Collections drying up? 4 4

[FineCollector]

Does no one want to put in the work because they're cheap, or are they cheap because no one wants to put in the work?   I'm still a few issues away from finishing off these runs, so keep throwing 'em to the curb, suits me fine.

I'm sure there are some regional differences in what's available... what may be plentiful in New York, Boston, and Chicago are probably not as readily available in spots like Montreal or Ottawa.  At $2 apiece, local dealers would be buying out of those boxes, and you'd have a feeding frenzy from the convention crowd.  The only dealers here with that kind of stock are asking top dollar, and obviously, sales are slow because people see what it sells for on eBay and the like.

[1Cool]

8 minutes ago, Fan Boy said:

Believe it or not ... I have seen that few times in con shows like that. In fact, I was one of the buyers in buying some $2 low/mid SA books. One vender had 8 long boxes in the $2.00 category ... all 50+ years old books raw! No big keys but did have few little keys. I got a few worth $10-15 ea.

I did that because I was bored on the train trip and I want to read good old school comics anyway. 

I hear people all the time saying comics are more expensive and the pricing people out of the market.  Those people have not gone to a show and hit up the $1 bins since I find beater Silver-Age books in the $1 bins all the time.  They tend to be DCs or off brands like later TAA or TOS but they are there.  When you can walk away from a Con with a stack of 50 year old comic goodness for $30 I just can't see how people can say the market is inflated.  Keys are inflated but everything else is very cheap.

[piper]

2 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

I hear people all the time saying comics are more expensive and the pricing people out of the market.  Those people have not gone to a show and hit up the $1 bins since I find beater Silver-Age books in the $1 bins all the time.  They tend to be DCs or off brands like later TAA or TOS but they are there.  When you can walk away from a Con with a stack of 50 year old comic goodness for $30 I just can't see how people can say the market is inflated.  Keys are inflated but everything else is very cheap.

I guess that I'm just not interested in those kinds of books. I like the sweet spot of the SA between 1962 - 1964.

[1Cool]

Just now, piper said:

I guess that I'm just not interested in those kinds of books. I like the sweet spot of the SA between 1962 - 1964.

Are those the last of the 10 centers and 12 cent books?  You don't see those in the cheap boxes very often due to relative scarcity but I've seen DC beaters in the $5 boxes all the time.  The problem with even those books is the problem with quickly finding a buyer.  You could buy a collection at a quarter of asking price but it may take a year to find someone wanting to buy a particular issue.  $1 a book sounds good until you are stuck with 5 long boxes of books that just are not selling even for $3.

[Aweandlorder]

It all depends on the venue. At the cons you're gonna have the same buyer as on eBay more or less BUT you'd probably (as a seller) be more negotiable IF you've had a bad turnout towards the end of a show. 

I find it more and more interesting on Craigslist lately. I get many people that contact me and some of them are buyers I've never sold to before demographically. I've had an orthodox Jewish fella that bought a collection from me, a lady that opened a thrift shop, a Korean guy that exported them to his country. I've never had buyers like these before this year. These guys aren't looking for keys, they're looking for volume at the right price. 

Im pretty sure that because of my location in an overpopulated urban city I get this kind of clientele. It will be interesting hearing how everyone else is doing in other parts of the country

[1Cool]

In the Cleveland area I'd describe it as over-saturated with flippers but a lot of hard core collectors which makes for a tough mix in terms of finding collections.  At every Con there are the same 15-20 guys (me included) who pretty much give each other the nod as we scope out the new meat and quickly leave.  There has to be 20 guys who post up WTB posts on Craigslist and Facebook each and every day hoping to find any new blood in the market.  But we also have 5,000 people show up to a Rick and Morty event and basically start a riot when give-aways and mech runs out after people waited 3 hours in line.  People are pretty tight with money so prying a collection from most peoples hands is tough but of course there are deals to be made.  I tend to sell a lot more to California and New York buyers then I do people in my back yard but I think that just has to do with the higher cost of living and more available cash. 

[Artboy99]

Original owner collection.

Dave ( thehumantorch ) and I have been buying books from an original owner collection that is local to us for a few months now.  The owner is a retired guy and has been buying comics since the 1960's and still buys comics to this day. He went backwards in time for purchases as they came available; remember this is for the most part pre-internet buying so he bought what became available to him. His collection is rather large, 100 longs and it takes a very long time to search through it!

When we first heard of this collection the price was $200,000 for all 100,000 books. We didn't give it much thought at that time as it was an all or nothing sale. Turns out, over time the owner realized he was not going to get that price so he started to sell the books he had individually. While I wish I could say we were the first people to see the books once he let the collection be cherry picked, alas we were the 10th??? so needless to say all the great stuff was long picked. As an example: I heard a different seller got a NM copy of Iron Man #55 from this original owner collection and paid the ridiculously low price of "60% of VG in the price guide" which is how this owner was selling his books. When he graded the book if it looked good to him he called it VG for pricing it from his several years old price guide, if the book looked beat he graded it a good and you paid 60% of good in the guide. So, there was a virtual ton of great stuff to pick for great prices at first.

