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How do you price Restored books?

Started by JJBEE2001,

22 posts in this topic

JJBEE2001

JJBEE2001

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I just bought my first Restored book (only because this book almost never hits the market, so I jumped on it). Do most Restored books go for a certain percentage of the unrestored price (1/2?, 1/3?, 1/4? etc.) or does it simply depend on the particular book? The Guide value for this book in 8.0 is $1120 (although I think it would really go for a whole lot more). I bought a Restored 8.0 for $500. A good deal?

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esquirecomics

esquirecomics

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I just bought my first Restored book (only because this book almost never hits the market, so I jumped on it). Do most Restored books go for a certain percentage of the unrestored price (1/2?, 1/3?, 1/4? etc.) or does it simply depend on the particular book? The Guide value for this book in 8.0 is $1120 (although I think it would really go for a whole lot more). I bought a Restored 8.0 for $500. A good deal?

 

Depends on, among other factors, the level of restoration, amatuer vs. pro, and what was the book?

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JJBEE2001

JJBEE2001

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Adventure Comics 33. Moderate Professional including color touch, piece added, spine split sealed & reinforcement. Yeah it's a frankenstein book, but I've been looking for this issue for a while now. There's only 3 graded & this one is second only to the Church (9.2) copy. Either way, I'll be happy with it. Just wanted some other opinions.

 

 

sign-offtopic.gif I saw you have a #31 (??) on your site. I might be interested.

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Mr. Zipper

Mr. Zipper

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Moderate Professional including color touch, piece added, spine split sealed & reinforcement. Yeah it's a frankenstein book,

 

Be proud of your great pick-up. I'd hardly call a moderate pro job a Frankenstein. Sometimes a piece added can be a tiny corner chip, bindery chip or something smaller than a postage stamp... the book still may be 95% original parts. grin.gif

 

I'd reserve the Frankenbook designation for books with large pieces missing and/or photocopy covers, etc.

 

Given that your book is fairly hard-to-find GA, the resto would have a relatively smaller impact on FMV. Maybe a 25% - 35% discount to unrestored as opposed to a 50% - 80% discount for more common books.

 

confused-smiley-013.gif

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FFB

FFB

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I just bought my first Restored book (only because this book almost never hits the market, so I jumped on it). Do most Restored books go for a certain percentage of the unrestored price (1/2?, 1/3?, 1/4? etc.) or does it simply depend on the particular book? The Guide value for this book in 8.0 is $1120 (although I think it would really go for a whole lot more). I bought a Restored 8.0 for $500. A good deal?

 

The way I value a restored book is to try to assess what the grade of the book was before the restoration, take that value, and add in the estimated reasonable value of the restoration services performed on the book. This tends to work better with more expensive books (stuff that was worth at least $2,000 prior to restoration). With lower dollar books it is a crapshoot because the reasonable value of the restoration services might exceed the value of the book before restoration.

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ninanina

ninanina

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I know SIlver Age restored books are not looked at the same as Golden Age, but have some knowledge on what FF #1's go for restored. A few years back I bought a raw restored for in and around $1800.00. This book however, was heavily restored...even more so than yours but a nice looking copy, one I would never have been able to own in this condition unrestored. The dealer told me at the time a VF restored was worth whatever VG guide is at the time and based his selling price on that. Not sure if Golden Age is perceived the same way, I don't think so...but can't be sure. It's my understanding most collectors are a bit more accepting of Golden Age restored books as they are not as common as Silver Age.

 

More recently I saw a CGC graded heavily retored VF on e-bay go for about $2100.00.

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lou_fine

lou_fine

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I saw a breakdown of grades relative to amount of restoration on Matt Nelson's site...

 

Matt Nelson's Valuing Restored Comics

 

 

This seems as good as any formula I've seen? thumbsup2.gif

 

Interesting link that you have posted here! 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

 

Prices appear to be a bit on the high side here, but I guess this is not surprisng considering the source.

