"These'll pay for my kid's college..." 5 5

[paperheart]

my nephew's grandfather bought a stack of Robin #1's to help pay for his college; couldn't sell them and have enough for a lunch in the cafeteria

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 12/21/2021 at 2:44 PM, paperheart said:

my nephew's grandfather bought a stack of Robin #1's to help pay for his college; couldn't sell them and have enough for a lunch in the cafeteria

 If they were all 2nd print newsstands he would have done well. (Not college money, but still would have done well.)

[WolverineX]

On 12/21/2021 at 3:35 PM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

The 1st prints do still sell and decent, but it is the later prints that really hit.

They were in sealed 2 packs and boxed sets.. (Kaybee Toys/ Toys R Us)

 

I actually looked back. It was September. 

Originally the total came to $5,350 , but he took 7 of them and I did discount a little for the bulk buy.  Total was still over $4k..

Dude, you have the best stuff.  

 

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 12/21/2021 at 2:41 PM, BigLeagueCHEW said:

Plus I still have most of the sealed packs you see in those pictures as well as many other copies of most of those books . (If CGC will bring down TAT and QC issues a lot more would be making the trip)  

The Death of Superman has done quite well for me and when almost anyone talks about 90's glut era books or over printing that set seems to be referred to a LOT. 

[lou_fine]

On 12/21/2021 at 9:58 AM, lou_fine said:

Especially after factoring in the cost for grading and selling fees along with all of the other ancillary costs to sell a book.  

Now, this is exactly what I meant by additional ancillary costs involved to get a book slabbed and sold that most tend to forget to include, but was too lazy to list out myself:  

On 12/21/2021 at 11:20 AM, BigLeagueCHEW said:

Please factor in CGC costs:

CGC membership fee

Submission form fee

Packaging cost

Shipping cost to CGC

Grading, or press and grade fees, loss of pre-screen if less than 9.8

Return shipping cost to you

Then as a seller:

Depending on what auction site you listed on (Fees for selling) Selling fee and any returns from buyers

Cost of paper and ink to print labels to buyers

Packaging material cost to buyers

Your time and effort at a standard rate (This is the biggest loss in your claimed profit)

Cost to drive to the post office, gas, wear and tear on vehicle, etc

Capital gains tax

I am sure I am missing something.

 

 

[Ablation Steve]

On 12/21/2021 at 1:40 PM, thesink said:

I get the concept of what you're saying. I just don't believe people when they have had success buying bulk comics and holding for 30 years, unless you were to tell me you had 500ish long boxes because now you've spanned books from the entire early 90's. Obviously you're going to make money on the sales side, i just don't think it offsets your costs as much as you think it does. Even your example of X-force 1 doesn't make sense, X-Force 1 in 9.8 sells for ~$100 on ebay right now. You don't have to use 90's comics to show 9.8s make $100 there are a lot of moderns that will bring in the same $100.

You're going on your gut and saying, "no, that can't be." I'm going off numbers that show I've long since paid for all of the dreck I invested in and am making strange money, even after taxes and fees.

If you net $70 for two Magneto cover, that covers 50 copies you purchased in 1991 (even accounting for inflation). The multiples seen between the $1.25 ($2.50 with inflation?) I paid wholesale and the $70 net I'm getting are so vast that it far outweighs all of the $1.25 missteps I've had, like X-Force #1. Wait, that's worth $100 ($50 net) too? Then Robin II #1, perhaps. 

I think X-Men 1 is the perfect example. In 1991 it was a terrible investment because of the sheer number. But it turned out it was a fine investment thanks to slabbing. Again, this whole thing is about "maybe the speculators (like me) were dumb for investing, but dumb luck has paid off for the patient." Basically, I was dumb but now I'm trying to revise history and tell you I'm smart!

Plus I'm having fun with the whole process. Part of the hobby.

 

[onlyweaknesskryptonite]

On 12/21/2021 at 3:06 PM, Ablation Steve said:

 

Plus I'm having fun with the whole process. Part of the hobby.

 

This right here.. 

I have done well with a lot of my 90's books

(Sure better with older or rarer)

But even outside of the monetary gains, I have kept collecting what I enjoy,  as well as finding as much joy passing on some of these to others who do it because they love it.

I too have had a lot of fun with the whole process. 

