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Need advice on purchasing vast GA/SA collection

Started by eccomic,

98 posts in this topic

the blob

the blob

Posted
Posted

buying at 25% of guide and selling at 50% of guide IS NOT 100% profit.

 

you have ebay and paypal fees. maybe you pay for an image hosting service because ebay's sucks. it can cost you close to a buck a sale right there for less expensive stuff, more on expensive stuff (I recently sold a $420 book at auction and got hit with over $24 in various fees (and it was lower than usual because i listed it during 10 cent listing day), not to mention the fact that I went out of my own pocket for like $6 in postage to cover the insurance).

 

not to mention your time. that ought to be worth something. it's not like buying and selling stock where the transaction takes about 30 seconds. selling SA and early BA books is tough because you really need to examine them carefully. Sometimes that's a lot of work on a $5 book. But if you sell somebody that $5 book and there's writing all over page 13, I bet they raise a huge stink if they find it!

 

granted, i don't count time in my equation because I'd probably be watching TV or on chat boards when I do my ebay selling, but sometimes it does cut into other stuff, and for someone who does this full-time, it is instead of a paying job.

 

and selling off of ebay --- moondog, et al. has to pay rent, business taxes, electricity, insurance for his store, employee salaries and maybe benefits. he has to offset bad decisions on new books --- like buying 200 too many copies of the new Swamp Thing 1 or whatever that he now has to unload in the 50 cents bin.

 

and selling at shows isn't free. last time i sold at one of the big apple conventions here in NYC I barely broke even considering all my costs.

 

thievery is paying a dime a book for a SA collection and acting like the seller is trying to unload a bunch of Warriors of Plasm on you.

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Larryw7

Larryw7

Posted
Posted

I've never had much of a problem with dealers only offering 25% of Overstreet. They need to make a living like everybody else.

 

What I have had a problem with is dealers who try to knock the grade down("this book is a Good at best") and then sell it at a much higher grade. This pi*sed me off when it happened to me as a kid, and it still pi*ses me off when I hear about it being done now.

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Comcasthawk

Comcasthawk

Posted
Posted
You don't buy from stores? so you go to the library to post on the forums and live in the woods?

 

Yes, but when I buy something in a store, it is in NM condition and there is no question of that!!

 

I don't go to a store and expect them not to make profit, but the difference between them and a dealer is that will lower prices to move stock, while a dealer will hold a book and complaign they can't sell it but never lower the price to move it....!!!!

 

Dealers are so happy to buy at 25% of "guide", but never to sell at 50% of "guide", even though that would show a profit of 100%!!!

 

Any regular business would love to make 100% profit, but not price gouging, guide happy dealers!!!

 

Face it, High grade and high end books are making the "hobby" insane because of this ............................................just my opinion and I hold no grudge against ne1 not agreeing with me.

 

I'm probably wrong, but I'll never admit it!!! 893whatthe.gif

 

Hi Hawk,

 

I can't speak to your experience with your local shop or dealers but in general I think you're a little off base about dealers (or shop owners for that matter) not willing to discount off guide price. It's clear you've had some bad experiences and that's unfortunate. Most people I know are flexible and if you are willing to negotiate you can usually come to a reasonable compromise. Some (not all) who list books at full 100% guide will take less. If you go to a local shop or a show where the owner or dealer asks 100% guide for low grade or common material and won't budge, then shop around. Don't be afraid to ask if they'll take less. All they can say is no. No blood, no foul. Maybe they overpaid and really need to get 100% out of it. Maybe they're just a stubborn SOB and won't budge. And maybe, just maybe, they'll say "sure, I can come down in price on that." If you shop around you'll find a number of sellers who will gladly work with you on prices.

