So You Want To Sell Your Comic Book Collection - Part 2

Look, if you have a handful - say 30 or less - of comics that you dug up from your ex's closet and they are books published 1990 or later, aren't bagged and boarded and look very well read - do one of three things: 1) Take the books to the nearest comic shop WHILE you are doing other errands and see if they will take them off your hands for a couple of bucks, 2) take them to a children's charity as long as the books are child appropriate or c) throw the darn things away!

Now if you have a 100 books that were published prior to 1980, are nicely bagged and boarded and appear in nice condition, then by all means take them to a comic book dealer and see what they will offer you. They will lowball you for sure but at least you have a starting point on what they might be worth.

If you have 5 long boxes of comics, again take them to a comic book dealer and let them offer you a price. Most likely, the dealer will ask you what you want for them. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD YOU TELL THEM A PRICE!!! THIS IS NEGOTIATION DEATH!. Instead, ask them what they are willing to give you for the collection. If they won't give you a price, thank them for their time and take your collection with you. If they ask what you are going to do with the books, tell them that you are shopping the collection around. If they ask you to call them if you ever decide to sell, don't call them. Instead, give them your contact information and let them know that you are in no hurry to sell the books but if a good offer comes around, then you would be willing to part with them.

Now watch the dealer's body language - it will tell you a lot. Nervousness usually means that the dealer wants the collection and doesn't want it to slip away. Indifference means that they are not all that hot about your collection.

If you don't have a comic book dealer in your area - go online and find one that might give you an appraisal. You will have to supply a ton of information but at least it will give you some feedback that you can use. Here is one link of an appraisal service that you might find helpful. You can always go to Walkin' Willie's Comix and drop them a line about your collection.

The bottom line is that you have to determine if you have a collection that has value - i.e. one that is worth selling. Remember Part 1 provides you with that awareness and the tools you would need to figure out if your collection has tangible value.

Just like a fresh coat of paint is the #1 thing to do when selling a house, having a collection that looks good can mean extra bucks. By now, you have established whether the collection can bring in some cash. You either used a copy of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, gone online at ComicPriceGuide.com or have received opinions/appraisals from a comic book dealer. OR you may be a longtime comic book collector that knows the craft.

Now dress up that collection by making sure that each book is freshly bagged and boarded. It costs around $9.00 to $15.00 - and your time - to bag and board 100 books. Bagging and boarding is very important because it protects the books from any further damage. Books that are not bagged and boarded will damage quickly. Again, assess your collection to make sure that spending your time and $9.00 per hundred will still leave you with plenty of margin. The collection pictured above is a nice looking collection - very nicely bagged and boarded. Also, it is strongly recommended that you use the 3M Removable Tape to tape the bag flap - it is the blue box and has the same adhesive as the Post-It notes. You don't want a prospective buyer getting into a wrestling match to try to open a bag so as to inspect a book.

If possible, use brand new comic boxes - if you need help in obtaining supplies, BAGS Unlimited can hook you up.

Pros: Quick, easy and comic book dealers will buy the whole lot - you are through with it!

Cons: Most likely you will get the least amount of money for your collection.

This the best way to go if you know next to NOTHING about comic books. Your pain as the seller is that you have the bunch of paper in boxes that is taking up room, items you have no interest in and the constant nagging by someone related to you or supposedly a friend of yours is taking its toll....you just want rid of the #$*@! things! Comic book dealers have established channels to move product - they may have a brick and mortar store, one or more online websites or selling venues and probably set up at comic conventions.

However, comic dealers have to buy collections at the lowest price possible. Depending on how large the collection is and what it contains, it may take them months to recoup their initial investment. That isn't YOUR pain so if they start bellyaching about that, tell them something like, "But selling comic books is your business isn't it" or "Heck, I'll bet a dealer of your chops can flip this collection in a weekend". They may argue but you've puffed them up with some Dr. Feelgood....

