I have the opportunity to catalogue a client’s 12,000 size book collection. How much should I charge. 6 6

[Snowdon]

Does anyone have a going rate on how much they would charge? I’m thinking it would be $50/hr or a one time project fee?

Thoughts or suggestions?

[BuscemasAvengers]

Would 'catalogue' simply mean identifying which books the owner has? Does he/she expect the raw books to be assigned a grade? Would part of the cataloguing process include bagging, boarding and proper storage?

[Snowdon]

In this case, they are all bag and boarded. It would be to put into a database, assign a grade, separated into Canadian Price Variant/ News Stand

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 11/1/2022 at 2:57 PM, Snowdon said:

Does anyone have a going rate on how much they would charge? I’m thinking it would be $50/hr or a one time project fee?

Thoughts or suggestions?

$50/hr to grade/make notes?

[bc]

On 11/1/2022 at 3:12 PM, Snowdon said:

In this case, they are all bag and boarded. It would be to put into a database, assign a grade, separated into Canadian Price Variant/ News Stand

If there are 12,000 books, and lets say you can "process" one book per minute, then you have 200 hours worth of labor.

At $50/hr, that would be a $10,000 job.

If it takes 2 minutes to process each book, then it's a $20,000 job (for every extra minute it takes to process a book, the job cost keeps going up $10K).

How does this compare to the perceived value of the collection?

-bc

[Lightning55]

On 11/1/2022 at 3:31 PM, bc said:

If there are 12,000 books, and lets say you can "process" one book per minute, then you have 200 hours worth of labor.

At $50/hr, that would be a $10,000 job.

-bc

I was typing that exact example, almost word for word, but you beat me to it.

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 11/1/2022 at 3:31 PM, bc said:

If there are 12,000 books, and lets say you can "process" one book per minute, then you have 200 hours worth of labor.

At $50/hr, that would be a $10,000 job.

If it takes 2 minutes to process each book, then it's a $20,000 job (for every extra minute it takes to process a book, the job cost keeps going up $10K).

How does this compare to the perceived value of the collection?

-bc

It’s a 2 minute minimum IMO

[Lightning55]

Maybe you do 1 title for an agreed price, and study the time and effort metrics.  Dip a toe in before diving in.

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 11/1/2022 at 3:36 PM, Lightning55 said:

Maybe you do 1 title for an agreed price, and study the time and effort metrics.  Dip a toe in before diving in.

This is a good idea.  Especially if the books to be graded are mid-grade.  I spent 2 months pricing/grading a copper age collection where most of the books had never even been opened.  Much easier to grade stacks of 9.0+ books than stacks of mid-grade Silver. 

[Galen130]

Beer and pizza fee…

[BigLeagueCHEW]

On 11/1/2022 at 12:34 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

It’s a 2 minute minimum IMO

In the CGC QA department, it's a slide across the desk from encapsulation to shipping department, zero seconds needed 

Edited November 1, 2022 by BigLeagueCHEW

[Snowdon]

Awesome thanks for the great suggestions all

[kav]

On 11/1/2022 at 1:23 PM, Snowdon said:

Awesome thanks for the great suggestions all

whatever you do get money upfront-maybe 1/2 i dont know.  had a buddy got stiffed after valuating a collection.

[D84]

First off, ask for a time period of the books. If it's 90s comics, your price for time might be worth more than the collection. 

Instead of hourly, I'd charge per book.

Say a book takes you 2 minutes (probably longer to do grading and data entry) to catalog, figure out what you want per hour, and divide that number accordingly. 

Also, will you be using a software like CLZ or would it be an Excel spreadsheet? If you have to setup the spreadsheet, I'd add that into cost per book.

[shadroch]

$1 a book.

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 11/1/2022 at 5:08 PM, D84 said:

First off, ask for a time period of the books. If it's 90s comics, your price for time might be worth more than the collection. 

Instead of hourly, I'd charge per book.

Say a book takes you 2 minutes (probably longer to do grading and data entry) to catalog, figure out what you want per hour, and divide that number accordingly. 

Also, will you be using a software like CLZ or would it be an Excel spreadsheet? If you have to setup the spreadsheet, I'd add that into cost per book.

Were I the owner of the collection, I’d be weary about paying a per book cost.  Yes, it tells me exactly how much it will cost & eliminates the worries of it taking longer/costing more than expected, but it leaves very little incentive for the hired grader to do a good job.

Edited November 1, 2022 by THE_BEYONDER

[MattTheDuck]

This is the kind of job it seems to me could expand to fill the time allotted to complete it.  For instance, you could give each book a general once-over and provide a general grade, or you could make sure every book was complete by counting pages and carefully review for restoration.  Etc, etc, etc. 

If you decide to proceed, I suggest you get some kind of agreement on paper, particularly some kind of YMMV on the grading.  You don't want this person coming back and trying to get $ from you because he sent a book in and it came back 6.0 when you said it was an 8.0.  Or to make it clear you're doing a general review of the books that doesn't include finding every interior problem (if that's what you think you'll do).

[KCOComics]

On 11/1/2022 at 3:12 PM, Snowdon said:

In this case, they are all bag and boarded. It would be to put into a database, assign a grade, separated into Canadian Price Variant/ News Stand

Do you plan to take them out to grade them or just give an approximation based on the cover? 

 

I bought a 5k comic book collection a few years ago and my brother and I had to bag, board, grade and record every issue (using excel).  It's time consuming!  Though having them bagged and boarded is a big plus. 

I would think of it as a labor of love.  I would probably charge them a 1 time of fee of a few hundred bucks (or some nicer comics you might want) and have them throw in pizza and beer.

It won't be a good financial return on your time, but I look at it as one collector helping another. 

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 11/1/2022 at 9:24 PM, KCOComics said:

Do you plan to take them out to grade them or just give an approximation based on the cover? 

 

I bought a 5k comic book collection a few years ago and my brother and I had to bag, board, grade and record every issue (using excel).  It's time consuming!  Though having them bagged and boarded is a big plus. 

I would think of it as a labor of love.  I would probably charge them a 1 time of fee of a few hundred bucks (or some nicer comics you might want) and have them throw in pizza and beer.

It won't be a good financial return on your time, but I look at it as one collector helping another. 

It’s 12,000 books being graded and catalogued.  It’s not like he’s being asked to help move a couch 

Edited November 2, 2022 by THE_BEYONDER

[Tnexus]

If it's a lot of runs where you can copy paste a lot of info, then it may not be too bad. However, if it's random, $50 an hour seems very fair. That's a lot more work than most people think.