Challenges of buying & selling comics? [SURVEY] 2 2

[dupont2005]

I couldn’t imagine not collecting runs

[Cruzin' Thru Comics]

I’m a seller and collector. I’m 51. I collect runs and try to complete sets. I buy keys usually just because I need for my runs.  From what I’ve seen most “collectors”/ flippers under 40 just want keys and are primarily in the hobby for the financial aspects. Kind of sad really as there are so many cool non keys that are great books. 

[gino2paulus2]

Great survey!! I am 35 been on these boards for several years. Just joined IG and have loved the experience. I don’t really have any issues buying or selling personally probably because I mainly only deal with the super rare stuff that I consider myself to be cool and classic not necessarily what anyone else considers classic although there are a handful of us and you know who you are that all find the same little niche to be super cool so we all battle each other for the rare showings of these books but that’s part of the fun. I also do collect keys somewhat but only if I think they are cool books. For example I have a quite a few Silver Age books that are considered keys (just as an example I will use my Tales to Astonish 35) but I also have many of the other issues and just bought a 45 the other day at a store. Not bc it is a key but because I thought it was cool. When you buy just what you like you can never go wrong when it comes to our hobby. It’s also another reason I like the Golden Age not as many books changing hands repeatedly and getting CPRd over and over. The manipulation is still there I am sure of that but not nearly as much where the flipper flips to another flipper and and everyone is adding another 10% etc and everyone is quoting GPA highs on their unslabbed raw books that could benefit from a press haha!! btw Shortboxed knows what the cool books really are 😉

[Dan82]

If you have ever bought on message boards, Instagram, or Facebook, please rate your biggest issues as a buyer.

I haven't, so I tried skipping the question but it wouldn't let me... I bought my whole collection from eBay, just eBay. No comics shops, no shows, nowhere else at all. 99% of it came by way of auction because I do not like 'buy it now' and the jacked up prices. I try to buy cheap, that's my most important factor. My default search is - Silver Age, Auctions only, Lowest price first. I find bargains that way and have had some real diamonds in the rough    

There's are dealers who use the 99p auction format weekly. I try to steer clear of them because they have a good following and the books attract more bids and higher prices than I like. I look for private sellers, I use watchcount to gauge interest and I set an alarm on my phone and be there for the last two minutes, a bid in the last five seconds normally seals the deal.

It's hit and miss in the UK, sometimes it's as though there's hardly any competition at all, other times the bids skyrocket and it leaves me thinking WTF. I guess there's just not a huge amount of collectors over here. No bad thing really, less collectors means less money and longer runs for me.

I will use buy it now on occasion but for the purpose of this survey - MOAR AUCTIONS! 

[shortboxed]

1 hour ago, Dan82 said:

I bought my whole collection from eBay, just eBay. No comics shops, no shows, nowhere else at all. 99% of it came by way of auction because I do not like 'buy it now' and the jacked up prices. I try to buy cheap, that's my most important factor. 

Interesting! So you only buy on eBay auctions because it's the only channel where you can find good deals? i.e. good deals can't be found at shows, auction houses like HA, CC, CL or consignment shops like MCS?

[sagekilz]

Great survey for the answers you're trying to gauge.  Kudos.

Edited February 27, 2019 by sagekilz

[dupont2005]

Good deals can be found all over but it can be a bit of legwork. I’m a budget run collector too and buy a lot from eBay but I’ve found great deals from Craigslist, Facebook, goodwill.com, and here on the boards. 

 

I have a feeling this is market research for a local auction house or something? I’ve been contacted by one once regarding my collection I had listed for sale, they wanted me to auction it off. I did not like the idea of just handing it to them and then getting whatever they got for it without playing a hand in the listing or marketing of the listing. People who clearly didn’t know about comics listing this auction for me, with zero risk on their end, getting paid no matter how poorly my collection did at auction? No thanks

[spidermanbeyond]

Interesting survey.  For buyers, there are just so many choices these days: Ebay, cons, local comic store, dealer sites, etc.  For sellers, it is so much harder.  Ebay is still the market for most collectors.  This is the biggest market and most sellers use these sales to base their prices.  Of course, there are more headaches with endless fees.  However, you still get the most eyeballs there.  Action Comics #1 CGC 9.0 sold there for $3.2 million.  I believe the Ebay fee was capped at $250 to $750 vs an auction house taking 10% to 25%.  There are more options for sellers like facebook, instagram, forums, etc these days.   For high end, sellers tend to go to Heritage, Comiclink, Comic-connect, etc.   Problem is that everyone wants only the keys these days so selling common raw books is very difficult and dishearting.   Mycomicshop seems to have a nice model for selling comic raw books.  Personally, I find selling CGC slabs on Ebay the way to go.   I rather sell a slab book for $50 to $100 then sell 10-20 raw books for $5 each.  Problem with Ebay is that no one believes the raw grades because they are all over the place.

[shortboxed]

19 hours ago, spidermanbeyond said:

Problem with Ebay is that no one believes the raw grades because they are all over the place.

To me, this is the biggest issue with buying on eBay - getting horrible photos and comical overgrading, or worse yet, "I'm not a professional grader so please look at the pics" yet they price it at NM price. 

[spidermanbeyond]

On Ebay, as a buyer, Ebay really protects the buyer.  I have returned a bunch of books because of terrible overgrading and Ebay forces a return even if Seller says I have a no return policy.  I love the free return prepaid labels.   As seller, I would hate this because some buyers will abuse it.

