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Underground > Comic Books >

Selling Comics

  
 
Sax
06:39 / 10.09.02
Necessity has forced me into considering flogging my collection of comics, accrued over the past 25 years and numbering between two and three thousand.

Any one of you industry watchers out there tell me what the state of the market is for back issues at the moment? Do shops like Forbidden Planet buy collections? Would anyone buy a collection of that size?

There's lots of the usual stuff - loads of X-Men etc from the 80s, lots of 70s stuff, a few rarities, quite a bit of silver age stuff, some signed comics.

Alternatively, talk me out of doing it. I don't really want to have to do it.
 
 
sleazenation
07:58 / 10.09.02
You will not get much for selling your collection to a dealer or a comic shop - if you really want to make any money at all from your collection (and this probably won't work either) your best bet is to try and auction them off on somewhere like e-bay - but like i said, I'm very sceptical that you'd make much money. If space is becomming an issue you are probbably better off donating your collection to a kids hospital or something - least that way people will appreciate them...
 
 
GeorgeV
09:28 / 10.09.02
As an (albeit temporary) comic shop employee, I think your best bet is to make a list of the comics you'll be hawking (title, number, condition etc). Make copies and take them to the comic shops for the owner's perusal, and they should be able to tell you in 10 minutes whether you've got anything that they'd buy, and how much they'd pay. Even if they don't buy, you should still get a valuation.

Stuff like the rare and signed comics would probably sell better on eBay though, as you'd be selling direct to the hungry fanboys and could dictate your starting price. Might be worth investing in one of the industry magazines (available from your local friendly comic dealership) which have listings of comic values.

Otherwise - the hospital idea is a good one. There are never any decent books and magazines there, only "Home and Garden" and Teletubbies comics.
 
 
Trijhaos
09:52 / 10.09.02
You could always try to get a table at a flea market or comic convention. That way you can set your own prices.
 
 
Sax
09:59 / 10.09.02
Enough with the conscience-pricking with all the talk of kids' hospitals! I'm thinking of selling the comics because I need the money.

Unless you think they'd swap me for a child, that is.
 
 
moriarty
11:25 / 10.09.02
You've picked the absolute worst time to try and sell your comic books. Most stores I know of are selling their high-ticket back issues for 40% off. If they're buying off of you they would have to buy your comics at 30% the guide price or less to make a profit. Odds are they won't take them at all for fear that they will sit in boxes and rot. If it's just the money you want, pick out the priciest, most sought after issues you have (say, your best 100 comics) and cut out the middle man with ebay.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
11:49 / 10.09.02
Since the chances of making much money from getting rid of your comics are so low, maybe you should try to find people who might actually, you know, want to read them.

Libraries and children's hospitals are both great ideas, and so is just friends who might want to take them off your hands and even give them back to you at some point in the future.
 
 
sleazenation
12:15 / 10.09.02
Sorry sax, but you can make more money selling a kidney than your comics, so while you might soon be at risk from reanal diseases, at least you won't have to part with your comics.
 
 
Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo
18:11 / 10.09.02
About all you can do is cherry pick the good ones and flog them on eBay, then try the sell the rest as bulk or as a quarter a shot at a cheap convention. Back issues are dead, and to be honest, have been for a long time...people can't afford all the new stuff they want, so they don't dig for back issues.

There will be a few people who will say differently, but they work in specialized areas of comics and not the mass market. When I worked in comics retail, it was the industry standard that back issues would sell about 25% of your new issue sales. Now it's less than 10% industry wide and will prolly drop more as Marvel pushes their trade paperbacks harder.

Another good ay to sell them is to "bundle" them as complete stories or series and sell them that way.

Sorry...but if you expect to retire off of your comics, time to sink money into something else.g
 
 
Sax
06:13 / 11.09.02
Thanks, folks. I wasn't actually wanting to sell the stuff for a quick profit, just to be able to pay the gas bill next month. Ah, who needs heating anyway.

Having started to look through them to see what was saleable, I've been overcome by anal fanboy nostalgia and petulantly told Mrs Sax that I am refusing to sell them, and if we need extra money she isto get herself down to King's Cross.