[BigLeagueCHEW]

On 12/21/2021 at 1:06 PM, Ablation Steve said:

Plus I'm having fun with the whole process. Part of the hobby.

 

I get it, if this makes you happy no hate. 

[lou_fine]

On 12/21/2021 at 9:49 AM, Ablation Steve said:

And now I have a kid who's 18, and he's in college — so it seems like a good time for a check-in. If I do a rough tally...the idea of speculation comics paying for college wasn't so far off.

 

On 12/21/2021 at 11:05 AM, Ablation Steve said:

I bought 51 copies of X-Men #1. Let's say $30 of that went into slabbing and ebay fees and taxes, sell for $100 and I'm making $70. $70 X 51 is $3500 just for those.

 

On 12/21/2021 at 11:57 AM, Ablation Steve said:

I've run the numbers, and it's worked.

Just a quick question here.................are you giving us a theoretical mathematical example here only or did you ACTUALLY sell all of your 51 copies of X-Men 1 with every single one of them grading out at CGC 9.8 and actually banked a profit of $3,500 on your X-Men 1?  

Just looking at your stated profit of $70 per book makes it kind of hard to believe when I look at your numbers here.  Especially since it looks like the minimal grading fee would be $22 per book and at least another $13 to pay for both eBay and PayPal fees if you managed to sell the book for $100, even before taxes and all of your other ancillary slabbing and selling fees.  

As mentioned already, the other critical key is that I find it rather hard to believe that every single one of your 51 copies of X-Men 1 came back in CGC 9.8 graded condition or is this only a theoretical assumption on your part, especially given the following:  

On 12/21/2021 at 11:07 AM, Qalyar said:

The typical estimate is that books off the LCS shelf -- especially in the pre-slabbing days when many LCS owners' idea of condition was much looser -- ended up 8.5-9.0.

Because if this is just a theoretical assumption on your part only, you would also have to add in another $15 at a minimum for pressing in the hopes that you just might be able to get it into shooting range of a CGC 9.8 graded copy, if you are lucky.  

Edited December 21, 2021 by lou_fine

[Axelrod]

Yeah, the issue here is that what you are saying depends almost entirely on the books you bought 30+ years ago , before CGC was even a thing, ALL being perfect copies and perfectly maintained, such that, now that CGC exists, they are ALL grading out at 9.8 for you.  It’s the magic 9.8 bump that matters here.  Because if it ain’t 9.8 everything you are saying goes out the window.

Which, more power to you if that’s the case.  I collected in the 80s when I was a kid, before CGC was a thing, and I took reasonable care of my books, yet I doubt very many, if any, would grade out at a 9.8 today.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Axelrod

[ThothAmon]

On 12/21/2021 at 3:21 PM, Ablation Steve said:

its is possible to make pretty good money from them given volume, patience, and some hustling

It’s an incredible hobby that is currently flush. A few of my recent castoffs. 
 

[Math Teacher]

On 12/21/2021 at 12:27 PM, Wolverinex said:

Unless it's a very high-grade copy,  I don't know if it could really pay off 4 years of a private school college education

Maybe a state school instead?

[Hamlet]

On 12/21/2021 at 3:29 PM, Axelrod said:

Yeah, the issue here is that what you are saying depends almost entirely on the books you bought 30+ years ago , before CGC was even a thing, ALL being perfect copies and perfectly maintained, such that, now that CGC exists, they are ALL grading out at 9.8 for you.  It’s the magic 9.8 bump that matters here.  Because if it ain’t 9.8 everything you are saying goes out the window.

Which, more power to you if that’s the case.  I collected in the 80s when I was a kid, before CGC was a thing, and I took reasonable care of my books, yet I doubt very many, if any, would grade out at a 9.8 today.

He’s not saying they all need to be 9.8s.  In his X-men 1 example, he needed two 9.8s to pay for the 50 copies he bought. The other copies aren’t worthless anymore either.  The 9.6s of the Magneto cover appear to be getting north of $60, which probably makes a little money for someone as long as they do enough volume to minimize shipping costs.  Even the raw books can be sold these days.  They aren’t pure sub-dollar box books anymore.

Obviously, most of the people who speculated with books like this off the stands did not do well.  However, it is starting to look like the people who bought the stores’ overstock out for pennies on the dollar are now sitting pretty good.