 

In one of my other posts I point out that many of the books a dealer purchases will have to be discounted considerably from guide price in order to sell, especially low-grade common issues, which typically make up the bulk of a collection. I frequently sell low and mid-grade Silver Age at anywhere from 20 to 40% off guide. If I list a VG copy of Fantastic Four 62 at full guide I'll sit on it for years. So I have two choices, discount it off guide and hope somebody bites, or after a while put it on ebay where it likely will bring 50% of guide or less. It's basic supply and demand. Low grade commons are common. Big supply. Unless there's high demand (like for a KEY issue) then the price will be low. Are there some dealers who manage to sell the books for full guide? Yes. That's called a free market system. Some people will pay full guide for a book. Some won't. The guide is set up to create a standard. But it is just a GUIDE not a MANDATE. That's what is so great about the collectibles market. Sometimes you can get a great deal just by asking. Try going into a retail clothing store and asking for a 25% discount off the sticker of those Deisel jeans. They'll laugh you out the door.

 

Now if somebody has a super high grade Silver or Gold book they are not going to be as likely to discount it. These are the books where they need to make their profit back because if they end up selling the common stuff discounted of guide (those are called "loss leaders" in bidness school) then they need to have a core of books that make up for the ones that don't make money or make a very slight profit. That's not exactly "having it both ways". The money has to be made somewhere. Higher grade material is less common and more in demand. There we go, back to our friends, Supply and Demand. Hence it will realize a higher price and will be less likely to require discounting to sell. It's got nothing to do with conspiracies or price fixing. Realistically, you won't be getting a 50% discount on hot, in-demand, or rare items.

 

Finally, remember, we're talking about purchasing a collection of mixed items, with 20 to 25% higher grades and the rest low grades and common issues. We're not talking about a collection of Amazing Fantasy 15s. I know plenty of dealers who won't buy the common stuff and will pull out the good stuff and offer a significatnly higher percent of guide for that, because they know they can sell it all at a decent price fairly quickly.

 

Bottom line is shop around. There are lots of shops, dealers, shows, auction sites, online stores, etc. If you can't find somebody who will work with you, then try someone else. I hope you find some "good dealers" who will change your view that we're all a bunch of greedy bastiches trying to rip everybody off. It just isn't true. Ok, well I'm a greedy bastich, but some of my best friends are dealers and they are reasonable people... 27_laughing.gif

 

Now then, has the equine been sufficiently flogged? confused-smiley-013.gif

 

I agree with what you are saying and I am in no way belittling the dealer's "profit Margin".

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Comcasthawk

Comcasthawk

Posted
Posted
buying at 25% of guide and selling at 50% of guide IS NOT 100% profit.

 

you have ebay and paypal fees. maybe you pay for an image hosting service because ebay's sucks. it can cost you close to a buck a sale right there for less expensive stuff, more on expensive stuff (I recently sold a $420 book at auction and got hit with over $24 in various fees (and it was lower than usual because i listed it during 10 cent listing day), not to mention the fact that I went out of my own pocket for like $6 in postage to cover the insurance).

 

not to mention your time. that ought to be worth something. it's not like buying and selling stock where the transaction takes about 30 seconds. selling SA and early BA books is tough because you really need to examine them carefully. Sometimes that's a lot of work on a $5 book. But if you sell somebody that $5 book and there's writing all over page 13, I bet they raise a huge stink if they find it!

 

granted, i don't count time in my equation because I'd probably be watching TV or on chat boards when I do my ebay selling, but sometimes it does cut into other stuff, and for someone who does this full-time, it is instead of a paying job.

 

and selling off of ebay --- moondog, et al. has to pay rent, business taxes, electricity, insurance for his store, employee salaries and maybe benefits. he has to offset bad decisions on new books --- like buying 200 too many copies of the new Swamp Thing 1 or whatever that he now has to unload in the 50 cents bin.

 

and selling at shows isn't free. last time i sold at one of the big apple conventions here in NYC I barely broke even considering all my costs.

 

thievery is paying a dime a book for a SA collection and acting like the seller is trying to unload a bunch of Warriors of Plasm on you.

 

Maybe you priced your bnooks too high at the Big Apple Con and lower prices would have helped....

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the blob

the blob

Posted
Posted

"Maybe you priced your bnooks too high at the Big Apple Con and lower prices would have helped.... "

 

Nope, just didn't bring the right stuff. Nobody even tried to haggle from my "50% off the marked price" that were marked at like 60-80% of OPG in the first place.

