The Who, What, When, Where, Why & How to sell thread

[Diabolical]

I've started compiling a list of books to see what I can get for them at my new LCS.

I think the oldest thing I have on the list is from 2006 I don't expect to get much per book.
Any idea what a reasonable offer would look like, either in cash or trade?


Soon I'll add a bunch of Deadpool, Daredevil (the stuff I won't read again), and probably Guardians of the Galaxy, but this is what Ihave for now (BOLD is a complete run/mini-series, as far as I know):

Marvel:

Thunderbolts (2013) #1-32, Annual 1
Marvel Apes (2008) #1-4
Power Man and Iron Fist (2016) #1-4
The Vision (2016) #1-3
The Unbelievable Gwenpool (2016) #0-2
Uncanny Avengers (2012) #1-11, 8AU
Uncanny Avengers (2015) #1
Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man (2011) #23-25, 27
Howard the Duck (2015) #1-2
Cage (2016) #1
Silver Surfer (2014) #1
Karnak (2015) #1
Infinity Gauntlet (2015) #1
Black Panther (2016) #1
All-New All-Different Marvel: Point One (2015)
Infinity (2013) #1
Great Lakes Avengers (2016) #1
Secret Avengers (2013) #1-3

Marvel Events:

Civil War (2006) #1-7
Civil War: Frontline (2006) #1-11
Secret Invasion (2008) #1-8
Avengers vs X-Men (2012) #1-12
Infinity Gauntlet (2015) #1
Secret Wars (2015) #1-9
Civil War II (2016) #0-8, FCBD, variants for issues 3, 4, 7
Secret Empire (2017) #1 (variant Sorrentino cover)

X-Men:

Uncanny X-Men (2013) #1-35, 600, Annual 1, Special 1 (variant)
Uncanny X-Men (2016) #1, 4
All-New X-Men (2013) #1-41, Annual 1, Special 1
All-New X-Men (2016) #1, 2, 5
X-Men (2013) #1-13
Astonishing X-Men #25 (2004)
X-Men: Gold #1 (2014)
X-Men: Battle of the Atom (2013) #1-2
Wolverine and the X-Men (2011) #36-37
X-Men’92 (2015) #1
Years of Future Past (2015) One-shot

Batman:

Batman and Robin (2009) #1-26
Batman: The Dark Knight (2011) #1-5
Batman Incorporated (2011) #1-8

Batman – New 52:

Batgirl (2011) #0-29, 23.1, Annual 1
Nightwing (2011) #15-30, Annual 1
Batman (2011) #0-52, Annual 1-4 (minus 23.1)
Batman and Robin (2011) #0-30, 23.1, Annual 1-2
Batman: The Dark Knight (2011) #0-29, 23.1, Annual 1
Detective Comics (2011) #0-52, 23.1, Annual 1-3
Catwoman (2011) #0-15
Batman Incorporated (2012) #0-5, 8-13, Special 1
Batman Eternal (2014) #1-4
Harley Quinn (2013) #0-2

Non Marvel/DC:

Back to the Future (2015) #1-3
Game of Thrones (2011) #1-18
X-Files: Season 10 (2013) #1-25, Annual 2014
X-Files: Season 11 (2015) #1-5, 7, Annual 2015, X-Mas Special 2015
The Bounce (2013) #1
Reborn (2016) #1
James Bond: Vargr (2015) #1

[jjreason]

I'm guessing they will super lowball, just because they hold the cards and the stuff is modern. If you tell them you'll take credit that will certainly help. Having complete runs will help as some stores like to package them up for sale as a lot.

You have other avenues - copy & paste the list into a local kijiji add under collectibles or whatever & put some prices in, you never know who's looking.

[Tom Foolery]

I don’t know if it’s worth the hassle, but it almost might be worth it to put them up craigslist or a local equivalent.

The comics shop ain’t gonna give you jack shit for them. Like $20-30 for a box.

[jjreason]

Long time since the last update. I took a bunch of my remaining "blue chips" into a LCS and got offered $700 for the lot. I hummed & hawed then agreed to the sale, knowing in my heart I could do better, but also knowing that it would help the store & possibly let some other collectors add really nice X-Men & ASM books to their collection at "fair" prices.

Well lucky & unlucky for me, the owner balked at the deal & decided he didn't want to pay out the cash right now, so I chose instead to spend the money to have them conditioned & graded.... which cost me over $1000, but we'll get to that in a minute.

The books I didn't see fit to send for grading I sold in a Facebook auction & made about $250. So to "break even" with the initial offer, I still have to make about $1500 off the remaining books - which I guess I wasn't 100 percent sure was going to happen......

