Questions from Old Hand turned Noob 0

[iganatz]

First post!

 

I want to start by thanking members of these boards, I’ve been lurking the past few days since discovering the site and soaking up as much information as possible.  It’s been invaluable.  I also want to apologize in advance for the walls of text to follow.  I’m long winded.

Cliffs:  Old hand is noob again.  Boring story, skip to questions.  Some basic questions.

I think this is the right forum for an intro/question post.  My story is not unique; I was a collector/trader back in the day, and just rediscovered the world of comics.  So combo old hat/noob?

I started reading comics in the early ‘70s, and started collecting seriously in the late 70s.  By the late 80s, I had an incredible collection of Silver and Bronze with some good Gold as well.  Back then, we recognized Gold and Silver.  Everything else was just, well, everything else.  I just learned the terms Bronze and Copper since tripping over these boards.

 

Around 1990, I was not in good financial shape and began selling off all my prized goodies for pennies on the dollar.  If I told you what I was paid for all of my Silver #1s and keys, the thread would be filled with gifs of single tears rolling down cheeks.

By the time I had liquidated the cream of my collection, I was left with just two long boxes of stuff I loved but was (at the time) essentially worthless.  I couldn’t bring myself to sell the stuff as filler and tucked them away in a closet.  Though she had empathy for my “loss”, my girlfriend (now my wife of over 20 years) was thrilled that those stacks of long boxes which crowded our lives were no longer darkening the corners of our apartment.

We moved several times, and each time the boxes would go with us, only to be abandoned to some storage closet, never to be thought of until the next move.  When we bought our house in 2002, they went into a climate controlled attic.  My son (born in 2000) never showed any interest in comic books, so those boxes stayed out of mind.   The last time I even noticed them was in 2009, when a friend who was moving out of town remembered me saying I loved comics as a kid and gave me several poorly cared for boxes of his comics to share with my son, who was still uninterested.

Last week, randomly, I was sitting in a restaurant having dinner when a woman at the next table burst out angrily, “You paid WHAT for that? Are you INSANE?”  I looked over and her man was gently holding a copy of a Kirby Eternals book, grinning like an insufficiently_thoughtful_person.  It jogged my memory.

When I got home, I climbed up in the attic and starting humping down my two long boxes as well as those my friend had given me.  I opened his boxes first.  They were filled with Copper books and were mostly worthless.  Who reads entire runs of Ben Grimm’s solo book, the Thing?  Or ROM: Spacekinght?  Keerist.

My boxes were a different story.  It was so much fun rediscovering these books.  I didn’t remember the specific books I had stored away, just that it was stuff that at the time was quarter box fodder, and that I couldn’t bring myself to dump it to a dealer for five cents per book.  One whole box was filled with nothing but first issues.  The Kirby Fourth World books, and all of his other titles.  Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, Warlock etc etc.  The other box was filled with miscellaneous issues of books I simply liked.  Early 70s DC horror books, Swamp Thing, that Spectre run in Adventure Comics and the like.

I’m grateful for the flood of memories rediscovering these books brought.  However, I don’t envision returning to collecting comics as I have developed too many other time consuming pursuits (poker, photography) and there’s no room in my life for an Ali-like return to the hobby.  So I’ve decided to sell the books and started my research into the current state of the market.  This site, above all others, has been the most informative.  I’ve been down the rabbit hole of these boards but I’ve still got a lot of research to do and questions to ask before I begin to sell.   

I haven’t bought or sold anything on eBay for over 10 years, so they deleted my account.  And based on what I’m seeing here, I like the idea of selling on these boards to people who have built a community, and a self-policing one at that.

I’d like to thank you in advance for any answers or advice you may impart.  I’ll try to keep most of my questions contained in this thread, though I may have to start one or two in another sub-forum if it’s more appropriate to ask there (i.e. specific questions about an unknown Bronze variant or about recent market changes for specific books).  But I’ll start with a few of my questions here:

 

Some of my books are reader grade copies, but a good amount are near the higher end of the scale (for arguments sake, let’s say between 7.0 and 9.0).  I see crazy prices for CGC graded 9.8 books, but I’m not sure of the utility of having books slabbed unless I think there’s a chance of getting a 9.8.  There’s just so much time/expense involved.  Does the market for Bronze books below the highest grades justify the time and expense for you?  (Yes, I realize the irony of asking this on boards hosted by CGC)  I think I would rather just list them as raw, with detailed photos.

 

I was always highly critical when grading comics.  I see in the sales forums here that most sellers of raw books are just showing scans of front and back covers.  I would prefer to post more pictures than that, including close-ups of spines and flaws.  I’m OK with the time involved with this, but as potential buyers does the prospect of extra scans present a problem or annoyance, especially for those who might be reading threads on mobile devices?

