So I’ve decided to sell off much of the comic book collection my older brothers and I spent the 70s, 80s, and 90s collecting. I’ve been sorting and inventorying them; there have to be about 2000 individual issues, in varying states of repair. What would be the best way to go about selling them, and what need I do first?
Thus far I’ve set myself three tasks:
Sorting the obviously unsellable (missing covers, et cetera) from the pack.
Removing trade paperbacks (I can’t see them having much value) from the pack.
Assembling runs. (I was unsurprised that the title I have the most copies of is Legion of Super-Heroes, as all three of us like it; I was very surprised to see that the number-two position is Green Lantern.)
You’d be surprised about the value (or at least the demand) for your trade paperbacks. The last 5 or 6 years have seen a huge movement of “TPB-only” collectors (like myself) who no longer bother with following monthly comics, but instead wait for the TPB. It’s nicer to have a bookshelf full of TPBs, they store easier, you can loan them to friends, they don’t have unsightly and distracting ads, they often include extra material (like bonus features on a DVD), and you can treat them like books rather than “collectibles.”
Otherwise, I suggest the following:
Make a complete list of everything you have, alphabetize it, and assemble runs when you can.
Check completed auctions on eBay. eBay, unlike printed price guides, gives you an exact look at the market for any given items at the present time. If something is hot, you’ll see the demand right there, by seeing how many people are bidding and what the item closed for. Unfortunately, eBay is a buyer’s market for comics, so you’ll almost never get what they’re worth. If you have a nice run or some good comics, you should get SOMETHING, but I’ll warn you now – most of your stuff won’t sell, and you’ll take a loss on a lot of what does. By studying completed auctions, you may decide to not waste your time at all, or just be more selective. Running auctions costs money (eBay takes a cut), and setting them up can be time-consuming.
This is still superior to lugging your collection to a comic book store. Those guys will NEVER offer you what they’re worth, and more often than not, they won’t want them anyway. It’s a sad fact that '80s and '90s comics (the ‘90s especially) were printed in too high quantities, so there is a glut, and many of them are worthless. So much for their "collectors’ item" status.
If you have good stuff in good condition from the '70s, there SHOULD be a market for those. Other than that, you should post your list here when you’re done. I’d tell you straight and fair what there might be a demand for, and I’m sure other Dopers would too.
Don’t spend money on Wizard Magazine for its price guide. It’s a poorly-written rag, and the price guide is never accurate.
Sell them as a lot to a comic book store. They’ll be aware of the value and have the money to give you a fair price for the lot. Check out one of the many price guides available to get a general feel for the value of your collection; the prices at www.milehighcomics.com are a good overview.
Don’t rule out the trade paperbacks, either; some trades skyrocket in value when they go out of print or stay out of print for various reasons. Alan Moore’s Miracleman trades remain out of print over some sort of legal dispute, and can go for up to $100 each. Ditto for Grand Morrison’s Flex Mentallo trade, which remains out of print over a legal dispute. The X-men God Loves, Man Kills trade, which remains out of print for some reason, also goes for $50-$100.
No offense meant to you, but I think Mile High Comics is a bunch of rotten price-gougers, who consistently overvalue and overcharge for everything. They have a nice selection, but I definitely wouldn’t use them as a yardstick for appraising one’s own collection.
Really? They consistently have better prices than any corporeal store that I go to; I recently bought almost the entire run of Excalibur from them, most issues in brand-new condition, for .25 - .50 or so an issue. I went to three or four local stores, all of which had the issues priced at $2 - $4 each.
Do this only if you’re just trying to free up some closet space, and even then you probably won’t be successful. I’ve been frequenting comic book stores all over the country my whole life (and even worked for a chain of comic book stores briefly), and I’ve never seen one that wants comics outside of a few special cases, them being:
(1.) Anything from the golden or silver age in exceptional condition (and I mean EXCEPTIONAL)
(2.) Recent issues that they are sold out of and people keep coming in asking for them.
(3.) Very valuble/rare issues in exceptional condition (again, I mean exceptional.) For example: Hulk #181, Ultimate Spider-Man #1, etc.
If your comics meet these guidelines, expect to get between 25%-35% of what they’re worth from a comic book shop (less if you are or look like you might be on drugs.)
I suggest either selling them on ebay (see BBVL’s post for why this would probably suck) or giving them to a kid who will appreciate them (preferably son/godson/grandson/nephew, etc.)
It’s suprising (to em) how crappy the prices are for the 70s & 80s comics. I have l hundreds of popular titles from the the 70s & 80s and was astounded how low the prices were when I checked a few titles out about 6 years ago. Many were pretty close to face value.
IIRC I actually hard someone say this is because LOTS of people in the 70’s & 80’s (& 90’s) got the same bright idea to hang onto their comics, poly bag them and put them in boxes, and there’s apparently tons of many titles available for sale.
Your public library most likely has a copy of theOverstreet Guide, Dewey Decimal number 741.5. The listings indicate how much a dealer would charge you for a given comic, not how much you can actually get for it on eBay, but if you have one comic that lists for $1.50 and another that lists for $200.00, you’ll have a good idea which one to focus on selling.
Some creator names mean you’ll probably get more money: Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Steve Bissette, Alan Totleben, Jaime Hernandez, Gilbert Hernandez, Adam Hughes, Alex Ross, Bill Sienkiewiecz.
Comics are a crap investment, but it’s worth a shot.
Yep. Old comics (1940s-1960s, approx) are worth so much because nobody ever thought they would be worth anything. Kids traded them, sat out in the woods reading them, stepped on them, threw them at their brothers and sisters; moms threw them away, etc. If you had a subscription, they came folded in half. Thus, finding a near-mint condition copy of a comic book from that time period is damn near a miracle. Finding a near-mint copy of a comic after, say, 1970 just means you had your eyes open. They probably won’t have any significant value in the next 100 years, or until enough people realize how worthless they are and start throwing them away.
I have come the impression that comics since the 70’s will never have any value. In 70 years the original owners wll have all died and their heirs will try to decide what to do with these 8 billion comics stashed in plastic and boxes around the country. By the time the next generation dies 30 years later and even more get tossed, all the comics from the 70’s will have lost all relevance and the only market will be cultural history museums. And they’ll only need to buy one copy which they will then scan and make freely available since all copywrites will be gone.
Hint, hint.