As I said, we were the 10th??? buyers to arrive and I picked out a long box of books. Some of the books from that first buy are these:

 

 

Then fast forward a couple of months, and the owner has reduced his pricing, so we returned to have another round of picking.  There have been others that have picked since the last time I was there but there is still 90 longs to go through.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Edited June 9, 2017 by Artboy99

[Artboy99]

Original owner collection part 2:

Our return visit the owner had a change of heart, he seemed a little put off that so many buyers have come through and cherry picked him. I was hoping to buy more but our second visit is was $20,000 for everything left. While the collection still has some great books left the bulk you want to obtain at a lower price point so you can sell them as dollar books. Our second visit we did a search again to determine if we could pay his asking and we determined no so we left empty handed.

Original owner collection part 3:

Our 3rd visit, the owner had reduced his prices. This time we were the first buyers to get in at his new price point. Now the owner is far more motivated to sell.

We went through the 90 longs again picking books again, we came out of there with around 1200 books. Here is some group shots of some of the books:

The pictures were taken last night so this is a very recent purchase for us. Hoping to get them ready for a comic show this weekend. The bags are smelly, yucky, but once you managed to peel the book out from the nastiness you see that they are rather nicely preserved retaining gloss. Some of the bags are so bad I literally was using a utility knife to cut away the top so I could get to the book. Many of the bags are stuck together so you have to peel them apart to get at individual books. Basically they have been sitting bagged in boxes for 40 years undisturbed until now ( actually LOTS of books are not bagged. )

Most the books left are VG-Fine condition. Some are Goods even. In the end Dave and I should do pretty well with these because of the price we paid.

Will we return for Part 4? Depends on the price, as there is very little good stuff left. I am thinking there is likely to be a Part 4 as the owner finds all of those previous buyers are unlikely to return or buy anything that is left as it is all sell as dollar books. I am hoping we get the rest and if so, I will update you all.

 

Edited June 9, 2017 by Artboy99

[Hamlet]

2 hours ago, 1Cool said:

I hear people all the time saying comics are more expensive and the pricing people out of the market.  Those people have not gone to a show and hit up the $1 bins since I find beater Silver-Age books in the $1 bins all the time.  They tend to be DCs or off brands like later TAA or TOS but they are there.  When you can walk away from a Con with a stack of 50 year old comic goodness for $30 I just can't see how people can say the market is inflated.  Keys are inflated but everything else is very cheap.

Yeah, you can buy a lot of SA stuff cheap if you aren't particular about condition or need the main line titles.  Some of the real off brand stuff you can even get in decent shape in the cheapo boxes.

The last convention I went to had one seller who had about 10 long boxes of $2 SA stuff.  I bought SA Uncle Scrooges, a bunch of ACG horror stuff, and a bunch of Adventure, Superman, and Lois Lanes.  I also found a beater copy of TTA 91 (everything was attached, but just barely).  There wasn't a ton of Marvel stuff outside of low grade Sgt Furys.  I guess there were actually a fair number of late SA/early BA FF's in there as well (which I already had nicer copies of).

Frankly, I'm way more interested in buying this stuff for $2 than buying keys at current prices.

[spreads]

2 hours ago, Artboy99 said:

Original owner collection part 2:

Our return visit the owner had a change of heart, he seemed a little put off that so many buyers have come through and cherry picked him. I was hoping to buy more but our second visit is was $20,000 for everything left. While the collection still has some great books left the bulk you want to obtain at a lower price point so you can sell them as dollar books. Our second visit we did a search again to determine if we could pay his asking and we determined no so we left empty handed.

Original owner collection part 3:

Our 3rd visit, the owner had reduced his prices. This time we were the first buyers to get in at his new price point. Now the owner is far more motivated to sell.

We went through the 90 longs again picking books again, we came out of there with around 1200 books. Here is some group shots of some of the books:

The pictures were taken last night so this is a very recent purchase for us. Hoping to get them ready for a comic show this weekend. The bags are smelly, yucky, but once you managed to peel the book out from the nastiness you see that they are rather nicely preserved retaining gloss. Some of the bags are so bad I literally was using a utility knife to cut away the top so I could get to the book. Many of the bags are stuck together so you have to peel them apart to get at individual books. Basically they have been sitting bagged in boxes for 40 years undisturbed until now ( actually LOTS of books are not bagged. )

Most the books left are VG-Fine condition. Some are Goods even. In the end Dave and I should do pretty well with these because of the price we paid.

Will we return for Part 4? Depends on the price, as there is very little good stuff left. I am thinking there is likely to be a Part 4 as the owner finds all of those previous buyers are unlikely to return or buy anything that is left as it is all sell as dollar books. I am hoping we get the rest and if so, I will update you all.

 

This is all great AB, thanks for posting....in terms of how Alberta has turned from a prosperous economy 5-12 years, to its current state has that impacted the saleable of books?  I think it probably goes both ways, people get hit hard financially and then are forced to sell....I just grabbed an X-Men#1 last week as a scenario of someone who parted with the book because he needed the money.