 

If I had actually brought my better books and priced them high, I probably would have done better.

 

I'd have people go through my boxes for 30 minutes with their want lists and pluck out 3 books. When the books wind up selling for $1-$2 each due to all the various discounts, you don't get too far.

 

i literally would have had to sell about 300% more stuff for the day to have been a success.

 

This was in about 1998 or so (before most comics from the last 25 years were considered worthless), before ebay really meant anything, before CGC, etc.

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eccomic

eccomic

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Hi gang:

 

Thanks for all of your feedback, especially Gary of Moondog.

 

I DID Bring the new Overstreet Grading guide and thank goodness I did!

 

I educated the seller as to precisely why his Overstreet Retail $75K collection was actually worth only $25K as he overgraded the Keys and GA Superhero books by as much as a grade too high!!

 

I paid $6500.00 CDN/$5000.00 for the whole shooting match of 1300 SA & 150 GA books.

 

I used Gary's approach except for bringing the Overstreet Grading Guide and was successful. The seller was hoping to get $11K and he told me his bottom line was $8K and I advised my CEILING was going to be $6500.00 and I got the collection.

 

Many SA Marvel/DC Keys and Semi Keys and also a lot of SA Junk as well but I will probably triple my money when everything is sold ultimately.

 

Cheers,

 

Stephen Lipson

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Moondog

Moondog

Posted
Posted

Just for the record, I track all my expenses for my eBay sales:

 

...listing fees

...final value fees

...packing and shipping materials

...UPS shipping (I'm exclusively UPS and charge buyers a flat 6.95 per shipment whether it's one book or ten...)

...PayPal fees

 

I don't except credit cards any longer...

 

All these costs usually come to an average 8% to 12% of the selling price of an item - with the total average being just under 10%.

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Foolkiller

Foolkiller

Posted
Posted

This was a great thread and a fantastic read with some very valuable information provided by Moondog... thanks for sharing your insight. Also, thanks to Rhino for sharing the dealer's side of the table regarding the work and calculations that go into purchasing a large collection.

 

Good luck on the sale of this collection!

