Iadams11 Posted Monday at 12:04 AM Share Posted Monday at 12:04 AM My family owns a auction company and we recently got hit with a ton of rain in which flooded our storage building that had est 50000 vintage comics in it. How can I save them? Would they even be worth drying out and saving? Yorick, BuscemasAvengers, MAY1979 and 6 others 1 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grendel72 Posted Monday at 12:29 AM Share Posted Monday at 12:29 AM Yes they would if they were valuable to begin with. U need to dry them ASAP, prob within 48hrs to prevent mould setting in. It's going to be a painstaking process but worth it if the books are valuable. You will probably need to start prioritising. Coverdeath 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lazyboy Posted Monday at 12:36 AM Share Posted Monday at 12:36 AM Based on the kind of stuff that's visible, if they need to be dried out, they're garbage. If any managed to actually avoid the water, they may be salvageable. RockMyAmadeus and KCOComics 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KCOComics Posted Monday at 01:32 AM Share Posted Monday at 01:32 AM On 10/13/2024 at 8:36 PM, Lazyboy said: Based on the kind of stuff that's visible, if they need to be dried out, they're garbage. If any managed to actually avoid the water, they may be salvageable. I would agree with this! Although there are alot of comics down there so I'm not sure if what's visible represents the entire collection. Did you have any inventory system? Any sense for any GA or SA keys ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
universal soldier Posted Monday at 02:08 AM Share Posted Monday at 02:08 AM That's a sad picture. The water looks to have gotten up pretty high so hopefully you have some sort of insurance. Seems like a total loss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OtherEric Posted Monday at 07:00 AM Share Posted Monday at 07:00 AM Having helped at my local store after a fire (and associated water damage from fighting the fire), I can say that the amount of damage can be very weird depending on exactly where in the box any given book was. It's probably worth looking for higher value books and books with less damage. Going through a box could be destroyed, destroyed, damaged but not too bad, nearly untouched, and so on in an almost random pattern. But expect a lot to be a total write off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DougC Posted Monday at 07:28 AM Share Posted Monday at 07:28 AM Looking at the picture and storage if these were kept in the same dirt floor style barn you likely have other issues that affect the books as well (insects, humidity, and rodent). Ideally you have already separated out the truly valuable books from the collection. The amount of work needed to save these is probably going to cost more than the actual value so I would just claim insurance and focus on preparing for the future so it does not happen again. KCOComics 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JollyComics Posted Monday at 01:15 PM Share Posted Monday at 01:15 PM I am terribly sorry. Do your best to save them. Salvage and save the books if you can. Hope you have the insurance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LowGradeBronze Posted Monday at 02:08 PM Share Posted Monday at 02:08 PM As an auction house I'm assuming most if not all of the stock on hand has been consigned to you by private individuals, comic shops or third parties. Depending on just how disorganised the stock has become (and it looks pretty chaotic,) it could prove difficult to impossible to assess who consigned what and reckon what can be returned to them in good condition. This begins to look like a total loss and a mass of insurance payouts to the consignors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yorick Posted Monday at 03:09 PM Share Posted Monday at 03:09 PM Terrible. Those boxes stacked on top don't look moldy. Bags and boards sometimes do wonders against water. OtherEric 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themagicrobot Posted Monday at 06:06 PM Share Posted Monday at 06:06 PM "Storage building" and "vintage comics" don't really belong in the same sentence. And "Auction company" and "Storage building" is just asking for trouble. Who owns the comics? The OP?? Someone else? Numerous someone elses? Were they just stored there indefinitely or were they awaiting an auction? If so, what value was expected to be realised?? Were the majority multiples of Turok Son of Stone valued at 10 cents each (total value $5000) or runs of desirable 1960s/1970s comics with an average price of $10 (total value $500,000)? Or did the longboxes contain Alan Class comics, pence Charltons, ACGs, low run 1980s black and white Independents in which case the value is incalculable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadroch Posted Monday at 08:38 PM Share Posted Monday at 08:38 PM I'd let insurance handle it. That appears to be a catastrophic loss, not worth going over individual books. revat 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAY1979 Posted Tuesday at 12:23 AM Share Posted Tuesday at 12:23 AM (edited) 'nother hit-n-run 1st time poster ? anticipating the inevitable new thread that proclaims "I Have An Action 1" or 'tec 27 etc.... Edited Tuesday at 12:25 AM by MAY1979 DanJD 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