[Artboy99]

1 minute ago, spreads said:

This is all great AB, thanks for posting....in terms of how Alberta has turned from a prosperous economy 5-12 years, to its current state has that impacted the saleable of books?  I think it probably goes both ways, people get hit hard financially and then are forced to sell....I just grabbed an X-Men#1 last week as a scenario of someone who parted with the book because he needed the money.

Yes the lousy economy currently in Alberta has had a definite impact. Lots of collections available.

In this case, the owner is not hurting financially, it is just time to sell as he is a retired "baby boomer" and I think is wanting it gone ( 100 longs takes up a lot of space! )

[1Cool]

Knowing what you know now do you wish you would have done and looked at the original collection and maybe worked out a time payment plan for the 100,000 books considering what was left over when you got there?  That's 400 long boxes which would be crazy logistically but considering the collection had a ton of high grade key books would it have been worthwhile?  I know it's a bit of speculating since you do not know what was there for the 1st-9th guy but if you got those gems after all this time do you think $1.50 a book for 100,000 books would have been the way to go?  Just curious.

[spreads]

29 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Knowing what you know now do you wish you would have done and looked at the original collection and maybe worked out a time payment plan for the 100,000 books considering what was left over when you got there?  That's 400 long boxes which would be crazy logistically but considering the collection had a ton of high grade key books would it have been worthwhile?  I know it's a bit of speculating since you do not know what was there for the 1st-9th guy but if you got those gems after all this time do you think $1.50 a book for 100,000 books would have been the way to go?  Just curious.

I think you have to be partially crazy buying 100k comics....even with the CAD dollar as low as it is!

[VintageComics]

1 hour ago, Artboy99 said:

Yes the lousy economy currently in Alberta has had a definite impact. Lots of collections available.

It always does. I argued this years ago.

We saw 3 Pedigree collections appear just after the collapse of the US stock markets in 2008.

[Artboy99]

40 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Knowing what you know now do you wish you would have done and looked at the original collection and maybe worked out a time payment plan for the 100,000 books considering what was left over when you got there?  That's 400 long boxes which would be crazy logistically but considering the collection had a ton of high grade key books would it have been worthwhile?  I know it's a bit of speculating since you do not know what was there for the 1st-9th guy but if you got those gems after all this time do you think $1.50 a book for 100,000 books would have been the way to go?  Just curious.

Me? No chance.

[1Cool]

2 minutes ago, Artboy99 said:

Me? No chance.

Yea - I can't imagine what kind of work would go into that big of a collection but considering your last set of pictures included some pretty nice books and those were the pickings from the last 90 long boxes.  310 long boxes worth of books were bought and you still grabbed those from the completely picked boxes!  My head is swimming thinking about what books would have been pulled out if you were the first couple guys in line. 

[Artboy99]

4 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Yea - I can't imagine what kind of work would go into that big of a collection but considering your last set of pictures included some pretty nice books and those were the pickings from the last 90 long boxes.  310 long boxes worth of books were bought and you still grabbed those from the completely picked boxes!  My head is swimming thinking about what books would have been pulled out if you were the first couple guys in line. 

I don't think the guy ever had that many books. I think it was a mis-communication from the start and I think he had 100 longs at the start which is 28,000 books estimate.

That said would I have offered $200,000 for all of it. Nope.

The owner had told us the Marvel/Dc side of the collection had been heavily picked ( and it was ) whereas the other publishers side had not had as much picked ( Dells, Charltons, Atlas, etc )

We have lots of westerns as an example because they were left behind by previous buyers. Harder to sell locally at shows I guess? We will find out

Edited June 9, 2017 by Artboy99

[1Cool]

Ah - that makes sense.  Glad you got some nice books.

[Fan Boy]

7 hours ago, 1Cool said:

Are those the last of the 10 centers and 12 cent books?  You don't see those in the cheap boxes very often due to relative scarcity but I've seen DC beaters in the $5 boxes all the time.  The problem with even those books is the problem with quickly finding a buyer.  You could buy a collection at a quarter of asking price but it may take a year to find someone wanting to buy a particular issue.  $1 a book sounds good until you are stuck with 5 long boxes of books that just are not selling even for $3.

Most of these SA cheap books I brought as mentioned before. They were DC 12 centers, some Disney/Dell 10 centers. Heck, I even found two Superman 12 centers with 2nd app of Parsite.  I got 40 books for $40 after bit of dealing with the vender.

They are out there somewhere in a show for $1.00 - 2.00 on 50+ years comics. You need to seek them a little more by work.

[Aweandlorder]

1 hour ago, Artboy99 said:

I don't think the guy ever had that many books. I think it was a mis-communication from the start and I think he had 100 longs at the start which is 28,000 books estimate.

That said would I have offered $200,000 for all of it. Nope.

The owner had told us the Marvel/Dc side of the collection had been heavily picked ( and it was ) whereas the other publishers side had not had as much picked ( Dells, Charltons, Atlas, etc )

We have lots of westerns as an example because they were left behind by previous buyers. Harder to sell locally at shows I guess? We will find out

Do you remember off the top of your head what kinda books he had on the first visit?