On Ebay, as a seller selling raw books, I would take many good pictures and stand behind my grading and price according.  You have to be willing to sit on your books until the right buyer comes along which could be months or years.  If you give good value and good grading, I believe buyers will eventually find you.  If you go via Ebay auctions, you are essentially blowing them out at wholesale.  I see some big volume sellers going this route starting at $1 and getting whatever the market decides.

[Black_Adam]

MyComicShop, as mentioned, is a great place to consign slabbed comics at a set price: they scan the books, post them on eBay (at a 10% higher markup than the MCS website) and handle all the shipping and payments for a reasonable commission (the same as if you had actually sold the comic yourself on eBay in most cases). Consigning raw comics is a little more tricky as MCS is notoriously conservative in their grading and you probably won't agree with the grade (though you can just list the comic at a selling price as if it had been graded with the grade you felt it deserved). You can also elect to list the comic at any time in one of their weekly auctions, though my experience has been that the auctions don't achieve nearly the same results as Comiclink. I'm assuming because they aren't as well known and attract far less bidders.

If you want to auction your comic (slabbed - I don't think they do raw) Comiclink is definitely the place to go IMO.

 

[paul747]

On 2/26/2019 at 4:15 PM, 1Cool said:

Whipple - There are enough decent books left to make an offer but the fact that he has taken the time to make a list it usually means his sell price is usually double if not triple what I can pay.  The lack of big ticket keys makes it just a ton of work to sell one at a time and thus the price paid has to be very low which leads to a mad / disappointed seller. 

No offense 1cool but you told me 20 bucks a box for my un- picked stock and I ended up going thru some of it and sold the boxes for about $1000.00 a box. I still have tons of boxes left, but if i settled on selling for the dealer rate I was getting robbed. I think that is why there are a lot of sellers, its easy if you take the time.

[nepatkm]

I’ve never sold any of my books, so I quit taking the survey there. (I did not feel qualified ) Sorry, good luck with the survey @shortboxed  

[1Cool]

47 minutes ago, paul747 said:

No offense 1cool but you told me 20 bucks a box for my un- picked stock and I ended up going thru some of it and sold the boxes for about $1000.00 a box. I still have tons of boxes left, but if i settled on selling for the dealer rate I was getting robbed. I think that is why there are a lot of sellers, its easy if you take the time.

Refresh my memory - when did I tell you $20 a box?  $20 a long is the going rate for 90s books and store overstock but I’m surprised I would go with the $20 a long if there was older or better stuff.  But if you sold a few of the better boxes for $1,000 and are sitting in a bunch of stock you can see why dealers have to offer low since they get stuck with a lot of very hard to sell stuff in pretty much every deal.

[paul747]

51 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Refresh my memory - when did I tell you $20 a box?  $20 a long is the going rate for 90s books and store overstock but I’m surprised I would go with the $20 a long if there was older or better stuff.  But if you sold a few of the better boxes for $1,000 and are sitting in a bunch of stock you can see why dealers have to offer low since they get stuck with a lot of very hard to sell stuff in pretty much every deal.

LOL you must have just automatically thought I had 90s books. I should have taken some pictures or you as a dealer maybe should not think everyone has 90s stock. no there is still a lot of gold left , it just takes so much time if your not committed to it. boxes and boxes of late bronze and cooper. i am glad I actually went thru it at one point i just wanted to dump it and feel free, I would have really lost out.

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by paul747

[shortboxed]

2 hours ago, Black_Adam said:

MyComicShop, as mentioned, is a great place to consign slabbed comics at a set price: they scan the books, post them on eBay (at a 10% higher markup than the MCS website) and handle all the shipping and payments for a reasonable commission (the same as if you had actually sold the comic yourself on eBay in most cases). Consigning raw comics is a little more tricky as MCS is notoriously conservative in their grading and you probably won't agree with the grade (though you can just list the comic at a selling price as if it had been graded with the grade you felt it deserved). You can also elect to list the comic at any time in one of their weekly auctions, though my experience has been that the auctions don't achieve nearly the same results as Comiclink. I'm assuming because they aren't as well known and attract far less bidders.

If you want to auction your comic (slabbed - I don't think they do raw) Comiclink is definitely the place to go IMO.

 

Agree with all of this!

[silverseeker]

Great survey!

As a run collector, the biggest change I've noticed as people focus more on keys is at smaller, one-day shows, where space is limited and dealers have to be selective with the inventory they can bring...

[adampasz]

I started as a run collector, but for some series I've switched to just getting cool covers. Especially GA , horror books, and Archies, where there is no serialized story.

Regarding Key Collecting... it's fun to try to predict what the Keys of the Future will be, but it seems pointless to chase after the same books everyone else is buying. 

[thunsicker]

The biggest problem selling books is letting go of them.  I’m a collector, not a dealer or speculator.  The biggest problem buying comics is affording them now that I’m sending two kids to college (and comics prices have gone through the roof)

[shadroch]

On 2/26/2019 at 3:10 PM, Wipple said:

Couldn’t agree more. I asked him for an offer to see if we are in same ballpark.  He offered collection for $2200. Thoughts?

From a business point of view, you should pass. However, have you considered that selling comics can be every much of a hobby as simply collecting them.