Dealers will ALWAYS downgrade your collection. They will overcriticize the flaws in a book until you begin wondering how the darn thing stays together. If a dealer looks through several boxes within a few minutes, they are either HIGHLY interested or have no interest at all. Their next move most likely will be to ask you what you want for the collection and you should reply that either a) you are still shopping the collection around or b) you haven't come up with a figure. REMEMBER: IN 99% OF ALL PRICE NEGOTIATIONS, THE FIRST ONE TO MENTION PRICE WILL NOT WIN!.

When the comic book dealer has figured out that you are not offering a number first, they will most likely will give you a lowball offer. Ask them how they came up with that figure and listen carefully to what they say. If you have done your prep work, then shooting holes in what they have to say will be easy. If you have done your appraisal work and your 100 book collection guides out at $2000 and the dealer offers you $100, then you need to ask them for clarification. Pull out a few of the high dollar books from the collection and ask them "You mean these books are in this collection and you want to offer only $100 for the whole lot?". Then thank them for their time and either you will get out the door without making a stupid deal or they will counter with a more reasonable offer. Dealers like collections that have small numbers of books but high value - they won't want you to get away. Now if they come back and offer say $400 dollars, then you have some negotiating ground. Not a lot of ground as they are close to what they are going to pay now so beating the dealer up will do no good. You get the idea....

Moving along....

Pros: A zillion eyeballs see your wares.

Cons: Takes a ton of time to eBay stuff correctly - i.e. scan the books, grade them, write descriptions, collect payment and ship the merchandise.

eBay is a good way for people that KNOW comics well to get sell their collections. But I have to get on my soapbox here. People that chose this route or setting up at a flea market forget one very, very important item: Their time HAS to be worth something. I once bought a collection from an individual that was not pleased with my offer and said he would just probably eBay 'em. As I was thumbing through the collection, I asked him "What do you do for a living?". He replied that he was a consultant. I went "Wow, bet you make over $50.00 an hour". He chuckled and said something on the order of "Try northwards of $100 an hour". After a few minutes more of looking at the collection, I said to him "You mean to tell me that your time is worth over $100 an hour and you want to spend your valuable time eBaying this stuff". His faced dropped a little and a little later we said our goodbyes. Long story short, he called me back within a few days and accepted my offer. But I digress....

Selling your collection on eBay means the following: a) you know how to describe and grade comic books, b) the value of your collection makes it worth spending your time to set up eBayauctions and process them when they are complete, c) you know how to pack and ship comic books properly and d) you are in no hurry for your money.

Now if you know nothing about comics, you can still eBay them. Just be sure to say how many books there are, what time frames they are from (i.e. 70 books from the 1970's, 100 more from the 1960's, etc.), provide some data such as what titles and issue numbers are in the collection - i.e. things you can legitimately and honestly say about the collection without knowing much about comic books. Make sure that you have adequate disclaimers that pretty much say that you know nothing about comic books and just want to sell the lot - no returns. Put up as many photos as possible. Potential buyers may want to know a lot of specifics, especially the grades of books that they deem valuable. You might send them photos of the books they are interested in but again, tell them that you know nothing about comics and the books are being sold "AS IS". Some of the best Golden Age books I ever bought was from a person on eBay trying to get rid of estate items - didn't know beans about comics but the pictures were decent and it was worth the risk.

Cannot emphasize this enough: Selling your collection on eBay all depends on how big your collection is, how much it is worth AND how much of your time you are willing to spend.

Pros: Easy if you have a small collection that you can take around to dealers.

Cons: Hard if you have a large collection - to the point that you rent a booth at the con and take offers.

The great thing about schleping your books around a con is that you have multiple dealers to look over your books and provide you with competitive offers. We are talking about 3 to 4 small comic boxes at most and also assume that you have a cart or dolly to bring them around the convention floor. After you receive 10 to 12 offers, you know what your comics are worth to the comic book dealer community. Go back to one or two of the dealers and let them know that it is between them and a couple of other dealers. They may ask you to get their best offer and come back - that's fine but it is better if you can get their best offer. By all means though, deal honestly. Don't say that Dealer "B" has offered you $1000 for your collection when they haven't.

