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

[kimik]

On 11/2/2022 at 9:25 AM, fmaz said:

On 11/2/2022 at 8:27 AM, shadroch said:

Anyone who thinks you can go thru sixty boxes and get a feel of the collection in two hours is nuts.

Where is this being done?  I assume you will be traveling to the collection, rather than the collection being delivered to your home.  since it isn't at your place, that eliminates you doing a little here and there, and now means some travel time to get to the work. 

This is a huge project and shouldn't be entered into half assed. What happens if you quit half way thru or if the owner isn't happy with your work and tells you not to come back.

Well, then I’m nuts.

I’ve taken a look at some large collections and you know in two minutes if it’s all spoon.  I’m not saying he’s going to give the owner a detailed evaluation, but in two hours he can do a quick glance and know if it’s chock-full of major keys or long runs of silver age books, or just boxes upon boxes of copper age nonsense, etc. 

My point EXACTLY the same as yours - this isn’t to be entered into half- assed. So rather than do it on the cheap, or to spend thousands of dollars cataloging books that are worthless, pay a bit of money for someone to just give a quick high-level look and say ‘yeah there’s some value here, it’s worthy of investing some time in cataloging this” or not.

At $1 per book for evaluation (which is a reasonable rate) this owner would be $12k deep into this … you’d think he’d rather spend $500 to get an estimate up front so someone could say they saw real value in this so it would be worthy of going forward.

But maybe that’s just me. Apparently, I’m nuts. 😄

Agree 100% for assessing the value quickly on collections if you have experience in buying and selling them. It is the grading book by book that will take time. It sounds like this is mostly a copper/modern collection, which will take less time to grade than a Bronze or earlier era group of books. In that case, if it is a common book that is listed at $6 or less in the guide it is not worth grading/pricing as that is $1 bin fodder.

Edited November 5, 2022 by kimik

[Aman619]

On 11/4/2022 at 11:27 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Safe/strict/reliable 

Call it what you will, but MCS seems to be becoming the CGC of the raw market. 

I get that... They are building that reputation!  We all have so many books not worth slabbing. but with enough value to not just give them away either.

[chrisco37]

It’s a Herculean task to process a collection this size (especially if you have a day job & family life to work around).  I wouldn’t do it (unless it was a Church type find) or you got paid an amount of $$$ that you couldn’t resist which is unlikely.  
If you were to do it, I wouldn’t offer anymore than “cover grade thru bag” at quick glance: Poor, Good, VG, F, VF, NM on GA/SA books.  G, F, VF/NM on bronze  & above.  True keys excepted.  
Even then, it’s going to take forever. 

Page counts, missing MVS, individual notes on each book?    Yeah, right.  

[universal soldier]

Even sending the books to MCS to grade them requires some level of pre-grading. You can't assume that all the books being sent are NM only to find out they are really a F at best...

[darkstar]

On 11/4/2022 at 6:59 PM, Aman619 said:

he doesn't have to replicate a CGC type full on grading effort.  The owner just want to know what he has. And if it happens to be valuable, is HIS copy nice enough.  So many books are worth "the same" in all grades below 9.8... not worth grading and hard to sell.

His second post literally says he needs to assign a grade to each book. 

On 11/4/2022 at 6:59 PM, Aman619 said:

 So many books are worth "the same" in all grades below 9.8

Unless it is drek, no definitely not. 

[Lightning55]

On 11/5/2022 at 12:17 AM, kimik said:

Agree 100% for assessing the value quickly on collections if you have experience in buying and selling them. It is the grading book by book that will take time. It sounds like this is mostly a copper/modern collection, which will take less time to grade than a Bronze or earlier era group of books. In that case, if it is a common book that is listed at $6 or less in the guide it is not worth grading/pricing as that is $1 bin fodder.

All types of collectibles, not just comics, can be grouped into common, uncommon, and rare.  You can't spend $1-$2 to grade and catalogue a very common $1 book.  And unless this is a very valuable collection in general, all gold and silver, there is a good chance that over half of this 12,000 comic collection is very low value stuff.  

In each title, you can use guides to determine what is negligible, not worth even cursory grading.  Those can be catalogued only, just so that you know you have it, grade left blank, to be determined later if it becomes an in-demand comic.  That can be done very quickly.  How many Marvel Two-In-One would you really have to grade?  Even 3 long boxes of a great title like Amazing Spider-Man will have low value stuff toward the back of the run.  Your time is spent on the good stuff, which might be only 3-4 thousand instead of 12.  You would try to base a price on that amount of work.

[shadroch]

On 11/4/2022 at 7:50 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

“Inventory”

Maybe I’m assuming again, but I don’t think the owner is paying to have the  collection graded, so he can sell it as a wholesale lot for pennies on the dollar to you.

I don’t know about you, but I have to grade my books before I sell them 

So the plan is to sell 12,000 books individually. Good luck. do you have a job and will be selling them a couple a day?  Put a 100 a week on ebay?  Give up your weekends and become a comic dealer?

