A topic on these CGC OA boards, A-level panel page valuations by artist/run - thoughts/additions/changes?, holds a discussion that relates to your question. It provides some "generally agreed upon" ranges for popular runs by popular artists on popular characters.
• The Biggest OA Prices thread tracked some of the largest sales in the OA space. While that particular thread has stopped; it's probably worth reading for the discussions. Meanwhile , the information is still being updated - just with a different mechanism.
  • The price information moved to The OA Elite blog. Click on the categories on the top of the page to see the updated list.
  • The discussion moved to Biggest OA Prices: The Blog

New buyers and sellers often find that OA is too hard to price. I agree. However, I think that there is a valid reason. Each piece is unique. Uniqueness make art sales generally and OA specifically non-linear.

 

For example,

• Consecutive pages could and do sell for radically different amounts.
  
• Take page layout - In general, you might say:
  Covers > 1st Page Splash > Other Splash > 1/2 splash > panel pages
  However, that's not always true either. The right panel page can be much more compelling than a bland splash.
  
• Take pencillers- There are "A-list" artists, but not all of their books/characters have the same value. Kirby FF pages generally go for more than JIM/Thor pages which go for more than Cap pages (2nd run) which go for more than ...
  
• Take combinations of pencilers/inkers - Kirby/Sinnott FF pages rank above Kirby and anyone else on FF, but a Kirby/X FF page might be more or less than a Kirby/Stone Thor page. Hard to tell.

 

Finally, you should join the comic book OA community. The three main points of Internet contact are:

• Yahoo's comicart-l mailing list
  
• The Comic Art Fans website
  
• The CGC OA Board

 

The main points of physical contact are probably:

• San Diego Comic Con
  
• New York City Comic Con
  
• Comic Art Con
  
• Heroes Comic Con

 

One last comment, if you are looking to buy or sell, spend the time to learn the market. That might take 6 months, but it's worth the time.

 

 

[AKA Rick]

I don't subscribe to the notion of not considering sales here...

 

I agree, but with patience on both sides, just be cautious of who you sell to and how you sell your art. There has been stigmas of red flags regarding certain geographies internationally, but I've quite frankly never encountered any troubles nor fraud, so can't throw the baby out with the bathwater making any assumptions. And the key word is "considering" so weighing your options, looking for multiple offers, etc. - - but all without not playing buyers and pitting them against each other unprofessionally. Be respectful and only make deals you feel comfortable with and whom you feel similarly engaging with.

[Deucedriver]

AKA Rick that is probably the best, most concise summation of comic book art/comic books selling considerations I've read. It should be required reading for any novice.

[Bronty]

doesn't ANY buyer want to pay the least amount possible?

 

When I am bidding on Clink do I want to pay more?

 

No, just the seller will reach a bigger audience but lose 10% and get their money a while from now; I don't think selling or getting offers on the boards is a bad thing...

 

 

just sayin'

 

I am simply suggesting that in light of the sellers lack of experience.

[Dokstarr]

You see that at swap meets and garage sales as their hands tremble with excitement and they can barely contain the drool from their mouths from getting onto the merchandise.

 

I gotta find me some of these high quality yardsales. In terms of comics I generally see 90's foil covers that have never been bagged or boarded with asking prices of $5/book.

 

Your advice is very good for anyone who somehow inherits an art collection, but I imagine the OP is familiar with the buy low/sell high motto since he runs a store and now that the shoe is on the other foot so to speak - he wouldn't fall to people telling him that something is only worth a very small fraction of going value.

 

I'm interested in what kind of person would suddenly sell off a collection like that suddenly to a store. Hard up for cash, inherited it somehow, baby on the way, etc. In terms of 80's/90's video games - I've seen plenty of parents, wives, and soon to be fathers (with the wife standing behind him), girlfriends bring in a collection and sell it for pennies on the dollar or dump it a yard sale.

[AKA Rick]

AKA Rick that is probably the best, most concise summation of comic book art/comic books selling considerations I've read. It should be required reading for any novice.

 

Thank you so much for the kind words.

 

I just want to be unbiased with no hidden agenda in terms of telling people what they should or shouldn't do that could be self-serving.

 

Sure, I'd love to pay the $400 marked on an Uncanny X-Men #129 page by John Byrne. Yes, if I saw it at a yard sale, and it was marked at or below $400 or any level dramatically below the market value, I'd pick it up. I'm not so altruistic that I'd pass up on an opportunity that's presented to me that's equally presented to all (i.e., if I didn't or don't buy it someone else would or will).

 

However, if given a situation where let's say I was talking to the person selling it and it was let's say the widow of a collector who knew nothing about his collection, and was selling it to pay for the mortgage and kid's college funds, I'd absolutely stop, help her out and point her in the right direction. That's just good karma. Treat people the way you'd like to be treated.

 

To that point, I always recommend to collectors whether married or not, to educate their heirs (be it family or friends) on what their collection is worth and how to liquidate it. The best way is to keep a file of the cost basis (so they know rough valuation) on a thumb drive along with instructions on how to sell as well as how to look up current values). I am biased towards auction houses like ComicLink when it comes to being able to liquidate a collection easily so if a person has 10,000 individual pieces their heirs don't have to make 10,000 individual sales to pull the money off of the table and find the buyers, collect the money and ship the items. Of course, they won't be able to address getting rid of my dozen long boxes of $1 books, but at least they'll handle the big stuff and give guidance towards the near worthless pieces if/when that time comes to sell.

 

So, all I'm saying is do your own research, don't be hasty to sell. If a buyer pressures you to sell it to them now or never and their offer isn't going to extend beyond the initial "yes/no" just say "no" it's so much easier to pass than fail when placed in those situations. Same goes for if you're a buyer and a seller tries to close the sale aggressively.

 

To the point of what this hobby is about, they're luxury items, not essentials for living, so I'd not beat myself up too much over the decisions only to make the wrong one.

 

With that, explore the world wide web to find out more about what you have and options for selling. Sometimes it's easier to sell on your own. Many love Craigslist, others hold it to disdain. Some sell through garage sales or swap meets, others through conventions. Some don't have the patience to find their buyers and need the cash quicker, so don't mind selling outright to dealers or stores at a less than market price. For auctions, some like ComicLink, others Heritage, few enjoy Comic Connect or Profiles in History, and many DIY with eBay. Consignments are fine, but know it doesn't guarantee you a sale unless you talk to the rep on what your price range is and sales motivation. As you can see, there's so many ways to buy/sell, so before you release your goods, do your homework.

 

Especially with one-of-a-kind original art. The 1990's Marvel, DC, and Image could contain artwork worth tens of thousands $$,$$$ by Michael Turner, J. Scott Campbell, Marc Silvestri, Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld (imagine, a 1st apperance of Deadpool page from New Mutants!), Jim Lee or a lot of other treasures. Sure, there may be a lot of sub-$50 low demand stuff as well too.

 

 

 

[JadeGiant]

I agree with the logic of doing your homework, absolutely. I also wouldn't want to see the seller taken on a deal based on lack of/misinformation. The seller is a shop owner so I would guess that this thread is the first step in exactly that, doing homework, getting opinions, etc. You have to have a certain amount of savvy to run a business, especially in a collectibles shop. I think we are all on the same page. I would love to see the art and see the input get more specific as it has been very general to this point.