Trading Time For Comic Books 0

[Richard Warner]

Can you help me find different ways to fund my comic book collection? Are there ways to sell or flip comics, small time, and what conditions should I target? I'm willing to do all of the footwork and my goal is to build my personal collection at no cost, paid for in comic dealings in my free time. All this while passing on the love of comics to new potential readers. Please help. Thanks!

[revat]

I think the 'simplest' but also most inconsistent way would be to go to local yard sales and estate sales or checking out local craigslist ads and flea markets.  If you know what has value (gotta do your research up front), then you can hopefully find some nice sellable comics at very low prices.  You can do this to a lesser extent at comic book stores or with your own 'want to buy' ads on craigslist.  This stuff may or may not involve buying up whole collections...for this you really gotta know stuff up front, you can't be checking ebay prices for 2,000 books at a yard sale.

The condition doesn't matter  as much as the return on investment for a given price in a given condition for a given comic.  Of course higher condition brings better prices, but it might not be a better value or investment.  So you just gotta know the prices and which books are worth more. 

I think in general, you start with what you actually like, sort of like sports betting (you can't know everything).  Because you have actual interest, you have the most information about that division of that sports league, or that type/era/character in comics.  So you're likely to make better financial decisions, if you can divorce your emotion from the process.  And grow from there.

Also, just read through the these CGC boards, there's a million different people with different interests, and an infinite wealth of knowledge, and they're making money.

 

Another thing people do is speculate on NEW comics or variants they think will be hot, and buy multiples, and sit on them til they're hot enough to sell.  This is somewhat more of a gamble than some other stuff.  But plenty of people do it successfully.

 

Or you could get part time job at the comic book store.