Did u change from Collector to Flipper? 5 5

[Randall Dowling]

On 1/27/2022 at 12:35 AM, Rob said:

Obviously. That would be ridiculous. I understand that just coming back to the hobby after several years, I have some re-educating to do. Not looking to drop $50,000 this weekend. Was looking for advice on how others calculate value by browsing a lot or collection.  Is each book added up in your head, or are you figuring an avg per book for the whole lot. 

I'll share what I would do, if that helps.  I do a once through the collection quickly identifying the most valuable books and, usually, the next tier down of value.  I do a quick calculation in my head for what that number is.  I then do an approximation of percentage of the rest and what their average value is.  Based upon condition, current demand, and how I plan on selling the books, I calculate a reasonable percentage of the total value that I'm willing to pay that rewards my time, knowledge, and willingness to sink money temporarily into the collection while trying not to take unfair advantage of the current owner.

I then explain all of these factors in an understandable way and make it clear that I have to make something or else it's not worth my time or money to purchase.  I further explain that if I'm dramatically off in my calculation and the books go for considerably more, I'll return with additional compensation.  If I'm wrong and the books go for much less, that's on me.  Most people find this more than fair and are glad for the help.  A few will believe they're sitting on a gold mine and insist on getting full market value.  To which I wish them luck and we part ways.

Credit where it's due, some of these aspects I learned from Gary @Moondog and have been made better for it.  There are a few, but not many, comic dealers that handle themselves with similar integrity.  

[FlyingDonut]

On 1/27/2022 at 1:35 AM, Rob said:

Obviously. That would be ridiculous. I understand that just coming back to the hobby after several years, I have some re-educating to do. Not looking to drop $50,000 this weekend. Was looking for advice on how others calculate value by browsing a lot or collection.  Is each book added up in your head, or are you figuring an avg per book for the whole lot. 

A little of both. You should be able to say "ok, this pile is full of commons, which I will sell for $X, so I will pay no more than a percentage of $X" and "this is a key which I will sell for $X, so I will pay this percentage of $X" and so on. It sounds hard but with practice it gets easier.

[Rob]

Thanks guys, very helpful.  That's about what I figured.  Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing any tips.  I've been selling on eBay for over 25 years, so I consider myself pretty knowledgeable on reselling.  I've bought vintage toy collections before, just not comics.  Appreciate it.

[FlyingDonut]

On 1/27/2022 at 1:37 PM, Rob said:

Thanks guys, very helpful.  That's about what I figured.  Just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing any tips.  I've been selling on eBay for over 25 years, so I consider myself pretty knowledgeable on reselling.  I've bought vintage toy collections before, just not comics.  Appreciate it.

If you've bought vintage toy collections it is the same process, and you're where I am when there are toys involved in a comic buy.

[Mr. Zipper]

On 11/11/2021 at 10:54 AM, ramrodcar said:

They're the same thing, just one has a more positive connotation. I call myself the later, my wife would call me the former

 

I disagree. A collector has focus and discipline. An accumulator does not.

In my experience, most collectors start as accumulators, and mature into seasoned collectors. 

[Rob]

OK, bought my first collection and need some advice on selling them.  Figured I'd add to this thread than start a new one.  Few questions:

• Mylar and fullbacks on ALL bronze/silver books you sell, or can I use BCW bags & boards on the comics under $50?  I have hundreds, and with the price of mylars and fullbacks now (I'm paying what I have to just to get some), I'd rather use BCW when I can.
• What do you use for pricing raw comics?  I know Overstreet isn't of much use in these times.  eBay completed sales?  GPA for similar grade, or no?
• When listing and selling hundreds of comics, do you open and inspect each one, or just roll the dice and offer refunds if there's an issue.  Again, talking about under $50 comics.  I'll check every page of the good ones.

[ThothAmon]

On 4/9/2022 at 9:29 PM, Rob said:

OK, bought my first collection and need some advice on selling them.  Figured I'd add to this thread than start a new one.  Few questions:

• Mylar and fullbacks on ALL bronze/silver books you sell, or can I use BCW bags & boards on the comics under $50?  I have hundreds, and with the price of mylars and fullbacks now (I'm paying what I have to just to get some), I'd rather use BCW when I can.
• What do you use for pricing raw comics?  I know Overstreet isn't of much use in these times.  eBay completed sales?  GPA for similar grade, or no?
• When listing and selling hundreds of comics, do you open and inspect each one, or just roll the dice and offer refunds if there's an issue.  Again, talking about under $50 comics.  I'll check every page of the good ones.

BCW. 

Ebay completed sales. 

Open and inspect while taking photographs unless they’re all original owner who didn’t like scissors or your confident the books are complete  

If you want to move the less expensive items quickly list them at auction starting at $39, what doesn’t sell relist at auction for $19 and so on until they’ve all sold. It’s a lot of work but hopefully a labor of love and profit. Good luck. 

[darkstar]

Hasn't selling within the hobby to support your hobby always been the point of the exercise? 

[Mr. Zipper]

On 4/10/2022 at 11:56 AM, darkstar said:

Hasn't selling within the hobby to support your hobby always been the point of the exercise? 

Not always. The internet lowered the barriers to entry and made it super easy for anyone to be a "dealer." In the past you actually had to know something about comics before becoming a dealer. 

There were bad dealers in the past, but now... my God. Half of the sellers have no idea what they are doing. Check out a Facebook selling group if you have strong stomach...   you have "Facebook dealers" getting their submissions back from CGC and complaining that CGC left "extra pieces of plastic inside of their slab." They are referring to the spacer inserts!!   They think PGX is the equivalent of the other two. They are pressing everything in sight with no practice or training. They literally know NOTHING about the hobby and the product they are selling. I wish these gold rush fools would move on already. 