 

For example, it shows an estimate of 0.7 guide for a slightly restored (eg. cover cleaned) GA book in apparent Fine condition. I've seen early GA books fetch closer to the 0.5 range for books with a cover cleaned.

 

Still interesting and probably handy as a reference guide if used with some discretion.

 

Any other opinions here on the valuation formulas? 893scratchchin-thumb.gif

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Newerthannew

Newerthannew

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JJBEE2001 wrote:

 

Adventure Comics 33. Moderate Professional including color touch, piece added, spine split sealed & reinforcement. Yeah it's a frankenstein book, but I've been looking for this issue for a while now. There's only 3 graded & this one is second only to the Church (9.2) copy. Either way, I'll be happy with it. Just wanted some other opinions.

 

While I don't have the book in front of me to examine all of the restoration that might be done on the book, if I make some assupmtions about what was used, how it looks, etc and giving the book the benefit of certain doubts, I would generate the following using my patent-pending restoration grading system:

 

The book is likely 85% original, with only 15% of the book altered due to restoration. Presumptions of treatments utilized in the restoration include cleaning, washing, consolidation, reinforcement, tear repairs, infilling, color touch, pressing and reglossing.

The book has a mulitplier of .31 of the apparant grade, due to other factors such as materials used, intent of the work, evidence of work, documentation, etc. If yours is the vf 8.0 restored in the census, then a value would be around $350.00. With more information, the multiplier would change, affecting the final amount the book would be worth, so $500.00 seems very reasonable.

 

mattbird wrote:

 

interesting thread. I recently purchased a GA PLOD 5.5 slight P color touch, and was actually wondering if I overpaid or not..

 

If you give me some details on the book (along with a scan), I can run the system on it and generate the same information.

 

Thanks

Tracey Heft

Eclipse Paper Conservation (www.eclipsepaper.com)

Restorationeducation.com (www.restorationeducation.com)

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G.A.tor

G.A.tor

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hello all...

as someone who buys as many restored as unrestored books, I can tell you JJB, you did GREAT...that $1200 "guide" is way under true "value" (more like double that if you can find anyone with a 33 to sell)...so, you paid about 25% of the real market value, which is a great deal, IMO!...

as an example, I paid 65% of "guide" for a slightly restored tec 29 (just cover cleaned/reinforced)...why?, because the guide is way off...unrestored, this book would easily be 2X the guide price, so I really only paid about 30% of market value, which to me, was a bargain!

rick

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JJBEE2001

JJBEE2001

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hello all...

as someone who buys as many restored as unrestored books, I can tell you JJB, you did GREAT...that $1200 "guide" is way under true "value" (more like double that if you can find anyone with a 33 to sell)...so, you paid about 25% of the real market value, which is a great deal, IMO!...

as an example, I paid 65% of "guide" for a slightly restored tec 29 (just cover cleaned/reinforced)...why?, because the guide is way off...unrestored, this book would easily be 2X the guide price, so I really only paid about 30% of market value, which to me, was a bargain!

rick

Thanks for the info. I totally agree with you - I think the formulas that have been posted are pretty good for a book that's relatively attainable. In this case, as you said, it's a book that's very desirable to DC collectors, but is rarely ever on the market. Like you said, the Guide 8.0 value is about $1200, but I'm certain a blue label 8.0 would go for $2K+ easily.

 

As a side note: I won this book on Ebay. The seller had it listed as a 10-day auction. When I first spotted it, the auction had only been up for a couple hours & there were no bids yet. He had a starting price of $399.00, so I offered him $500 to end it early. Obviously, he did. The moral of the story - it never hurts to make an offer lower than the asking price or even to ask the seller to end the auction early by offering a little more than his starting price. thumbsup2.gif (That's also how I scored my VF/NM copy of the rare KO Komics #1 recently). The worst they can do is say no. confused-smiley-013.gif

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