 

[Ablation Steve]

On 12/21/2021 at 2:18 PM, lou_fine said:

 

 

Just a quick question here.................are you giving us a theoretical mathematical example here only or did you ACTUALLY sell all of your 51 copies of X-Men 1 with every single one of them grading out at CGC 9.8 and actually banked a profit of $3,500 on your X-Men 1?  

Just looking at your stated profit of $70 per book makes it kind of hard to believe when I look at your numbers here.  Especially since it looks like the minimal grading fee would be $22 per book and at least another $13 to pay for both eBay and PayPal fees if you managed to sell the book for $100, even before taxes and all of your other ancillary slabbing and selling fees.  

As mentioned already, the other critical key is that I find it rather hard to believe that every single one of your 51 copies of X-Men 1 came back in CGC 9.8 graded condition or is this only a theoretical assumption on your part, especially given the following:  

Because if this is just a theoretical assumption on your part only, you would also have to add in another $15 at a minimum for pressing in the hopes that you just might be able to get it into shooting range of a CGC 9.8 graded copy, if you are lucky.  

I wonder, could I get you to concede that a person could make $20 on a $100 comic after all fees and costs are taken into account?

[MattTheDuck]

On 12/21/2021 at 2:07 PM, Ablation Steve said:

I wonder, could I get you to concede that a person could make $20 on a $100 comic after all fees and costs are taken into account?

What value are you assigning to the time you spend?

[Ablation Steve]

On 12/21/2021 at 3:14 PM, MattTheDuck said:

What value are you assigning to the time you spend?

$0. That's the hobby part of it. In short, if I were not doing this, I would not be engaging in a per-hour side hustle, because that wouldn't be fun like the hobby aspect of this. And I hate not-fun!

[MattTheDuck]

On 12/21/2021 at 2:19 PM, Ablation Steve said:

$0. That's the hobby part of it. In short, if I were not doing this, I would not be engaging in a per-hour side hustle, because that wouldn't be fun like the hobby aspect of this. And I hate not-fun!

That's reasonable, but if you're not assigning a dollar figure to your time you shouldn't be claiming to have "made" anything selling comics.  If it's just for fun, stick to describing it only that way.

[shadroch]

On 12/21/2021 at 12:05 PM, Ablation Steve said:

I bought 51 copies of X-Men #1. Let's say $30 of that went into slabbing and ebay fees and taxes, sell for $100 and I'm making $70. $70 X 51 is $3500 just for those. Spider-Man 2099 #1 is now $250, but unfortunately I only bought five of those. 10 Spawn #1, even after fees and slabbing, can get you $2000 today. That's just a square foot of space (in unslabbed form) that got me $6500. Average college would be around $13,000 a year if it followed normal inflation, so that's not a bad chunk from 66 books.

You don't need a warehouse, I've done all this on about 2 dozen long boxes (and yes, still have a bunch of drek...but the way things are going and how Marvel is launching series, everything will be valuable eventually! Cross your fingers for X-Force for me!)

Again, I know that the entire idea of slabbing was the only thing that made this happen (i.e. it didn't go the way I planned but it still happened anyway), and while people can scoff at people paying $100 for a common 9.8, that doesn't stop it from happening.

It's certainly not the efficient way to make money, but it's been fun as part of the hobby. I guess I just like challenging the idea of the foolish early 90s speculator. (Even though, in some ways, I was one)

You had me for awhile. You should have quit when you were ahead. You sold thousands of dollars worth of books but think slabbing, ebay fees and taxes run you $30 a book?  

[Ablation Steve]

On 12/21/2021 at 3:23 PM, MattTheDuck said:

That's reasonable, but if you're not assigning a dollar figure to your time you shouldn't be claiming to have "made" anything selling comics.  If it's just for fun, stick to describing it only that way.

If you're a Groening fan as your avatar suggests, you'll probably recognize the quote "Two things can be real."

I can have fun. I can make money. I can choose to not assign my time a dollar value and consider everything I make to be profit brought about by having fun.

Three things that are real.

[Ablation Steve]

On 12/21/2021 at 3:28 PM, shadroch said:

You had me for awhile. You should have quit when you were ahead. You sold thousands of dollars worth of books but think slabbing, ebay fees and taxes run you $30 a book?  

You know, I realized my mistake after hitting submit and heading to the bathroom, but I thought "you know what, I won't change it because it's a fun topic to talk about and people will have a good time discussing it and I'm sure no one will call me out on something like that."

Consider me corrected.