Atlas made some really good comics in the 70s, didn't they?
 
 
Shortfatdyke
09:59 / 11.09.02
"I wasn't actually wanting to sell the stuff for a quick profit, just to be able to pay the gas bill next month. Ah, who needs heating anyway."

You're missing the most obvious solution, of course - put them on the fire!

Sorry, not in very good taste. Go for eBay, as others have said.
 
 
angel
10:06 / 11.09.02
Just try to hang on to the ones that you would really regret losing. I know someone who sometime ago got rid of their entire collection and recently has spent large amounts of money REBUILDING said collection. Yup - truly insane!

So think carefully before you do, or you may just be costing yourself money in the long run.
 
 
grant
14:55 / 16.10.06
If I have a complete run of Sandman, mostly first edition, all in good condition, and I'm *really* hard up for cash, how should I sell 'em on eBay?

What's a good starting price? What should I get for 'em?
 
 
doctorbeck
15:10 / 16.10.06
it's easy enough to spend a few weeks watching others sell on ebay to get a reasonable idea of starting and finishing prices, worth the minmal effort to get a decent price if you are going to go down that route. also to see what strategies pay off (eg pic of the cover, bold listing, low start price, high start price etc etc)
 
 
grant
16:41 / 16.10.06
How strange eBay has been so far, though -- it looks like I'd be better off selling Sandman TPBs. Weird.
 
 
P.C.K.III
07:33 / 17.10.06
Well if you do pay your taxes and all that, donation to library, school, etc can get you a tax right off if you get a receipt and that is saving some money in the long run. Blood banks are quick money....recycling...just think like a junkie and you can probably find something to get the heating paid
 
 
MattShepherd: I WEDDED KALI!
08:13 / 17.10.06
In Canada, at least, you can get charity donation credit for something called a "gift in kind," which as the above poster says is probably your best bet: you can get book value from your comics if the associated charity goes for it, which is more than you'd ever get from a dealer.

I considered going the hospital route myself a while ago, but living in Quebec I discovered that all-English comics are persona non grata in waiting rooms frequently populated by inebriated separatists. Plus, a surprising amount of my old comics turned out to be independents and "mature readers" titles that just don't work with kids.
 
 
Baz Auckland
05:48 / 19.10.06
I sold almost the same thing (mostly 1st edition, some reprints, and some in TPB along with the Death miniseries) a few years ago on ebay.

They sold for about $65, but in the end the buyer didn't pay... the second time I wasn't so lucky and ended up selling them for $30.
 
 
Baz Auckland
05:49 / 19.10.06
If you happen to have a complete run of Preacher instead, those sold for over $75...
 
 
Triplets
19:18 / 13.12.06
Bump bump, darlings.

As you may have noticed in Policy I've recently started to bung off most of my comics collection.

If you're interested the list is here

Even if you don't want to buy does anyone have any advice for selling collections like this where most of the content is in tradepaperback format? Are singles still more popular these days? Less?

Yes, this does mean the lith has baggsies.
 
 
Essential Dazzler
19:44 / 13.12.06
My only experience selling comics was via Ebay. I put up a bunch of single issues along with complete runs of Captain America vol #4 and the Venom Tsunami series, both divided into story arcs, the complete arcs sold well, the singles issues didn't (if at all).

No TPB's though so that's probably not very useful to you.

If no-ones asked yet I'd be interested in Earth-2 and the Monarchy lot....
 
 
Triplets
20:11 / 13.12.06
I've just PM'd you, mate.
 
 
Baz Auckland
01:51 / 14.12.06
On Ebay, I've had better luck selling TPBs and groups of issues than single issues. (I've never been able to sell singles actually.). But I think TBPs should be quite easy to sell.
 
 
Sax
10:15 / 14.12.06
Update: Over the course of about two years I've made about a grand from my comics on e-bay.

'Course, just the dross left now...
 
 
The Falcon
13:53 / 14.12.06
Fuckin' 'ell. I only tried once, mind you with the first six Cables, 'Fatal Attractions' x-over and no photos, and no interest it seemed.
 
  
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