For small collections, this might be the best bang-for-your-buck-and-time scenario as all you are out is the admission fee to the con and a few laps around the dealer's room.

Larger collections are tougher to hoist around the dealer's room and you might have to make appointments for dealers to view you collection at your hotel room - PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS - THIS IS EXTREMLEY UNSAFE.

The other way to sell your large collection is to rent a booth at one of the larger 3 or 4 day shows. Better have your calculator handy because if this isn't a local show, you are going to have travel expenses. Regardless, you are going to have to pay booth rental and maybe someone a few bucks to help you load in your collection and set up PLUS you have to be there all three days to sell your books (remember, your time is hopefully worth something to you). You are also going to have to price the books and that takes a TON of time. At the end of the show, you will need to blow out the rest of the books that didn't sell (and the majority of them will not sell) to another dealer.

Bottom line on comic conventions is that they are great for selling small collections, not so great for selling large collections.

Pros: Easily the best money you can make

Cons: Very difficult to find a collector that will buy your whole collection

Selling your comic book collection to a comic book collector will make you the most money by far. Why? Simply because a collector is not buying comics for resale - they want them for their collections and they will pay a higher percentage of graded guide for your comics.

Trouble is, very few collectors want to buy a whole collection unless it is just a few books. You can forget selling a large collection to a comic book collector - almost never happens. Reason is that you might have a few books they want but you probably have a ton of books that they don't want. And the last thing you want is a collector cherry picking (i.e. picking out the good stuff) your collection and leaving you with next to unsalable merchandise.

Again, great for very small collections - impossible for large collections.

Pros: Flea Market booth rental is usually very, very cheap

Cons: Very few comic book buyers go to Flea Markets PLUS remember, your time has value.

I put this as a way to sell your comic book collection but it is probably the worst way to do it. Face it, most flea market attendees are looking for something other than comics. Fortunately, the booth rental fees are usually cheap so you are down to how much time you want to spend trying to sell a bunch o' stuff to a bunch of folks that don't want your stuff.

Now BUYING comics at a flea market can be great - you can usually talk the prices down to dirt cheap. Trouble is, there aren't many comics at flea markets.

Pros: You have complete control on how your merchandise is presented and the prices you want to charge

Cons: So many that they can hardly be listed but the #1 "Con" is that you will invest huge, heaping vast amounts of your time to get it going.

Builidng a website just to sell comic books is great IF you are a comic dealer and can get an effective site done on the cheap. Fortunately, I am a ASP.NET / SQL Server developer and can do it myself with moderate pain and expense - and besides, it is how I make my livelihood. If you do not have website building skills you need to run in the other direction as fast as you can. This is not the place for you.

Alas, all is not lost. You might want to check out one of the online store builders like eCrater or eBay ProStores. eCrater is totally free and they host the photos so it is a great way to run your own e-commerce storefront. eBay ProStores does charge you something like 1% of the total amount of the transaction AND a monthly subscription fee depending on what store level you chose. These are just two options as there are several out there. What you need to decide is a) how much time and money am I going to put into this thing and b) is my collection worth that time and money?

Hopefully, this lens will get better and better with time. I want to provide those that have comic book collections with information on how to sell them. It can be a daunting task but hopefully this article has made it a little easier.

If you read both Part 1 and Part 2 above then you know the following:

1. The tools and techniques used to assess a comic book collection's worth.
2. Different venues where you can sell your comic book collection.
3. Different types of people to whom you can sell your comic book collection.

The bottom line comes down to this: After assessing your comic book collection's value, how much time are you willing to invest to get the most money possible from the collection OR are you more interested in getting the quick - but lesser - buck and saving a ton of time?

We hope you have found some value in these articles - regardless, we would appreciate your feedback so we can make this lens better. Thanks!