Best way to inventory / valuate lots of books?

[707comics]

All,

 

I just purchased a large lot (to me) of modern age books and was looking for advice as to how best inventory and valuate the collection. There are ~4000 books.

 

Should I use an Excel spreadsheet and then use eBay (sold) to guesstimate values?? It will be a long process but if I can't think of anything better it will have to-do

 

Thanks in advance, I appreciate any feedback.

 

[shadroch]

I'd just divide the number of books by ten and value them at $400.

[KPR Comics]

+1

[707comics]

Thanks for the feedback on the valuation side of things.

 

Just curious, what tools are you guys using to inventory lots of "raw" books? Anything quicker than manually entering information into spreadsheets??

 

 

 

 

[GM8]

Comicbookrealm is a good resource to find out which books in a title have higher value. As with any price guide its not a bible but it will show the outliers.

 

The site can also be used to inventory your books.

[the blob]

frankly, i'd see which books seem to sell for $-$5+ on ebay and just worry about inventorying those if you want to inventory anything. while $4-$5 isn't much, it does seem to show people are willing to pay a little "extra" for something as a collectible and potential future upward mobility.

 

otherwise at the outer limits most everything else is worth $2 or less for reading material or to fill a run, it doesn't really have "collectible" value per se, not yet. of course, some things become collectible over time...detective 850, for example.

 

plugging all 4,000 into excel seems like a lot of work, but then again, looking up completed auctions for all 4,000 seems like a lot of work too.

 

of course, if mycs has NM copies for $1-$3 that's a pretty good sign that the book hasn't popped. that might be quicker than looking at old ebay sales, which pulls up a lot of irrelevant stuff, can be distorted downward by high shipping charges/bad sellers/bad descriptions, upward by fluke sales

 

If mycs has something for $10 or whatever, you then check ebay sales to see if there is any basis in reality for that pricing (because I wouldn't assume their higher asking prices are realistic always either)

[anstettoman]

comic price guide . com will allow you to enter info and give you a rough idea of value. comic resources has comic base which is also a pretty nice tool with guide value as well.

[707comics]

Thanks for all the feedback everyone, much appreciated!

[thehumantorch]

Thanks for the feedback on the valuation side of things.

 

Just curious, what tools are you guys using to inventory lots of "raw" books? Anything quicker than manually entering information into spreadsheets??

 

 

 

 

One method that'll help you find CA or MA books with value:

 

go to ebay

punch in a title you have a lot of - Amazing Spider-man for example

click sold items, Copper Age or Modern Age, price range - say $20 to $100, uncertified

sort highest to lowest

 

and you'll get results like this, giving you an idea of what is hot in a run

 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Modern-Age-1992-Now/900/i.html?_udlo=20&_sop=3&_udhi=100&_mPrRngCbx=1&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1&_from=R40&_nkw=Amazing%20spider-man&_dcat=900&Grade=Ungraded&rt=nc&_trksid=p2045573.m1684