Warehouse find yields 1 million comics

[spider9698]

Kidding of course!! What it reminded me was the story of a famous stamp collector who had some incredibly rare stamp (one known). A second came up for auction and he purchased it and promptly lit it on fire!!!

[143ksk]

I did get a few VG/FN Archies that were quite nice but typically I'd have to grade the silver age items as VG- or GD/VG due to warping and light to moderate ink. Of course I would see others on ebay then reselling the copies as FN or FN/VF.

 

Most (though not all) of the Archies I've seen from that find are heavily inked and/or water damaged. It annoys me no end that people on ebay are advertising them as "unread" as if that means anything on a comic that was underwater for 2 weeks

[HouseofComics.Com]

I did get a few VG/FN Archies that were quite nice but typically I'd have to grade the silver age items as VG- or GD/VG due to warping and light to moderate ink. Of course I would see others on ebay then reselling the copies as FN or FN/VF.

 

Most (though not all) of the Archies I've seen from that find are heavily inked and/or water damaged. It annoys me no end that people on ebay are advertising them as "unread" as if that means anything on a comic that was underwater for 2 weeks

 

If you want to see heavily inked, check out some of the Classics Illustrateds. They seemed to really get it--some of them are so ink-soaked they are unsaleable.

 

The best of the BT Archies are interesting. You've got amazing spines that will last for another 50 years and often amazing page quality. But then you have a possible light ink stripe on the spine and some sort of warp that takes it under FN even if the cover is glossy and flat.

 

The silver age books in the warehouse were heavily Archie and Gilberton of course, but by far the nicest copies I saw were Archies.

 

Best,

Marc

[Fan4Fan]

Kidding of course!! What it reminded me was the story of a famous stamp collector who had some incredibly rare stamp (one known). A second came up for auction and he purchased it and promptly lit it on fire!!!

 

I think that was an old Kojak episode...

[OldGuy]

IWho is going to pay anything for an X-Men 104 for the next year or two while he's flooding the market?

 

This is just craziness, and if this find ever comes to market, practically guarantees rock bottom prices for all of the 104-143 X-Men CGC copies.

 

If you're not dying tomorrow, and are a true collector, just wait a bit and buy all the Bronze you want.

 

Good, those books are over rated anyway. I nice price adjustment is in order.

[HouseofComics.Com]

Good, those books are over rated anyway. I nice price adjustment is in order.

 

Well, speaking of raw copies anyway, they went down sharply in guide this year. Pretty much whacked across the board.

 

If they are over-rated I'm not quite sure why. Aren't they the best superhero comics of the period, flat-out? And aren't they essentially the only comics from that period even worth anything? I'm speaking broadly, of course.

 

Cheers,

Marc

[sfilosa]

Quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

IWho is going to pay anything for an X-Men 104 for the next year or two while he's flooding the market?

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

This is just craziness, and if this find ever comes to market, practically guarantees rock bottom prices for all of the 104-143 X-Men CGC copies.

 

If you're not dying tomorrow, and are a true collector, just wait a bit and buy all the Bronze you want.

 

So I better sell all CGC Bronze-Age books from the late 70's.

 

OK, everyone, there all for sale at 50% of guide.....

 

Oh, wait, I don't own any.

[the blob]

i stayed away from the silver/gold lots because they got bid up a lot.

 

i wound up getting a bunch of big $10 bronze/copper lots when I'd see at least 12 books in a lot I'd buy out of a dollar bin. I wound up re-selling the junkola out of those lots for like 20 cents a pop in mixed ebay lots (with a smattering of decent stuff mixed in).

 

and i bought some magazine lots for the old mad magazines only to "discover" that there isn't much of a market for them on ebay, although i did manage to recoup some money selling the 70's rock magazines.

[the blob]

i guess i understand hoping to sell it as a lot, but couldn't he have just contact the 100 or biggest dealers? who among us it going to buy 1 million copies of 25 cent to $3 books?

 

it's silly because he could have just put those x-men 104s (and similar books) out in stacks on tables at shows for $10 a pop (like he'd do with stuff 10 years ago --- he'd have like a stack of 50-100 copies each of the Miller Wolverine mini for $4 each or something like that) and blown them out in a year without demoralizing and destroying the market for them. 1500 copies of a comic that 95% of the collectors out there wouldn't mind another copy of is not a big deal, it's just that when you announce to the world that you plan to unload 1500 at once, it diminishes perceived value.

 

heck, my understanding is that the Koch brothers had like 15,000 copies of X-Men 137 or something like that.

[uclapeterg]

Kidding of course!! What it reminded me was the story of a famous stamp collector who had some incredibly rare stamp (one known). A second came up for auction and he purchased it and promptly lit it on fire!!!

 

[JuliusSeizure]

Good, those books are over rated anyway. I nice price adjustment is in order.