[shadroch]

On 11/5/2022 at 9:49 AM, Lightning55 said:

All types of collectibles, not just comics, can be grouped into common, uncommon, and rare.  You can't spend $1-$2 to grade and catalogue a very common $1 book.  And unless this is a very valuable collection in general, all gold and silver, there is a good chance that over half of this 12,000 comic collection is very low value stuff.  

In each title, you can use guides to determine what is negligible, not worth even cursory grading.  Those can be catalogued only, just so that you know you have it, grade left blank, to be determined later if it becomes an in-demand comic.  That can be done very quickly.  How many Marvel Two-In-One would you really have to grade?  Even 3 long boxes of a great title like Amazing Spider-Man will have low value stuff toward the back of the run.  Your time is spent on the good stuff, which might be only 3-4 thousand instead of 12.  You would try to base a price on that amount of work.

Again, the job is to catalog the collection. Not to cherry pick the best books.

[kimik]

On 11/5/2022 at 11:19 AM, shadroch said:

So the plan is to sell 12,000 books individually. Good luck. do you have a job and will be selling them a couple a day?  Put a 100 a week on ebay?  Give up your weekends and become a comic dealer?

It is not that difficult to move 12,000 books if you just do one show a month. Blow out the drek at $1 apiece and just grade/price the worthwhile ones. You would be surprised at how many books you can sell quickly. Big shows are great. You will sell a few thousand in $1 books at 3-4 day shows and then find someone to take the rest at the end of it. 

At this point as a collector that buys too much and is a part time seller I am getting lazy and am using $1 or $2 boxes for cheap stuff and then $5 boxes for $5-$15 value drek/common late bronze through modern books. You blow out the common books quick to cover the cost of the purchase (and to clear out space to appease your wife ), then can sit on the better books for the longer term. 

[Turnando]

On 11/5/2022 at 11:20 AM, shadroch said:

Again, the job is to catalog the collection. Not to cherry pick the best books.

I think a client would want an expert to let them know about the 10,000 books that can be dismissed as too cheap to look at for more than 5 seconds.  That is cherry picking, in a way.

If I had the job I'd spend a day culling the drek and ask the client to dig through that on their own to put aside anything they think is cool... and get rid of the rest.

Then I'd do the job they are asking for but only on the remaining minority of the1 books.

I think cherry picking is in the client's best interest, even if they don't ask for that.  They might be a hoarder who needs an intervention

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 11/2/2022 at 10:11 PM, Snowdon said:

My plan of attack is: see the collection this weekend.

[mrwoogieman]

Man, I haven't heard of an "opportunity" this good since our neighbor up the road wanted me and my buddy to whitewash his basement when we were twelve.

[shadroch]

On 11/5/2022 at 9:49 AM, Lightning55 said:

All types of collectibles, not just comics, can be grouped into common, uncommon, and rare.  You can't spend $1-$2 to grade and catalogue a very common $1 book.  And unless this is a very valuable collection in general, all gold and silver, there is a good chance that over half of this 12,000 comic collection is very low value stuff.  

In each title, you can use guides to determine what is negligible, not worth even cursory grading.  Those can be catalogued only, just so that you know you have it, grade left blank, to be determined later if it becomes an in-demand comic.  That can be done very quickly.  How many Marvel Two-In-One would you really have to grade?  Even 3 long boxes of a great title like Amazing Spider-Man will have low value stuff toward the back of the run.  Your time is spent on the good stuff, which might be only 3-4 thousand instead of 12.  You would try to base a price on that amount of work.

If you did that to a 12,000 book collection ten years ago, and only graded the good stuff how many $500 books today would you have missed?  How many books like Spiderman 361 did you grade? Avenging Spiderman 9s? How many books have exploded in value that would sitting still unsorted because you didn't think they were worth cataloging.  

It is not uncommon for a very common book to take off in price. You don't know the future.  While cleaning up, I found a copy of Foom . I think it was #17. Anyway, it is the Kirby issue and I had it priced at $5. I'm guessing I priced it around 1993 and when it didn't sell , I put it away. I'm thinking KIrby has gotten a growing cult so maybe it is worth $30-$35.  Turns out it is the first appearence of Star-Lord, who went on to be an overnite success 25 years later. 

[MattTheDuck]

On 11/5/2022 at 6:14 PM, mrwoogieman said:

Man, I haven't heard of an "opportunity" this good since our neighbor up the road wanted me and my buddy to whitewash his basement when we were twelve.

Was his name Gacy by any chance?

[Lightning55]

On 11/5/2022 at 1:20 PM, shadroch said:

Again, the job is to catalog the collection. Not to cherry pick the best books.

It IS cataloguing the collection.  Just not grading every book regardless of value.  Like I said, it's foolish to spend $1+ in time to grade a $1 book.

[Lightning55]

On 11/6/2022 at 1:28 AM, shadroch said:

If you did that to a 12,000 book collection ten years ago, and only graded the good stuff how many $500 books today would you have missed?  How many books like Spiderman 361 did you grade? Avenging Spiderman 9s? How many books have exploded in value that would sitting still unsorted because you didn't think they were worth cataloging.  

