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Question about moving huge lot of modern books
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11 posts in this topic

I'm not too familiar with modern books. I've been a collector for several decades, but I've only collected silver and bronze books.

A month ago a friend That I hadn't spoken to in years contacted me because her husband passed unexpectedly and she wanted help trying to sell his comic collection. I looked thru everything and it's over 3,000 books, 90% modern (the rest are mostly copper).

There aren't any real keys of note (no UF4, Walking Dead 1, etc). The collection looks to be mostly $1 to $5 books from what I can tell. It's a mix of DC and Marvel and Indie... some superman, flash, batman, Wolverine, x-men, punisher, thor, etc. Even though I don't collect modern, I think I have a pretty good idea of what the medium to bigger keys are and I'm not seeing any of them in this collection. 

No real runs either. It's mostly just random issues from various titles. 

Blows my mind that someone would spend that much money on nothing of real substance, but whatever, to each his own.

Anyway, any tips on how to move this many low $ books at once? Years back I tried to help someone sell 4 long boxes of modern stuff (similar titles) at a yard sale (with Craigslist advertisement) and we moved only about 250 books for around $300. So yeah they were priced super cheap, but we were stuck w the majority of the books left and honestly the $250 was barely worth the effort we had put into the whole thing.

My friend wants to get rid of all the books, but she also thinks they're worth thousands ($1 a book for 3k comics is $3k right!?? Lol). 

I know the reality of the situation though, a lot of these books will be hard to move for even $1. All about finding the right person or persons who wants all this stuff. 

So to summarize, she doesn't want them back, she wants them all gone. Do I just go the yardsale/ Craigslist route again and hope for the best? Any other suggestions or how to move low dollar modern books in this volume???

Edited by UncleAnwar
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You are talking about a lot of work for very little return. Unless I knew this friend well I would be very honest with them and tell them to do what you are doing. You can set up at a flea market and you will sell some books that same way as your garage sale. You can also place an add in Facebook marketplace. Honestly thought until you get the wife to accept she is not going to get much return you are going to have problems. 

 

Edited by fastballspecial
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Moving 10 long boxes of moderns, without any keys is the easiest thing in the world. 

Are there any $50+ books to pull, and send to mycomicshop for consignment? Answer, no. So 2nd step is to take a handful of pics, list on the big free sites for local sale. Offerup, and craigslist. Gently explain modern bulk sells for a box price to the friend. Have them pull a few books they may want to keep for themselves, if any. And list the 10 boxes  for $500, assuming it has a lot of marveland dc. If it is mostly indie, mayble lower lot price. Books will be sold before dinner time.

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On 12/30/2022 at 11:12 PM, UncleAnwar said:

I'm not too familiar with modern books. I've been a collector for several decades, but I've only collected silver and bronze books.

A month ago a friend That I hadn't spoken to in years contacted me because her husband passed unexpectedly and she wanted help trying to sell his comic collection. I looked thru everything and it's over 3,000 books, 90% modern (the rest are mostly copper).

There aren't any real keys of note (no UF4, Walking Dead 1, etc). The collection looks to be mostly $1 to $5 books from what I can tell. It's a mix of DC and Marvel and Indie... some superman, flash, batman, Wolverine, x-men, punisher, thor, etc. Even though I don't collect modern, I think I have a pretty good idea of what the medium to bigger keys are and I'm not seeing any of them in this collection. 

No real runs either. It's mostly just random issues from various titles. 

Blows my mind that someone would spend that much money on nothing of real substance, but whatever, to each his own.

Anyway, any tips on how to move this many low $ books at once? Years back I tried to help someone sell 4 long boxes of modern stuff (similar titles) at a yard sale (with Craigslist advertisement) and we moved only about 250 books for around $300. So yeah they were priced super cheap, but we were stuck w the majority of the books left and honestly the $250 was barely worth the effort we had put into the whole thing.

