Anabiosis Posted July 8, 2017 Share Posted July 8, 2017 As I said, I'm not really into comics. I grew up in a real small town (population < 300) in a real rural state. Being a small town, there was only one grocery store (which just so happened to be the only place that sold comic books). The comic book section was a small display and it was not updated very frequently. It seemed all the comics I was interested in had the story line continue in future volumes. Since I was almost never able to buy those future volumes I got rather frustrated and stopped reading comics. So,... Why am I in this board? I had a brother who was into comics. He died 17 years ago. I went to clean out his apartment and found boxes and boxes of comics...all of them in plastic wrap and obviously never read, many of them being multiple copies of the same comic. I know that people collect comic books and paid money for issues they did not have. I shipped those boxes to my home, thinking I would go through them at my leisure and see if I could sell them. When I got home I wasn't in any mood to go through them so I put them up in my attic with the hope that I would eventually get back to them. Well...what with my job, raising children and everything going on over those intervening years the boxes sat gathering dust and forgotten in a corner of my attic. Last summer I had some work done in my attic and had to move everything out so I became re-acquainted with those boxes. I moved them into my back patio room, thinking now that I was retired I would have time to deal with the comics. You know how it goes; the comics then sat in the corner of my patio room gathering dust until recently when my wife told me to get rid of those stupid boxes. So now I have to take care of the situation. I thought of taking them to some local comic book store but I figure even if they would take them they would only give me penny's on the dollar so I figure I would try this out. In just a small cursory glance through CGC's boards I see people selling comics. They describe them and include a grade that apparently CGC (for a price) will assign to the comics. I know very little about comic books and nothing about grading them. The only thing I have to go on is a sticker on some of them saying they are V-F. I assume that means very fine but am not sure...and am not sure if the grade given was given by an expert or only by some booth operator who inflated the grade in order to sell them at a higher price. My question is: Is it really necessary to have CGC grade the comic's I want to sell? Can't you tell the approximate condition by looking at the picture I would supply? It seems like a lot of work/money to have each of over 1,000 comics graded when they may not even sell at all. I don't think I want to put that much effort/money into this. If I have to do such a thing then I probably will end up advertising on Craigslist to have anyone interested come and look them over. If that doesn't work I guess I'll just donate them to the local thrift store. Any suggestions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattn792 Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 For starters, take a few photos of the books you have and post them in this thread. You'll get better informed opinions that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizards2 Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 Do you like gladiator movies? fullerjason, adampasz and Logan510 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artboy99 Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 (edited) Take photos of groups of comics so we can see what is there. If you want to spend time you can make a list but you don't have to. A photo of a group of books is sufficient for now. Like this: Once you have uploaded some photos we can see what timeframe the books are from, then we can ask if certain books are there. If the collection contains some valuable books, those you might consider getting graded but you don't have to grade anything if you don't want to. Selling comics takes time. Edited July 11, 2017 by Artboy99 Senormac and SteppinRazor 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrangeNemesis Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revat Posted July 11, 2017 Share Posted July 11, 2017 honestly, the least effort for you to post 10 or so representative pictures, post an ad on craigslist, and leave it up for 2 to 3 months. Everyone who comes by to see it, let them make an offer, and take down their name and number. And at the end of the 2 or three months (or after you've gotten enough offers), call up the high bidder, accept cash only, and call it a day. You don't have to learn anything about comics, you can be reasonably sure you're not getting ripped off too badly, and you can show the comics at your convenience. Only take offers for EVERYTHING. Of course the downside is meeting craigslisters at your house. If you're super rural, I assume you have a truck. Maybe meet at a local parking lot rather than your house. On the other hand, if you're super rural, you might have gun, a dog, or both. So there's that. The other downside is that if you're super rural there might not be many a lot of people willing to drive you your town. You should probably try to post in the nearest large-ish town. So that's the simplest, to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteppinRazor Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 (edited) On 7/8/2017 at 8:40 AM, Anabiosis said: My question is: Is it really necessary to have CGC grade the comic's I want to sell? Can't you tell the approximate condition by looking at the picture I would supply? It seems like a lot of work/money to have each of over 1,000 comics graded when they may not even sell at all. I don't think I want to put that much effort/money into this. If I have to do such a thing then I probably will end up advertising on Craigslist to have anyone interested come and look them over. If that doesn't work I guess I'll just donate them to the local thrift store. Any suggestions? No, you don't have to have them graded to sell them. There are certain ones that could generate quite a bit more profit if you did, but you can still sell comics without having to worry about grading them. 10 hours ago, Artboy99 said: Selling comics takes time. This^ Most of the time, people don't want them all, just some, or even one. The first thing you have to decide is whether you want to take the time to maximize your earnings, or just make them go away. Craigslist is a little beter than a local store potentially, but not always and not always by a lot. A buyer from craigslist is unlikely to educate you on the value of what you have. The other end of the scale is researching them all, learning what kind of condition they are in, and finding current values mostly through ebay