 

[Gaard]

On 4/10/2022 at 11:56 AM, darkstar said:

Hasn't selling within the hobby to support your hobby always been the point of the exercise? 

Yeah, sold many via CBG.

[darkstar]

On 4/10/2022 at 12:32 PM, Mosh It Up said:

Not if you're financially stable. I have 13,000 comics and haven't sold one in over 25 years 

You could have 26,000 comics by now if in your travels to buy books you wanted for your collection you also picked up undervalued books that you had no interest in keeping. Has nothing to do with being financially stable. If you can make money doing something you enjoy, like flipping through a longbox, it is probably worth your time to do so. 

[shadroch]

On 11/8/2021 at 10:41 PM, ramrodcar said:

for all of you "switchers", I'm curious how you've isolated your personal collection inventory vs. your selling inventory, as well as tracking cost of goods sold/cash basis accounting/accrual accounting, etc....... How are you guys accounting for buying up say 100 books  @ $100 total, keeping 5 for yourself, and slowly selling off the remaining 95 books?

I can't speak for others but if I buy a collection of 300 books for $3,000, keep 15 for myself and sell 285 books, each book has a cost of $10.  100 books for $100, and I sell 95 of them? The rest amount to a rounding error.

[darkstar]

On 4/10/2022 at 1:28 PM, Mosh It Up said:

"Undervalued books"  why would I want such a headache? I'm not a dirty speculator  I don't need to flip books because I'm financially stable. I have about 20 books on my Want List, why would I want 13,000 more copies of drek?

What headache? What speculation? Who said anything about flipping books because they are or are not financially stable? What drek? 

Do people actually read what is written in posts on here and internalize it or do they just hit the quote button and respond with a stream of consciousness word salad? 

[darkstar]

On 4/10/2022 at 1:44 PM, Mosh It Up said:

Did you forget what you wrote 

I know exactly what I wrote, I'm questioning how your takeaway from it was that I suggest you missed an opportunity to accumulate 13,000 copies of drek. 

[darkstar]

On 4/10/2022 at 1:48 PM, Mosh It Up said:

 

 

Drek isn't defined as something you personally hold no interest in. Do better. 

[darkstar]

On 4/10/2022 at 1:50 PM, Mosh It Up said:

Ah, so you do understand. Just being obtuse, huh? Be better.

No, see you couldn't figure out that the point was to resell the undervalued books after acquiring them. Not simply pick them up and hold them. And then in turn you would use the profits to buy books you wanted, so your collection would be significantly larger than your 13,000 count today.  

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 4/10/2022 at 2:53 PM, darkstar said:

No, see you couldn't figure out that the point was to resell the undervalued books after acquiring them. Not simply pick them up and hold them. And then in turn you would use the profits to buy books you wanted, so your collection would be significantly larger than your 13,000 count today.  

He doesn’t sell books

[darkstar]

On 4/10/2022 at 1:55 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

He doesn’t sell books

because HE'S FINANCIALLY STABLE!

[darkstar]

On 4/10/2022 at 2:00 PM, Mosh It Up said:

And I told you I'm not a dirty flipper and doing this would be a giant headache and I don't want to accumulate 13,000 copies of drek. Why are you so dense?

Then I told you I have 20 books on my Want List and since I'm financially stable I will just buy the books. I have no need to flip books to pay for books.

God you're a fanboy  I told you I'm only looking for about 20 more comics, total. Why would I want 13,000 more random comics (aka drek) that aren't on my Want List?

Sad 

The post below is your first post in response to mine, wherein I suggested someone could fund this hobby solely through buying and selling within. Nowhere did I mention speculation. Recognizing undervalued books as you come across them and picking up on market inefficiencies isn't speculation, it is what dealers do. 

On 4/10/2022 at 12:32 PM, Mosh It Up said:

Not if you're financially stable. I have 13,000 comics and haven't sold one in over 25 years 

Nowhere in your post above did you mention you were only looking for 20 more comics. A collection of 13,000 books suggests you enjoy a lot of comics, why would you think after throwing out that number that someone would be able to ascertain you only had an interest in acquiring 20 more? Why would you think anyone cares about your personal situation at all? It's meaningless nonsense and noise.

On 4/10/2022 at 12:50 PM, darkstar said:

You could have 26,000 comics by now if in your travels to buy books you wanted for your collection you also picked up undervalued books that you had no interest in keeping. Has nothing to do with being financially stable. If you can make money doing something you enjoy, like flipping through a longbox, it is probably worth your time to do so. 

The point of the 26,000 figure cited here is that over the years your collection, as in not drek (although you are using the word incorrectly, attributing it to books in which you have no personal interest, as opposed to using it to refer to books that have little to no value on the market), could be significantly larger if you spent time reselling books you came across in the wild or picked up in collections, and used those funds to buy more books YOU wanted. Nowhere in this post did I mention speculation or acquiring drek.

On 4/10/2022 at 1:28 PM, Mosh It Up said:

"Undervalued books"  why would I want such a headache? I'm not a dirty speculator  I don't need to flip books because I'm financially stable. I have about 20 books on my Want List, why would I want 13,000 more copies of drek?

Over the years if you made the effort to resell the found undervalued books that you didn't want, as opposed to dismissing them because you incorrectly viewed them as drek, you would already have enough money to pay for those 20 missing books in your collection.

I don't know why you are injecting your personal situation to denounce a general approach to the hobby that works wonders for most people (as in buying and selling within the hobby to pay for the hobby), but perhaps you should just go be financially stable somewhere else, thanks. 

[darkstar]

On 4/10/2022 at 2:02 PM, Mosh It Up said:

Don't be jelly. 

Utilizing an outdated youth internet vocabulary is, to use an even more recent outdated word popular with the youths, cringe. Insert SteveBuscemiskateboard.gif