• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Advice on Selling Silver Age Collection
0

10 posts in this topic

I'm in the process of going through my dad's stash of Silver Age comics.  They hold little sentimental value to me, so I'm looking to maximize the amount of money I can get from them.  Willing to do some leg work, but don't want this to consume my days.  Looking for some advice on the best course of action.

Right now, I'm planning on selling books valued under $100 on eBay as-is.  I'll take some good pictures, add condition notes and let the auction gods do what they may.

Books above that ranging towards the 1K range, I'm looking to get cleaned and pressed, but kept raw and consigned with one of the comic auction houses.

Major keys I want to get cleaned, pressed and professionally graded, but haven't figured out the best venue to sell them.

When it comes to cleaning and pressing, is there a minimum value that you guys would risk the process for?  I'm hoping to get them pre-screened to some extent so I'm not wasting the time or money for negligible "grade" increases.

Is it worth getting comics I'm keeping raw pressed?  Should I lower my threshold for getting them professionally graded? 

I know that without sharing what I have, it may be tough to give the most accurate advice, but I'd love some general insight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Every book is a somewhat unique situation and it's hard to give general advice. 

In your situation, I would say Clean and Press the books your getting graded. Bigger keys.  

For the rest, I would do exactly what you stated. eBay, starting big of $0.99 and let the market dictate value. 

Alternativly you could work with someone like @mycomicshop. They will make you an offer for the lot which would save you allot of head ache and you could consign the bigger books. 

There are fees, but less than EBay. For someone looking to maximize value without a ton of knowledge, that's a pretty good way to go. 

As for pressing and pre screening, check out https://cfpcomics.com/

it's run by a boardie that is well respected in the field. Just remember, good work takes time. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 5/8/2021 at 1:53 PM, silveragestash said:

I'm in the process of going through my dad's stash of Silver Age comics.  They hold little sentimental value to me, so I'm looking to maximize the amount of money I can get from them.  Willing to do some leg work, but don't want this to consume my days.  Looking for some advice on the best course of action.

Right now, I'm planning on selling books valued under $100 on eBay as-is.  I'll take some good pictures, add condition notes and let the auction gods do what they may.

Books above that ranging towards the 1K range, I'm looking to get cleaned and pressed, but kept raw and consigned with one of the comic auction houses.

Major keys I want to get cleaned, pressed and professionally graded, but haven't figured out the best venue to sell them.

When it comes to cleaning and pressing, is there a minimum value that you guys would risk the process for?  I'm hoping to get them pre-screened to some extent so I'm not wasting the time or money for negligible "grade" increases.

Is it worth getting comics I'm keeping raw pressed?  Should I lower my threshold for getting them professionally graded? 

I know that without sharing what I have, it may be tough to give the most accurate advice, but I'd love some general insight.

If you want to maximise profit, then spend as little as possible on the comics. So the ones that won't be sent to CGC, just leave them be. No use pressing and cleaning those. I sold some golden age and silver age lately. I sent all comics worth above 25$ to mycomicshop.com for consignment. There, they will grade your book, take scans and sell it on their site. You can choose a "buy it now" price or to put it up on one of their auctions. comission is 10%. So around the same as E-bay but you only have to ship to them once and they do the rest, and you have 0 fear of returns since they'll handle that too. 

Also, they will ship to CGC (and CCS for cleaning and pressing those books before hand) for you if you want your books graded. 

Basically, if you want the easiest way to maximise revenue from this, I can't think of a better way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I appreciate all the insight!

There are a bunch that are no brainers for me to get cleaned up and graded, but there are some that are in this annoying middle ground.

For example, Avengers 6.  If it's a lower grade, we're looking at ~$200, up to a 4.5-5 you can add another $100 on that (I'm using GoCollect #s to determine value).  To be fair though, those are just the prices for slabbed copies.  If I send them in raw to mycomicshop, they'll assign them a grade (and I hear they are very conservative about it) so I may be missing out an some additional money if I don't get them cleaned and pressed (because the grade difference would potentially more than cover those fees).

What's the typical price difference between a raw and slabbed comic?  Am I looking at 25% less because it hasn't been entombed in plastic?  And then, with Avengers 6 once again as the example, if it's determined to be a 6.0 and above $400 FMV I'll be shelling out an additional 40 bucks to get it graded when it isn't necessarily worth that much more.

I do realize that I've asked a bit of an impossible question (and that I overthink everything).  I guess I'm still trying to figure out that middle ground where putting any money into a book doesn't make sense because the return won't cover the money spent.  Figuring out the ballpark grades as-is would probably help.

As an aside, I've reached out to a few folks about cleaning and pressing.  Still waiting to hear back from Joe at CFP because he's not too far away from me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, csaag said:

you could try this site that offers raw prices

comicspriceguide.com

As far as MCS,I never used them but I believe you have an option to set your own price regardless of the grade they give

Appreciate that resource.  Off hand do you happen to know how they update their prices?  Using Avengers 6 as an example again, there seems to be a fairly significant difference between the graded copies of the two sites.

Yep, they do have that option.  At some point they do start charging a storage fee if it doesn't sell and you don't want to reduce the price. 

From what I gather (and please correct me if I'm wrong) grading skews towards the "cover appeal" of the comic.  I'm hoping if I can find a local who can press, it may be worth it to get a better grade even if I do wind up submitting it raw.  Likely wouldn't be cost effective if I had to have them mailed back and forth though. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, silveragestash said:

Appreciate that resource.  Off hand do you happen to know how they update their prices?  Using Avengers 6 as an example again, there seems to be a fairly significant difference between the graded copies of the two sites.

Yep, they do have that option.  At some point they do start charging a storage fee if it doesn't sell and you don't want to reduce the price. 

From what I gather (and please correct me if I'm wrong) grading skews towards the "cover appeal" of the comic.  I'm hoping if I can find a local who can press, it may be worth it to get a better grade even if I do wind up submitting it raw.  Likely wouldn't be cost effective if I had to have them mailed back and forth though. 

I wouldn't use comicspriceguide.com for slab prices.     No that I've done any kind of exhaustive research but most of the times I compare their slab prices to goCollect or eBay sales or even gpaAnalysis for the 3 issues they supply free data for, it doesn't seem to be in sync with them

I also agree with shadroch that you should slab those 1k book you're thinking of consigning as raws

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
0