sold listings. For each comic. Then listing them here or on ebay, shipping them out piece by piece. As suggested, posting some group photos would be a good idea. Boardies will probably give you an idea of what they are worth, and possibly some may make you an offer. Edited July 12, 2017 by SteppinRazor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kav Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 If cover price is 10c 12c or 15c you probably have something. If not probably not with very few exceptions. The higher the cover price the less they are most likely worth. Senormac and 1950's war comics 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnthonyTheAbyss Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 11 hours ago, OrangeNemesis said: OrangeNemesis 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anabiosis Posted July 14, 2017 Author Share Posted July 14, 2017 Thanks everyone for your responses. To clarify a little. I grew up in a small town in North Dakota but actually have lived for the past 35 years in the Los Angeles area. Have two dogs but no guns. Way back when in ND I owned a 4x4 pickup truck (winter) and sports car (summer...had a removable roof that was wayyyy to cold in winter). Own a mini-van now (boy how times change...) Not sure where the gladiator post fits in...but since I don't exactly run around in you guy's circle I probably don't have a snowballs chance in (you know where) of getting the message... I will take some advice and post pictures. Will take a few weeks since I am on vacation in Canada currently. Offhand I remember multiple issues of Alpha Flight and Evangaline (spelling???). Also some type of Batman books called the Dark Knight???. As far as issues costing originally 15 cents... I doubt it. My brother was not a rich man by any means and buying those issues at a comic stores/conventions in the 90's was probably out of his reach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FN-2199 Posted July 14, 2017 Share Posted July 14, 2017 Alpha Flight and Legends of the Dark Knight... I have a feeling we will see some Death of Superman, Spawn, and X-Force too. You'll be looking for New Mutants 87, 98 and Amazing Spider-Man 361 from this time. Maybe some Amazing Spider-Man 298-301 there, 300 is the $$$ book. Trying to think of something else worth more than $30... a full run of New Mutants 1-100 is good Silver Surfer 34-50 has potential, Infinity Gauntlet... Will be interesting to see the good stuff in piles and piles of Alpha Flight, Excalibur, WILDCATS, and others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
01TheDude Posted July 14, 2017 Share Posted July 14, 2017 was probably not worth shipping them based on what we do know-- which is they are mostly low value books from the 1990s. Leaving them up in an attic for years (LA hot summers) and then putting them on a porch for even more years probably did not help their overall condition. Just because they are in bags doesn't mean they are brand new or mint. Collectors put them in the bags with boards to protect their condition. Do more research of what books are hot from the time period-- find if you have any of those, post some pictures (or better scan them on a printer) and put a few of them up on the Hey buddy, can you spare a grade?" AFTER you look at a few other posts and read the rules to that forum (three books total a day in individual posts being the main rule). The comment about the Gladiator movies is a line from the movie "Airplane" and is quite famous. F For Fake, lizards2 and HighRadArt 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
revat Posted July 14, 2017 Share Posted July 14, 2017 (edited) take 10 representative pictures of big groups of comics, post on craiglist. Sell ONLY as a lot. Put a $2000 price tag on it, and take any offer over $800. Just be done with it. Hopefully your buyer thinks they can sell for maybe $1-2 per comic (on average) and are equipped to do so. You might think you're leaving thousands of dollars on the table (if you tried to sell individually), but for the time expenditure it would take, it would be like working another job. You don't take EVERY part-time job you see available walking down the street. So let someone else spend their time and make the money, someone who is more equipped to maximize their revenues. And of course that person has to have meat on the bone to still make money. If you have no other interest in comics, then learning anything about them will be tedious and time consuming and ultimately not worth it. I wouldn't want to spend time learning about grades, trying to figure out the values of individual comics, etc if I had no prior knowledge or passion for comics. Edited July 14, 2017 by revat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F For Fake Posted July 14, 2017 Share Posted July 14, 2017 4 hours ago, 01TheDude said: was probably not worth shipping them based on what we do know-- which is they are mostly low value books from the 1990s. Leaving them up in an attic for years (LA hot summers) and then putting them on a porch for even more years probably did not help their overall condition. Just because they are in bags doesn't mean they are brand new or mint. Collectors put them in the bags with boards to protect their condition. Do more research of what books are hot from the time period-- find if you have any of those, post some pictures (or better scan them on a printer) and put a few of them up on the Hey buddy, can you spare a grade?" AFTER you look at a few other posts and read the rules to that forum (three books total a day in individual posts being the main rule). The comment about the Gladiator movies is a line from the movie "Airplane" and is quite famous. Yeah, Alpha Flight + attic + porch doesn't give me a lot of hope. Fingers crossed there's a couple of gems in there for ya! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
01TheDude Posted July 14, 2017 Share Posted July 14, 2017 On 7/11/2017 at 6:26 AM, lizards2 said: Do you like gladiator movies? Do you like movies about gladiators? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizards2 Posted July 14, 2017 Share Posted July 14, 2017 1 minute ago, 01TheDude said: On 7/11/2017 at 6:26 AM, lizards2 said: Do you like gladiator movies? Do you like movies about gladiators? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patriot6 Posted July 14, 2017 Share Posted July 14, 2017 1 minute ago, lizards2 said: You just like the leather and nets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lizards2 Posted July 14, 2017 Share Posted July 14, 2017 24 minutes ago, Patriot6 said: 26 minutes ago, lizards2 said: You just like the leather and nets Patriot6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Senormac Posted July 14, 2017 Share Posted July 14, 2017 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
