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Underground > Comic Books >

Selling comics?

18:14 / 09.03.02

If I were to ever sell the boxes and boxes of comics I've got stored in my closet, what would be the best way to do it?

I'm not exactly looking to make a profit. Most of the ones I've got probably aren't worth anything. Its not like I've got the first appearance of spider-man stuck somewhere.

Would I be better off selling them all to a dealer or trying to convince the local comicbook shop that "no that's not a crease, its mint condition, now fork over the five bucks" for every single comic I've got.

18:16 / 09.03.02

I had a guy come in with about $3000 worth of comics. I'm selling them for him on consignment, and I'm taking half what I get for them. He said he'd had offers of $300 for the whole collection. Which, to be fair, was pretty impressive.

The lesson: don't take them to comic stores. We're bastards.

I'd sell 'em online or I'd be prepared to get far less than you expect for them.

Zoom.

18:20 / 09.03.02

I wouldn't really expect much for them. Maybe a dollar a book. I'm not greedy, I've just been thinking about offloading some of them since those 4 long boxes and 6 short boxes kind of take up quite a bit of space.

Now that I think about it, I could do what this one guy does and go get a table at the local outdoor flea market.

18:23 / 09.03.02

That's a good idea, 'cause then you set your own price. If someone brings me a box of comics they want to unload I usually give 20 - 25 cents a book. Unless it's something spectacular. And really, a lot of that stuff is going to sit and never sell. There are so many comics out there that no one will ever want.

Zoom.

18:30 / 09.03.02

I may just do that. I'll have to take the time one of these days to sort through them so I don't accidentally offload any I want to keep. That'd be horribly embarrasing

Customer: "Hey...I've been looking for this, here's your dollar. You do know its worth 50 dollars, right?"
Me: "What...what the hell, I didn't mean to sell that one. Come back here!"

20:18 / 09.03.02

Almost everyone I know who has tried to sell their comics in the last five years has walked away disappointed. Recently I unloaded five boxes of the world's worst comics, pulled from the collections of three hardcore fanboys. I took them to three different bookstores and a few relatives. It's not a seller's market anymore.

In some used bookstores you can get a fair amount of credit, if that's your thing. Not sure about ebay, but friends who've tried it said it was more trouble than it was worth when it came to selling individual issues. You might want to get rid of whole lots of hundreds or thousands.

When I had my store I bought them for about the same price Zoom does, but the standard is actually usually ten cents to twenty.

If none of the above sounds appealing, you might want to give some of them away to hospitals, orphanages, younger relatives, etc. Or do like me and my roommates did and give them out for Halloween. Spread the love around.

And you could always let us know what you're chucking.

The possibilities are endless!

20:31 / 09.03.02

I see.

Can't sell anything anymore it looks like.

I figure if I ever get around to it I'd sell a long box for $50-100. We're talking what 500(?) comics per long box. That's .50 to 1.00 per comic. A bargain if you ask me, but I've never been good with economics.

I'd first go through and take the ones no discerning hardcore fanboy would ever be caught reading and give them to charity.

I'd then go through and grab all the ones that are actually worth anything. Take Wolverine 131 for example. According to the Unholy Handbook (Wizard), the uncensored version is worth 13.50.

So you see, I do have a plan, its just one I won't be able to put into action until this summer at the earliest. Damn school gets in the way.

[ 10-03-2002: Message edited by: Trijhaos ]

09:30 / 11.03.02

i was always the biggest dick when it came to buying stuff... i'd just look thro it and if it was nothing that'd sell i'd shoot the guy such a low price it'd make him pissed at me... cuz of this terribly low buying thing i did we actually ended up havin' a dime boxes in addition to our quater boxes... yeah most people would take the low offer it was funny, if the said "no deal" i'd offer them a bit more, if they dinna like that i'd tell them to walk... i won't go into all the jerk wad practices i used to do and buy collections off people paying them far less than the one book in the collection would net me, btu i did... thing is it was the owners plan to always do that, but he was too nice of a guy...

11:15 / 11.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Trijhaos:
I figure if I ever get around to it I'd sell a long box for $50-100. We're talking what 500(?) comics per long box. That's .50 to 1.00 per comic. A bargain if you ask me, but I've never been good with economics.

Uh, that would be 5-10 cents per comic, not 50 cents to a dollar.

11:27 / 11.03.02

Yeah, I realize that now. I made a mistake, I'm not infalliable.

Of course, now that I think about it 5 to 10 cents is a real bargain. Not that I'm so desperate for cash that I'd sell something for that much, but it is a thought.