 

Well, speaking of raw copies anyway, they went down sharply in guide this year. Pretty much whacked across the board.

 

If they are over-rated I'm not quite sure why. Aren't they the best superhero comics of the period, flat-out?

Cheers,

Marc

Well, I think so. I remember being a teenager and collecting BA X-Men back issues and paying pretty well (at the time, based on my income) for most of them. This was back in the '80s, and most of those books probably fetch even less now. They're great to own, though, and take out and read.

 

A few years ago, I finally bought a VG or so copy of the #94, a book I had wanted for 20 years. What a feeling!

[joe_collector]

This was back in the '80s, and most of those books probably fetch even less now.

 

That's what I've been saying for awhile on here; the Byrne X-men run is great to own and read, but it's been a HORRIBLE investment since the 1980's. Almost as bad as Miller DD's.

[Bronty]

From the Nov. 2005 CBG:

 

"A warehouse find of one million comics (1977-81) was recently purchased by Neat Stuff Collectibles, New York. The comics, graded at Very Fine to Near Mint, were from an original comics distributors stock of titles between 1977 and 1981. "The stock is complete and intact", said Neat Stuff Sales manager Ross Koondel.

 

"They're still in the bundles and it looks like they're complete between 1977 and 1981 ... I say probably because there's so much it isn't possible for us to inspect it all before storing it."

 

The first straps that were cut yielded a pile of 1,500 copies of Uncanny X-Men #104.

 

"When was the last time someone came across something like this?" Koondel said. "That's the most exciting thing about it... When you add up all the $5, $10 and $15 comics, it's an astronomical value."

 

Koondel estimated that 80% of the comics are marvel titles, followed by DC Giant Size issues. The find includes Archie, Harvey, and any comics title distributed between 1977 and 1981. it also includes a large number of comics from smaller publishers, highlighted by late bronze age Whitmans, Koondel said. "The titles in this collection were produced just as the company was phasing out of comics, " he said.

 

The entire lot is available from Neat Stuff. "There are up to one million comics, " Koondel said. "We'll deduct 200,000 because they're housed in original distributor pallets, meaning the top and bottom books are probably damaged. but the inside has at least a VF average, and many books are mint."

 

The collection is available as a lot. Interested collectors or buyers can contact Neat Stuff Sales managers at (800) 370-3315, (267) 566-2046, or RossKoondel@yahoo.com."

 

I don't work for Neat Stuff, just thought you may find this interesting.

 

Now picture the warehouse stock that must be out there when it comes to 1984-1991 material. It'll make a million comics look like chicken feed

[joe_collector]

And that too would be dwarfed by 1991-1995 warehouse/landfill finds.

[Bronty]

Yep. 10 million comic finds would be child's play with the print runs from that era. Landfills indeed

 

Hell there's probably someone out there who has 10 million comics out of a just a few issues like X-men 1, Youngblood, Spider-man 1, etc.

[supapimp]

This was back in the '80s, and most of those books probably fetch even less now.

 

That's what I've been saying for awhile on here; the Byrne X-men run is great to own and read, but it's been a HORRIBLE investment since the 1980's. Almost as bad as Miller DD's.

 

i don't think of them as bad investments, they're just hoarded.

[the blob]

don't need 10 million comic finds when there are probably 10,000 storage rooms around the country with 250K of comics from that era in each of them. it's not like that market can get any more flooded. heck, i rarely see the '91-'94 stuff at shows anymore other than maybe some spideys, bats, x-mens and the like (and some of the early valiants). it's not worth dragging to conventions when it likely won't sell for 25 cents a book.

 

personally, i think we should just bomb iraq with long boxes of that stuff.

[joe_collector]

personally, i think we should just bomb iraq with long boxes of that stuff.

 

"Another Case of Youngblood!! Arghhh! Damn you Yankees!"

[the blob]

it's true, they'd probably just hate america even more if we dumped liefields on their heads.

 

I remember paying $5 in the early 80's from an LCS for a copy of, I think, X-Men 126 in the G/VG range. those books were so HOT that was the ONLY byrne X-Men in stock and I was a stoopid kid with $5 burning a hole in my pocket (and this was a BIG store in NYC run by an overstreet advisor). yup, a lousy investment, for sure. BUT, if you had only bough minty copies, not such a terrible investment, mainly because the spread between VG and mint back then wasn't as much. I remember going to shows a year or so later and there were stacks of pristine copies of the days of future past books (# 142?) for $5 each. this was big money for a 1 year old comic then, so I passed and went straight to the 50 cent bins. i think those would fetch more than $5 nowadays.

[joe_collector]

BUT, if you had only bough minty copies, not such a terrible investment

 

Actually it was, since in the mid to late-80's, those Byrne X-Men books were $15-$30+ NM raw. I can buy them on EBay now for less.

 

The only way to make money on them, was to buy stacks off the shelf for 30 to 40-cents a shot.