It is not uncommon for a very common book to take off in price.

Again, they all get catalogued, just not grading the bottom of the barrel in value.  It's not like they are going anywhere.  If some shoot up in value, and you are aware of that, you pull them at that time and grade them if you wish.  To grade any number of thousands of low level comics is overkill, and a budget buster.  Let them get graded at the time they prove their worth.  If the collection isn't going anywhere, you can spread your processing dollars out over time, and only where merited.  If it's being sold right away, the drek comics aren't going to explode in value in the time they are being sold, so you are just grading them for someone else, who will also get almost no benefit from the investment.  It depends on what the owner wants to do, and how deep his pockets are.  Some people are rich enough or dumb enough to overspend.

Edited November 6, 2022 by Lightning55

[FlyingDonut]

On 11/5/2022 at 12:49 PM, Lightning55 said:

All types of collectibles, not just comics, can be grouped into common, uncommon, and rare.  You can't spend $1-$2 to grade and catalogue a very common $1 book.  And unless this is a very valuable collection in general, all gold and silver, there is a good chance that over half of this 12,000 comic collection is very low value stuff.  

In each title, you can use guides to determine what is negligible, not worth even cursory grading.  Those can be catalogued only, just so that you know you have it, grade left blank, to be determined later if it becomes an in-demand comic.  That can be done very quickly.  How many Marvel Two-In-One would you really have to grade?  Even 3 long boxes of a great title like Amazing Spider-Man will have low value stuff toward the back of the run.  Your time is spent on the good stuff, which might be only 3-4 thousand instead of 12.  You would try to base a price on that amount of work.

All of them, based on the customer specifications literally the second post of the request.

[Lightning55]

On 11/6/2022 at 7:51 PM, FlyingDonut said:

All of them, based on the customer specifications literally the second post of the request.

Yes, and that's where you have the conversation about useful results vs. cost. 

If they want to pay for the full ride, pay more to grade something than it's worth, it's their money to waste.  For those comics, you would lose less money shredding them.  If you can handle shredding them without asking for "help", paying also for that service.  Donating sounds cheaper.

I think the owner of the collection would appreciate options that don't total $25,000, but I could be wrong.  Maybe he's a billionaire.  And we don't know the nature of this virtual collection - maybe no "junk" at all.

 

[Pat Thomas]

Personally, I don't view the process of organizing, grading, and recording a collection as some kind of backbreaking job to avoid at all costs. I've done one about the same size OP is talking about just a few years ago, so I absolutely realize how much time is involved. And even though it isn't hard labor type work, every so often there are spurts where you must move and re-arrange heavy boxes for a couple of hours. But then it's back to sorting and recording for a few days until it's time to integrate the latest batches into the completed area. Provided I'm not under a time frame to finish and can go at my own pace, I actually kind of enjoy messing with comics. I enjoy the mystery of going through a stack, and because I'm mostly an optimist, expecting to come across something spectacular that I would've never seen otherwise. Since it seems to me that everybody here at least agrees that nobody would be willing to pay the true value of the time and expertise required to even do a job of this magnitude, maybe it would be in OP's best interest to discuss some comics he would accept to lower the cash price. It's several months of work as a full time job. If it's a night and weekend thing, it could take a year to do it. If it sounds like a horrible ordeal, don't even start it.

[StarV100]

This is a job in 2 parts: cataloging and grading. 

Cataloging: Hire a young (teenage) comic enthusiast (so they know to be careful) to put it all into an Excel spreadsheet. Spend an hour with them to establish ground rules, handling standards and naming conventions. Lots of teenagers would JUMP at the chance to earn $20 an hour to mess around with a comic book collection. Once the spreadsheet is set up, they could easily do a couple of hundred an hour. So that's $1200. 

Grading: The owner wants some level of grading which is clearly going to be way below CGC standards. I would provide grade ranges, not exact grades for the money range we are discussing. Maybe 4 categories:  2.0 - 5.0; 5.0 to 7.0; 7.0 to 9.0 and above 9.0. Personally, I wouldn't want to set expectations with the client at any more exactitude than that. Based on a system like that, I would bet you could run through 1 or 2 books a minute, maybe more. Have the teenager as a grading partner to stage the books for you and enter your spoken range into the spreadsheet, and you might bump that rate to 3 a minute.  High value books would be referred to higher levels of grading. If the grading job is valued at $50 / hr. that's $5,000 - $10,000 plus the higher grading referral cost. With the teenager, you might get it to around $4500. Remember, CGC would charge 6-figure money to grade this stuff.

A lot of people here are balking at $1 - $2 per book. But that's a tiny fraction of CGC grading, for a corresponding fraction of the certainty of grade. But the owner can't expect grading for nothing. You have to price the job based on what your time is worth to you. But all in, I think you might get it done for $6,000 - $7,000.