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eccomic

eccomic

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LARGE SA MARVEL/DC COLLECTION ON EBAY ITEM # 6540347154. MAGNIFICENT UNRESTORED COLLECTION OF OVER 120 SILVER AGE MARVEL AND DC SUPERHERO COMICS INCLUDING MANY KEYS AND SEMI KEYS. I HAVE TAKEN THE LIBERTY TO LIST ALL OF THE ISSUES AND THEIR RESPECTIVE CONDITION. I GRADE VERY CONSERVATIVELY AND THERE IS APPROXIMATELY $7,500 WORTH OF BOOKS HERE, AS PER THE 2005 OVERSTREET COMIC BOOK PRICE GUIDE, INCLUDING AMAZING SPIDERMAN 50 IN HIGH GRADE, TALES OF SUSPENSE # 39 (FIRST IRONMAN), HAWKMAN # 1, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA # 1, AD INFINITUM! THE FOLLOWING IS THE LIST OF THE TITLE, ISSUE # AND CONDITION: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA # 1 GOOD, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA # 7 VG+, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA # 9 FINE, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA # 11 FINE-, NO MAN THUNDER INVISIBLE AGENT # 1 VF-, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY # 88 GOOD+, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY # 86 GOOD+, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY # 99 FINE-, JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY # 97 VG, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 45 FINE-, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 47 VG, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 58 F/VF, NICK FURY THE SHIELD # 1 VF, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 50 VF, AMAZING SPIDERMAN ANNUAL # 1 VG, AMAZING SPIDERMAN KING- SIZE SPECIAL # 3 FINE-, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 39 FINE+, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 37 FINE+, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 62 FINE+, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 48 F/VF, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 15 VG, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 10 VG, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 96 FINE, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 40 FINE-, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 47 VF-, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 51 F/VF, AMAZING SPIDERMAN # 56 FINE+, FLASH COMICS # 137 GA CROSSOVER VG, FLASH COMICS # 111 VG/F, FLASH COMICS # 142 FINE, FLASH COMICS # 124 FINE-, FLASH COMICS # 124 VG+, FLASH COMICS # 137 GA CROSSOVER GOOD+, BATMAN # 142 VG, BATMAN # 143 VG, BATMAN # 145 VG+, BATMAN # 147 VG+, BATMAN # 149 VG+, TALES OF SUSPENSE # 56 VG+, TALES OF SUSPENSE # 51 VG, TALES OF SUSPENSE # 65 FINE-, TALES OF SUSPENSE # 54 VG+, TALES OF SUSPENSE # 39 GOOD, TALES OF SUSPENSE # 40 GOOD+, TALES OF SUSPENSE # 41 GOOD+, TALES OF SUSPENSE # 42 VG, TALES OF SUSPENSE # 43 VG, TALES OF SUSPENSE # 48 VG+, FANTASTIC FOUR # 8 G/VG, FANTASTIC FOUR # 14 VG, FANTASTIC FOUR # 13 G+, FANTASTIC FOUR # 54 VF-, FANTASTIC FOUR # 27 VG+, FANTASTIC FOUR # 24 VG+, GREEN LANTERN # 12 VG+, GREEN LANTERN # 28 FINE-, GREEN LANTERN # 10 VG, CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN # 23 FINE, FANTASTIC FOUR # 16 VG+, FANTASTIC FOUR # 60 VF-, FANTASTIC FOUR # 42 FINE+, FANTASTIC FOUR # 41 VF-, FANTASTIC FOUR # 53 FINE, FANTASTIC FOUR # 38 F/VF, FANTASTIC FOUR # 20 VG, FANTASTIC FOUR # 29 VG+, FANTASTIC FOUR # 27 VG, FANTASTIC FOUR # 23 VG, FANTASTIC FOUR # 22 FINE+, TALES TO ASTONISH # 54 VG+, TALES TO ASTONISH # 58 VG+, THE SPECTRE # 2 VF+, X-MEN # 21 VG/F, X-MEN # 31 VG/F, X-MEN # 28 VG+, BATMAN # 155 VG-, CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN # 17 FINE+, CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN # 22 VG+, CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN # 18 FINE-, X-MEN # 5 GOOD+, X-MEN # 38 VG+, X-MEN # 40 VG+, X-MEN # 40 FINE, X-MEN # 27 FINE+, X-MEN # 39 VG+, X-MEN # 41 VF+, X-MEN # 44 VF, X-MEN # 43 VF-, SHOWCASE 75 (1ST CREEPER) VF, STAR-SPANGLED WAR STORIES # 98 VF-, STAR-SPANGLED WAR STORIES # 99 VF-, TALES TO ASTONISH # 42 G/VG, INCREDIBLE HULK # 102 (PREMIERE ISSUE) FINE+, INCREDIBLE HULK # 104 VF-, AVENGERS # 20 FINE, AVENGERS # 10 FINE-, AVENGERS # 5 VG-, STRANGE TALES # 107 GOOD+, STRANGE TALES # 109 VG, STRANGE TALES # 128 VF-, TRANGE TALES # 123 FINE+, STRANGE TALES # 118 FINE-, BRAVE AND THE BOLD # 38 VG, BRAVE AND THE BOLD # 50 VG, BRAVE AND THE BOLD # 51 FINE+, THOR KING SIZE SPECIAL # 2 FINE-, SUPERMAN ANNUAL # 1 GOOD+, SUPERMAN ANNUAL # 1 VG, BRAVE AND THE BOLD # 37 FINE-, THE ATOM # 7 FINE+, THE ATOM # 3 G/VG, STRANGE ADVENTURES # 205 (IST DEADMAN) VF-, STRANGE ADVENTURES # 207 VF-, DETECTIVE COMICS # 295 VG+, DETECTIVE COMICS # 299 FINE+, DETECTIVE COMICS # 302 FINE+, DETECTIVE COMICS # 295 VG+, DETECTIVE COMICS # 299 VG+, AQUAMAN # 1 VG, AQUAMAN # 9 FINE+, AQUAMAN # 3 FINE, AQUAMAN # 5 FINE. WHEW!! URL: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6540347154&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd=1

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