Need Advice on Old Comics
By
EvulOne,
Posted on: 2009-06-20 18:42 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
In my (limited) experience, it's hard to get the prices listed in the official price guides. They also might not be "mint" condition. I wouldn't expect to make that much off the flea market comic books unless you can line up a buyer ahead of time.
True mint is extremely rare, but a comic can still fetch a fair price even if it's not near mint....or Near Mint.
Of course, you will need someone interested in taking them off your hands to make a profit. Collectibles are only worth what someone is willing to pay. The guides, I think, collect an average number for what a certain book is selling for, it's not a guarantee of what a book is worth exactly, but more of a, well, guide.
If you think you know someone that will be interested in buying them, then go for it. Otherwise I'd look on ebay for ideas on if those types of books are in any kind of demand.
Yeah, I just took a look on eBay and all these books that are selling for over a hundred in the guide.... are selling for like 5 bucks on eBay. So yeah, I'll consider this a lesson learned, hide the ones I already bought somewhere because maybe they will be worth something in 20 years, and then just start collecting what I want to read.
Marvel Ultimate universe, here I come!
You can always call around to some local comic shops when you get back home and see if anyone is buying. You might make some money on them, even if it's not quite as much as you hoped.
[ QUOTE ]
So my quandry, how much should I spend on these things? He said that he had a comics rating guide and priced them all fairly, but they seem way underpriced from the prices I saw on that website.
[/ QUOTE ]
This quote was in reference to the stock market and I can't recall whether it was Warren Buffet or Peter Lynch: "Buy what you know."
In other words, if you need to come here and ask, you shouldn't be trying to buy comics as an investment.
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
[ QUOTE ]
You can always call around to some local comic shops when you get back home and see if anyone is buying. You might make some money on them, even if it's not quite as much as you hoped.
[/ QUOTE ]
Think again. Comic shops need to make a profit to stay in business, so they won't pay anything close to guide prices for old books. The only way to get close to guide prices for old books is to find a collector who needs what you have for their collection, and as the OP has already noticed, eBay has made it so easy for collectors to find old issues that they need, even they rarely have to shell out "Guide" prices to fill in their collections.
Unless you are talking older (pre-70s) key issues or incredibly rare stuff, or you bought the books for cover price, it is not very easy to make money selling old comics.
(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon
Basically, 'price guides' have very, very strict standards for anything that they label. It's especially bad when you're dealing with international price guides - here in Australia, when Beckett price lists were used for Magic, people wouldn't convert the prices in USD, because it was just unnecessary math. The upshot of it is that if you, for example, took a business trip to Sydney, you could buy Arcbound Ravagers for 80 bucks Australian and then, back home in Texas, sell them for 80 bucks American. Not a niche many exploited, but still a little embarassing.
<QR>
Buy everything you can. I'm serious...as much as you can afford.
When I was in grade school, and elderly couple at a flea market were unloading some Golden Age comics @ $2.00 each. I got a Batman #19 (from 1942 if I remember correctly), and several issues of Captain Marvel Comics, including #9. I sold them years later after college for between $50.00 and $125.00 each.
At the time I had no interest in the couples other books like "Little Lulu" or "Dot". Let's face it, I'm pretty much a superhero's superhero when it comes to comics and wasn't interested in the "girly" books But if I had to do it over again, I'd have convinced my mother we were making a better investment if we bought the entire lot of them. Girly books make money too.
So...if you've got an excellent deal on some good quality comic books, I say buy as much as you can afford. Good luck!
- Green Lantern
"Say, Jim...woo! That's a bad out-FIT!" - Superman: The Movie
Me 'n my posse: http://www.citygametracker.com/site/....php?user=5608
[ QUOTE ]
Think again. Comic shops need to make a profit to stay in business, so they won't pay anything close to guide prices for old books. The only way to get close to guide prices for old books is to find a collector who needs what you have for their collection, and as the OP has already noticed, eBay has made it so easy for collectors to find old issues that they need, even they rarely have to shell out "Guide" prices to fill in their collections.
Unless you are talking older (pre-70s) key issues or incredibly rare stuff, or you bought the books for cover price, it is not very easy to make money selling old comics.
[/ QUOTE ]
I never once said he'd get guide prices, did you actually read my post? I said he might get some money for the books, I never said anything about guide prices. He's got some collectible books, it's worth asking around.
I think implying that he not to talk to local shops is a terrible idea. How better to learn how to unload his unwanted comics unless he talks to an expert? A good comic shop owner will have some suggestions at the very least. He may even know a customer that collects those very books and can get the two in contact.
As a former collector.....find a specialized collector NOT a comic store. You will never get anything close to what their real value is if you go with a comic store.
guide prices are mostly wishful thinking.
stuff is worth what people will pay for it.
I collected the titles I liked. Years later when I cashed them out I got higher than 'guide' because I'd happened into stuff people loved- Clairmont/Byrne/Austin X-Men, Moore/Bissette Swamp Thing, Miller Daredevil, etc etc.
I'm sure it helped that I was a comic nut during a golden age, but I loved all my stuff and would have been happy to keep it.
Buy stuff you love, then you won't be mad if it turns out to be worthless.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
So, I'm on a business trip for the weekend in the middle of Nowhere, Iowa. No open calls for machines to fix, so I'm just driving around town. Then I see a flea market in a big barn-like building. How quaint.
Sooooo... I go in, and it's mostly people's old junk, tools, etc. And one dude trying to sell new cheap stuff in plastic (batteries, baubles, etc.) the typical stuff. Then I come across one guy who has just one box of really old looking comics. I look through them, and 90% of them I never heard of, he's got a couple Thors, one Fantastic Four, and 90% western, military and "cartoonish" stuff. So I shrug, grab a copy of Jonah Hex for the Hex of it (HA!) and walk out.
But I did remember the names of some of those comics, so just out of curiosity I looked at the Comics price guide, and HOLY CRAP. These things he has in his box he's selling for a marked price of $10-15 and he's selling them for 50% off of that price.... and everything in it is Dell comics, which I'd never heard of before.... these comics are ranging from $80-125 in mint condition each, and like half of that in "decent" condition. Whaaaa???
So my quandry, how much should I spend on these things? He said that he had a comics rating guide and priced them all fairly, but they seem way underpriced from the prices I saw on that website.
Here's some of the stuff I remember that he has:
<ul type="square">[*]Tom Corbett (top of my list right now, apparently rare)[*]Johnny Mack Brown[*]Howdy Doody[*]Rex Allen[*]Flying A's Ranger Rider[/list]
And then a few Bugs Bunny/Popeye/Tarzan ones that don't seem to be worth as much. So, what do I do? I'm going back tomorrow for sure, but how much do I spend?
This could be a better investment than the stock market at this point.