Good news though. My Uncanny 101 - first appearance of Jean Grey as Phoenix - came back with a grade of 9.8 from CGC. This book, in that condition, has sold for a big big premium in the last 6 months. I'm currently looking for one buyer that will take the full run of 95-107 (nothing under 9.0) for the price of the 101. Wish me luck.

[jjreason]

And sold, just like that. 19 cgc "slabs", all to one buyer. I think all I've got left for high end books now are things like ASM 300 and NM 98. I got a fairly hefty chunk of change, so I'm actually pretty happy with how things have worked out - now to keep hoping FedEx doesn't destroy anything in the next 12 or so hours.

If anyone's interested, here's what left the building & the associated grade:

Thor 133 (first full Ego) 7.0
Silver Surfer 2 6.5
ASM 32 8.0
ASM 38 7.0
ASM 61 8.0
ASM 69 7.5
Uncanny 95-107, 13 books about evenly split between 9.0 and 9.2, but there were 1 or 2 9.4s, a 9.6 and the 101 at 9.8.

[Tom Foolery]

Cool. Here’s hoping the new guy enjoys them as much as you did.

Fuck slabs, tho.


Weren’t those X-Men books the ones that were trapped in Michigan for like half a decade?

[jjreason]

Ha, pretty close. They were the next of kin. The GS1 & 94 I did drop off at cgc & those got stuck at my brother's place in Minnesota for months because I didn't want them getting stopped at the border. This set was the related 95-101 that I purchased from my childhood comic store owner in the mid 90s. The 102-107 I had pieced together on my own with the rest of my run - luckily they all came out in the wash, no restoration or anything.

I hate slabs too, but it gives the buyer real peace of mind that the books are legit, so as sellers we either have to bite the bullet or take less money. If I hadn't hit the 9.8 on that specific book, this likely wouldn't have been much of a money making venture at all. The only slab I have left now is my ASM 300, which is a 9.2. I'm giving real thought to cracking it open like I did with my PPSM #1 a couple of years ago.

[jjreason]

Sold! 1 long boxes of newish Marvels, many of which were released after Hickman Secret Wars, and my short box of Spawn comics. Enough to pay the rent for my apartment tomorrow & have a bit left. The process continues.

[Tom Foolery]

Are the covers different up North? Down here we use $ on the covers. I know you guys use Moose shekels and unsewn buttons or whatever for currency up there, so do the Canadian versions of the books have different prices on them, or do you just do the exchange rate in your heads or what?

[Diabolical]

I forget which book it is (Criminal, maybe?), but it says "$3.99" and "Different in Canada."

[jjreason]

They just beep the bar code. No one up here would buy them if they saw what the price was going to be before they got the book to the counter.

There was a time when the Canadian copy would have the prices inverted - $1.00 in big print, with US 75c in small print underneath for example - these are called "Canadian Price Variants" (CPVs) and can command a pretty hefty premium over their standard counterparts due to the lower print runs (10 percent of the entire run, or less, would by CPV - and they definitely still count as first prints as they were released at all the same times as the US versions).

Most of this was taking place between 82 & 86, so examples of key books with CPVs include things like ASM 238, Thor 337 (first Beta Ray Bill) & a couple of issues from the Miller Wolverine Limited series - nothing super earth shattering.

[jjreason]

Well in the last 24hrs I've sold the majority of what I had left for X-Men under 143 (Byrne's final issue). The only things I have set aside to keep from this era are 140 (my first issue of X-Men), 141 & 142 (Days of Future Past) & 135-137 (the culmination of Jean's storyline). I am going to submit them for cgc grading & hang on to them as keepsakes. I might wind up selling the Jean issues but I think Jodi will have to sell the last 3 after she finds me dead on the toilet, looking at my phone. I think we're all going to go that way.

My run from 144-600 remains intact. I'll have to let the dust settle a bit & see what happens next as these issues aren't nearly as sought after as the Byrne & pre-Byrne stuff. Might be better for my sanity to just hang on to them.

[Tom Foolery]

That’s right where my collection becomes spotty.
This is what I’m missing from the original Uncanny run:
1-45 47-100 102-113 115-123 125-130 132 133 135 136 139 143 144 145 156 163 164.
Those last three six are probably relatively cheap to find, but 139 down all get primo expensive.

[jjreason]

Well 67-93 are reprints, so there's some good news - no need to even bother with those. 164 was one of my earliest issues too - Danvers becomes Binary (or was already Binary & appears as that character).

[jjreason]

First came X-Men, now I'm girding my loins to break up my Amazing Spider-man run. I'm going to start easy by selling the complete volume 3 set in which the only "key" issue is #4 (first appearance of Silk). I'll re-read the run one more time to make sure, but I feel like it's time.

Thor is also getting broken up, but my run isn't nearly as significant - I'm going to sell the 25 issue God of Thunder run by Aaron while the iron's hot - that stupid King in Black shit has caused a big bump in prices for this run.