question about bulk buys...

[TheeBaldMoose]

One of these days, I will get lucky and I'll be able to pull the trigger on a bulk buy....

This thread is also good for those looking to give this a try, learning if you will.

[nycjadie]

See, I have lots like that brought right to me

The best ever was a guy who brought in, I kid you not, Every single Spider-Man, ff, X-men, Dd and Avengers book till now. that means ff #1 and up, Amazing Fantasy 15 and up, X-men 1 and up... Various shapes, of course, some pretty bad, but CURRENT till that week. I did not pull the trigger, cause it was a GRIP LOAD of money and he wanted a lot for it, emotionally attached. I usually don't buy collections from people who love their books too much.

Definitely agree with that sentiment. Unless I really want something, I don't overpay. Often though, if you meet someone outside of their home, they are pretty committed to selling, and don't want to lug it back. I find that the best way to gauge personal investment. Works out really well for me most of the time.

[GGSAE]

See, I have lots like that brought right to me

The best ever was a guy who brought in, I kid you not, Every single Spider-Man, ff, X-men, Dd and Avengers book till now. that means ff #1 and up, Amazing Fantasy 15 and up, X-men 1 and up... Various shapes, of course, some pretty bad, but CURRENT till that week. I did not pull the trigger, cause it was a GRIP LOAD of money and he wanted a lot for it, emotionally attached. I usually don't buy collections from people who love their books too much.

You must get offered collections often? I've been in the big shops here and watched them get offered stuff, and because they're so diversified in what they sell, buying bulk collections is not something they care for and offer accordingly. I heard of one sale of a copper collection where the guy got like 3 cents/comic, lol why bother selling that low, you might as well give it away to some kids.

One thing I've learned to do in my short time of this is being picky, I'd rather miss collections then overpay. The way I see it the more often my competitors overpay for collections, the less likely they'll be financially-able to buy for the next one.

[nycjadie]

See, I have lots like that brought right to me

The best ever was a guy who brought in, I kid you not, Every single Spider-Man, ff, X-men, Dd and Avengers book till now. that means ff #1 and up, Amazing Fantasy 15 and up, X-men 1 and up... Various shapes, of course, some pretty bad, but CURRENT till that week. I did not pull the trigger, cause it was a GRIP LOAD of money and he wanted a lot for it, emotionally attached. I usually don't buy collections from people who love their books too much.

You must get offered collections often? I've been in the big shops here and watched them get offered stuff, and because they're so diversified in what they sell, buying bulk collections is not something they care for and offer accordingly. I heard of one sale of a copper collection where the guy got like 3 cents/comic, lol why bother selling that low, you might as well give it away to some kids.

One thing I've learned to do in my short time of this is being picky, I'd rather miss collections then overpay. The way I see it the more often my competitors overpay for collections, the less likely they'll be financially-able to buy for the next one.

I was in a shop in California and this guy brought in about 150 underground comix - Zap, etc. As you know, the first prints are worth $$$. They guy picks up the first 2 for a second, slaps them down, and says, I don't need this type of stuff, but I'll give you $20 in credit. The seller goes back and forth a bit, and finally takes it. As soon as he's out of earshot, the clerk says, you got a real steal there. He had no idea what he had. The owner glares at me, picks them up, and walks to the back of the store without a word.

I try not to do that. I'm always honest, I tell the seller what their most valuable book is, if there is a gem in there, I point it out, and then I provide a fair estimate and offer my best price. I typically don't haggle. It's a take it or leave it offer. Maybe I'll come up $50 on a huge lot. Doesn't matter to me what their asking price is, I just give a fair offer based on my bulk rate calculus (by box size, quantity, average grade, era). I think I broke even on one purchase. Was a mistake. I drove a long way and didn't want to go empty handed. There were probably 10 books in there I wanted. That was stupid. Every other buy was a good one. Mistakes are a learning process and valuable.

[paradise]

Definitely agree with that sentiment. Unless I really want something, I don't overpay. Often though, if you meet someone outside of their home, they are pretty committed to selling, and don't want to lug it back. I find that the best way to gauge personal investment. Works out really well for me most of the time.

Now imagine how hard it is for a store to buy a collection where I have to do 15-25% guide, if that, if I have any hope of making money. Usually we just bulk buy the books, and price only those we know we can sell. Then we sell the rest by the pound or at like 50 cents.

We just got a huge collection, worth very little per book, plenty of 10-25$ books but nothing exciting just a ton of runs. About 30 long boxes. Bought it all BULK Pricing, then did a sale, promoted it really well and sold the books 50 cents each. Made 10x what we paid for it, still have about 5-8 long boxes left, for our next sale. Rucker was there I think. bought a bunch of stuff (Wizard Magazine #1 I think).