 

Those kudos threads, along with the Probation thread and Hall of Shame, seem like a good way of keeping the boards as safe as possible for people to have a healthy, trustworthy sub-market to yourselves.  I thought it would be a good idea to start my selling thread with one relatively small collection of books, then wait for those buyers to receive and review their purchases before creating a new sales thread and really starting to sell the bulk of the books.  This way, the community would have the opportunity to provide (hopefully) positive feedback before I start posting books like mad.  Is this a good plan?

 

If you’ve made it this far, thanks.  I will have more questions.  That’s it for today.

[revat]

welcome.  Good intro.

I think unless you're dealing with ultra high grade comics that will get like 9.6's and 9.8's for minor or major key issues, there's not a ton of value to slabbing for bronze and copper books.  Especially since you're not a business or anything, and your costs can pretty much be considered 'sunk'.  And you can sell now without any additional time or investment, that's pretty valuable.  My vote is raw except for super-keys.

As for selling on the boards, most customers appreciate a front/back cover picture, but I'm not sure there's too much value in many extra pics if the comic is less than say $50 (or whatever value $100, $1000?), unless there's something on the comic you really feel should be disclosed.  But at that point maybe a description is sufficient.  If you're advertising as a super high-grade comic or super expensive comic or there's s specific defect you want to point out there may be some value to more pics.  You're right that some mobile users don't want ALL of the pictures.  There may be a situation where you can link to another photo website with the 'extra' pics if you're really into maximum pictures, which will appeal to some people for sure.

I think you're idea of starting a somewhat smaller sale first to get an idea of how your pricing and grading and shipping habits line up is a good idea.  Maybe 20-30 books?  Another thing you can do is buy a few books and build up some relationships and kudos and feedback and get a full understanding of the transactional process. I know you're not really trying to get back fully into the hobby, but there must be SOME comics you might be interested in buying or owning (maybe some you regret selling off?).

 

Good luck, I think starting by selling on the boards in general is a good idea.  There's no fees, and its easier to sell multiple items to one person.  And people are generally acting in good faith.

[iganatz]

Thanks revat, great info.  

As an aside, the board's automated no_mean_language filter is hilarious.  It replaced my 5 letter pejorative starting with an "i" with:

19 hours ago, iganatz said:

grinning like an insufficiently_thoughtful_person.

 

Some new questions:

When buying books, what shipping method do you prefer?  There are so many different opinions in the packaging/shipping thread.  It seems crazy to spend $14 on USPS Priority if buying one $20 book, but I would never use Media Mail for anything.  I'm leaning toward using those Gemini flash mailers with pads, which only adds 60 cents to my cost, and then put that inside a padded envelope or flat rate mailer box with packing material.  Would love to hear whether people like this or not.

I've never used PayPal to accept money, only for purchases.  I assume that this is easy to set up.  I would also accept MO or check.  Is it standard form to wait for a check to clear before shipping?

I'd like to offer the option to buyers to wait until the end of a specific thread before shipping anything out in order to save them money by combining shipping costs if purchasing multiple books.  This is standard, right?

[revat]

shipping is really subjective and there's millions of good ways to do it. Your suggestion seems fine.  There's probably some googles or youtubes or threads on these boards with various methods. 

 

Usually you wait til the end of your thread, total up the purchases, add in the shipping and send a invoice through PM (direct message) telling them the total and asking for payment.  Which I think jives with your understanding.  Of course this assumes you're not having a sale that drags on weeks or months, which is fine, but somewhat less common. 

Paypal is usually accepted for most sales that occur on the boards here, though its certainly not required and up to the seller.  But I would think unless you're selling ultra expensive books there's not really a good reason not to accept it.  Especially if you're a new seller people generally appreciate the protection afforded.  But in the even you take check or MO, usually its understood that the seller will wait for the check to clear before sending out the goods.  I'm not even sure there's anything special you need to do accept money on paypal if you already have an account.  You just give the customer your email address and they send you money.  Either way it should be very easy.

 

Seems like you're sensible and have a reasonable grasp.  I'm sure you'll do fine.  In the event you want to make a sales thread, make sure you check out the rules of the forum, and maybe take a peek through some other people's threads to check out different styles and formatting and structure and aesthetics of threads to see what you like and what makes sense for you.

 

[iganatz]

One more:

I see that many listings include the "take in this thread" trumps PM.  Do people use PMs because they don't want fellow collectors to see what they're buying or just because they want to try to negotiate a lower price?

[revat]

25 minutes ago, iganatz said:

One more:

I see that many listings include the "take in this thread" trumps PM.  Do people use PMs because they don't want fellow collectors to see what they're buying or just because they want to try to negotiate a lower price?

both.