My friend wants to get rid of all the books, but she also thinks they're worth thousands ($1 a book for 3k comics is $3k right!?? Lol). 

I know the reality of the situation though, a lot of these books will be hard to move for even $1. All about finding the right person or persons who wants all this stuff. 

So to summarize, she doesn't want them back, she wants them all gone. Do I just go the yardsale/ Craigslist route again and hope for the best? Any other suggestions or how to move low dollar modern books in this volume???

Where are you located?

 

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On 1/5/2023 at 8:20 AM, gcstomp said:

Moving 10 long boxes of moderns, without any keys is the easiest thing in the world. 

Are there any $50+ books to pull, and send to mycomicshop for consignment? Answer, no. So 2nd step is to take a handful of pics, list on the big free sites for local sale. Offerup, and craigslist. Gently explain modern bulk sells for a box price to the friend. Have them pull a few books they may want to keep for themselves, if any. And list the 10 boxes  for $500, assuming it has a lot of marveland dc. If it is mostly indie, mayble lower lot price. Books will be sold before dinner time.

Is $50 the bulk rate per long box now? I know a couple of years ago folks talked about $20-25, but I know things jumped the last few years.

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On 12/31/2022 at 12:12 AM, UncleAnwar said:

 

Blows my mind that someone would spend that much money on nothing of real substance, but whatever, to each his own.

 

You don't know if he had been selling off the good stuff for years and this is what was left. If he's like me an a cheap box diver I could see this, but you'd accidentally have some good books in there even doing that.

Definitely a concern of mine. I have bought a lot of stuff just for whatever reason on the cheap to kill time or to aid my diet (spend my lunch money on comics), sometimes it works out great like when I bought every copy of spawn over issue 75 I'd ever see for $1 (actually 65 cents at my old shop), but the vacuum cleaner approach brought in lots of drek too.

 

 

Edited by the blob
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On 12/30/2022 at 10:12 PM, UncleAnwar said:

I'm not too familiar with modern books. I've been a collector for several decades, but I've only collected silver and bronze books.

A month ago a friend That I hadn't spoken to in years contacted me because her husband passed unexpectedly and she wanted help trying to sell his comic collection. I looked thru everything and it's over 3,000 books, 90% modern (the rest are mostly copper).

There aren't any real keys of note (no UF4, Walking Dead 1, etc). The collection looks to be mostly $1 to $5 books from what I can tell. It's a mix of DC and Marvel and Indie... some superman, flash, batman, Wolverine, x-men, punisher, thor, etc. Even though I don't collect modern, I think I have a pretty good idea of what the medium to bigger keys are and I'm not seeing any of them in this collection. 

No real runs either. It's mostly just random issues from various titles. 

Blows my mind that someone would spend that much money on nothing of real substance, but whatever, to each his own.

Anyway, any tips on how to move this many low $ books at once? Years back I tried to help someone sell 4 long boxes of modern stuff (similar titles) at a yard sale (with Craigslist advertisement) and we moved only about 250 books for around $300. So yeah they were priced super cheap, but we were stuck w the majority of the books left and honestly the $250 was barely worth the effort we had put into the whole thing.

My friend wants to get rid of all the books, but she also thinks they're worth thousands ($1 a book for 3k comics is $3k right!?? Lol). 

I know the reality of the situation though, a lot of these books will be hard to move for even $1. All about finding the right person or persons who wants all this stuff. 

So to summarize, she doesn't want them back, she wants them all gone. Do I just go the yardsale/ Craigslist route again and hope for the best? Any other suggestions or how to move low dollar modern books in this volume???

Her husband has died and she is probably emotional and I think it's important to make sure there's no misunderstandings here regarding value.  I wouldn't sell these for her unless she clearly understands how much you're likely to get for them.

Since you're not a collector of newer books I'd suggest you try using key collector comics to look for value.  It's very useful for finding valuable books in a run.

https://www.keycollectorcomics.com/series/?groupBy=series&orderBy=publishedDate

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