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

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 11/6/2022 at 6:58 PM, StarV100 said:

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.

Have you ever graded books in volume before?

[speedcake]

On 11/6/2022 at 9:58 PM, StarV100 said:

 

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.

Hopefully we hear back from OP soon regarding exactly what kind of collection we are talking about here. It's highly likely that it would be foolish for the owner to pay 6, 7, or 10 thousand dollars to have the collection organized/grade.  It could also be a steal of a deal.  Depends entirely on the books in question. 

I think most people are just assuming (probably rightfully) that the collection is mostly drek, but I'm hoping its not. Would be cool if we get a report back that its nothing but gold or silver age greatness.  I'm also realistic, and doubt very much that this is the case.

[CHASEnBLUE]

On 11/1/2022 at 11:57 AM, 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?

I'm late into the conversation, but initially I would say that depends on your overall experience in grading comics - especially of this numerical volume - in literally like a minute for each book. Cover, back, interior...then move on to the next one.

Edited November 7, 2022 by CHASEnBLUE

[jimjum12]

1. Are the books already in order ?

2. Where will this cataloguing occur ?

3. Will there be a deposit ?

.... I would need to know all of that in advance, before I said "no". GOD BLESS... 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

 

.... CGC charges $5 per on prescreens, so this is a ballpark for what they charge to grade. The rest is for encapsulation, processing, clerical demands. 

[Gaard]

On 11/7/2022 at 1:13 AM, speedcake said:

Hopefully we hear back from OP soon

I'm not sure why he's chosen not to respond.

 

[jas1vans]

I think the biggest hang-up, if I were to take this on, would be the time spent grading. I am slowly getting better and would be very uncomfortable trying to get an accurate grade in under a couple minutes. I need to take a long look, compare books that are close in grade, and read grading guidelines before I'm even ready to write down a number to second guess for ten minutes before settling on a final grade. I'm trying the quick-look method in the current grading contest and sinking like a stone.

[F For Fake]

I hope the OP works something out that's agreeable to himself and the collector, but echoing the sentiments of many, if I'm not a player to BUY the collection, I definitely don't want to spend my time grading it for someone else. Life is too short to play with someone else's comics, unless I have a chance to make them MY comics. Any price I'd charge for such a service would likely be unattractive to the collector. 

[BuscemasAvengers]

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

Wow thread blew up. Thanks for the amazing replies.

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

Have different tiers of work at different price points:

Tier 1 is straight up cataloguing and data entry at price point x 

Tier 2 is grading, as well as cataloguing at price point y.

Wish me luck 🍀 

@Snowdon Can you give us an update re. seeing the collection this weekend and your decision(s) to move/not move forward with the tasks?

[Snowdon]

On 11/7/2022 at 6:05 AM, Gaard said:

I'm not sure why he's chosen not to respond.

 

Sorry I was processing a collection I bought on Saturday. 

So update on the 12,000 collection. It's impressive- ranging from year 1970-2000. 

Fortunately, most of the books are already bag and boarded and in order. We agreed upon separating the dollar bin comics/anything of moderate value $50-200$/and big boy books. I will be putting the filler books into either CLZ or Covrprice. I told him it's not worth his time nor mine to grade the filler/ low value stuff. 

I am grading the ones that I think are worth it. Note, collector bought everything from 50cent to 1 dollar. First box I saw had 3 NM #98 raws that range from 9.4-9.8 with the naked eye....

Edited November 7, 2022 by Snowdon

[speedcake]

On 11/7/2022 at 11:30 AM, Snowdon said:

Sorry I was processing a collection I bought on Saturday. 

So update on the 12,000 collection. It's impressive- ranging from year 1970-2000. 

Fortunately, most of the books are already bag and boarded and in order. We agreed upon separating the dollar bin comics/anything of moderate value $50-200$/and big boy books. I will be putting the filler books into either CLZ or Covrprice. I told him it's not worth his time nor mine to grade the filler/ low value stuff. 

I am grading the ones that I think are worth it. Note, collector bought everything from 50cent to 1 dollar. First box I saw had 3 NM #98 raws that range from 9.4-9.8 with the naked eye....

Just entering 12k books into any database is time consuming, but not even remotely the same as pulling them all out of their bags to grade so thats a bonus.

Only pulling and grading the truly valuable stuff makes plenty of sense.  Good luck! Sounds like a fun bunch of books to comb through.

[StarV100]

On 11/6/2022 at 7:43 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Have you ever graded books in volume before?

Yes. Exactly the way I've described. I've been collecting for 60 years. Ran a comic shop in the 80's. You?

Edited November 7, 2022 by StarV100

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 11/7/2022 at 12:58 PM, StarV100 said:

Yes. Exactly the way I've described. I've been collecting for 60 years. Ran a comic shop in the 80's. You?

Just spent a couple months grading a copper age collection.  I’m only 51, so you’ve got me beat on collecting years.  I’ve never owned a shop so you’ve got me beat there too.

I’m just trying to understand the  purpose of grade ranges.  I can’t sell a book by calling it a 5.0-7.0

In my limited experience, you can’t grade a book in a minute,  and you surely can’t grade more than 1 in that time.  Maybe I’m slow....

[wardevil0]

On 11/7/2022 at 1:28 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Just spent a couple months grading a copper age collection.  I’m only 51, so you’ve got me beat on collecting years.  I’ve never owned a shop so you’ve got me beat there too.

I’m just trying to understand the  purpose of grade ranges.  I can’t sell a book by calling it a 5.0-7.0

In my limited experience, you can’t grade a book in a minute,  and you surely can’t grade more than 1 in that time.  Maybe I’m slow....

I think there are actually a lot of comics you can grade in less than a minute... most 90s drek is easily identifiable and can be quickly graded as "drek" without further attention.  There's not enough value in discriminating between an 8.5 and a 9.4 copy of Brigade 2 or New Warriors 16.

Edited November 7, 2022 by wardevil0
minor typo

[Snowdon]

Box 1 winners

[chrisco37]

Both “A” titles so it appears there is some level of sorting to the boxes, which will make things a little better for you.

[SeniorSurfer]

On 11/7/2022 at 1:46 PM, wardevil0 said:

I think there are actually a lot of comics you can grade in less than a minute... most 90s drek is easily identifiable and can be quickly graded as "drek" without further attention.  There's not enough value in discriminating between an 8.5 and a 9.4 copy of Brigade 2 or New Warriors 16.

I think I've seen that grade category...

 

[batman_fan]

I get tired after about 20-30 books

[ttfitz]

On 11/12/2022 at 10:46 AM, batman_fan said:

I get tired after about 20-30 books

Haha, yeah, I've got about 30,000 comics in my collection, and when I decided to insure the collection I figured maybe 1% of the group would have the lion's share of the value, so I pulled out the 2 or 300 hundred books I thought likely to be most valuable, and took them 10 or 15 at a time to my LCS guy to give a quick grade opinion. Took a while, but didn't tax either of us too much on effort.

[batman_fan]

On 11/12/2022 at 2:22 PM, Shake N Bake said:

I didn't see counting the pages/interior grading mentioned? That adds time...

I think you have bio a a minimum check the centerfold to make sure it isn't missing

[THE_BEYONDER]

On 11/12/2022 at 6:47 PM, batman_fan said:

I think you have bio a a minimum check the centerfold to make sure it isn't missing

And the MVS if the book has one