[paradise]

You must get offered collections often? I've been in the big shops here and watched them get offered stuff, and because they're so diversified in what they sell, buying bulk collections is not something they care for and offer accordingly. I heard of one sale of a copper collection where the guy got like 3 cents/comic, lol why bother selling that low, you might as well give it away to some kids.

One thing I've learned to do in my short time of this is being picky, I'd rather miss collections then overpay. The way I see it the more often my competitors overpay for collections, the less likely they'll be financially-able to buy for the next one.

So, our situation is even tougher than 99% of the shops I know, because ... we don't have back issue bins. We are not in the business of back issues. Books come out and sell, on the shelf, until they don't and then they go to boxes and are sold by the pound, really cheap like 50c, or are sold off to guys who buy bulk books by the boxes, 30-100 long boxes at a time. Our store is a book store, with new books and graphic novels. So we only price Key issues and sell in a couple of showcases. The rest is bulked. And our bulk has great books, we just don't care to sell them by piece.

[paradise]

I try not to do that. I'm always honest, I tell the seller what their most valuable book is, if there is a gem in there, I point it out, and then I provide a fair estimate and offer my best price. I typically don't haggle. It's a take it or leave it offer.

Same, we will even open the Overstreet and teach them conditions and values, and explain why we only pay percentage of that value. It's not worth my soul to game someone. I can do better by being honest.

[GGSAE]

I try not to do that. I'm always honest, I tell the seller what their most valuable book is, if there is a gem in there, I point it out, and then I provide a fair estimate and offer my best price. I typically don't haggle. It's a take it or leave it offer.

Same, we will even open the Overstreet and teach them conditions and values, and explain why we only pay percentage of that value. It's not worth my soul to game someone. I can do better by being honest.

Agreed, and being fair gets repeat sellers (for me anyway of friends that called me back with leads to sell). No sense being an *SQUEE*.

[maraxusofkeld]

I just purchased about a 20K book collection. There is a lot of silver Classic Illustrated, Dells, and Dell Gold keys. Best way to sell those books assuming they aren't keys is in a lot online? There is some lower grade Magnus/Solar, Turok that I will post on here.

[GGSAE]

I just purchased about a 20K book collection. There is a lot of silver Classic Illustrated, Dells, and Dell Gold keys. Best way to sell those books assuming they aren't keys is in a lot online? There is some lower grade Magnus/Solar, Turok that I will post on here.

Wow! Pictures!

[nycjadie]

+1

[maraxusofkeld]

I'm still sorting and will be most of the week. I will have to post some pics when I can log into photobucket. Any other good image hosting sites?

[nycjadie]

I use Tapatalk. You can post photos right to Valiantfans

[GGSAE]

I use Tapatalk. You can post photos right to Valiantfans

Haven't tried that one, I heard there's an app for photobucket....I use the ebay app for posting lots of a few books where I'm too lazy to take high res scans

[GGSAE]

Update to re-hashing this old thread....I recently scooped up 25 VG/F Bronze X-men books for $3 each. It filled a huge gap in my collection, including a straight run from 119-136.

I've also agreed to a WD lot locally that I expect to pickup tonight, and he mentioned he has silver ASM/X-Men as well (not listed). Lastly, there's one more advertised collection I reached-out to someone about, not sure if I'll pursue it but it does seem that the early years brings out the sellers.

[nycjadie]

Nice! I'm having a terrible time in my new city. Not many deals to be had. A dealer makes Craigslist worthless to folks like me and others. For example, there are 518 listings right now for comics. About 350 listings are his. That's right. Over 2/3 of the listings are his. I don't know for sure who it is, but I'm nearly certain it is a specific dealer with a store. I don't mind a few listings, but that many makes Craigslist unusable to everyone else, buyers and sellers alike. I've complained to Craigslist and flagged his posting hundreds of times. But to no avail. I've even seen other people makes posts complaining about them.

[GGSAE]

Nice! I'm having a terrible time in my new city. Not many deals to be had. A dealer makes Craigslist worthless to folks like me and others. For example, there are 518 listings right now for comics. About 350 listings are his. That's right. Over 2/3 of the listings are his. I don't know for sure who it is, but I'm nearly certain it is a specific dealer with a store. I don't mind a few listings, but that many makes Craigslist unusable to everyone else, buyers and sellers alike. I've complained to Craigslist and flagged his posting hundreds of times. But to no avail. I've even seen other people makes posts complaining about them.

That sucks, I see that on kijiji (including some clown that was repeating the same ridiculously overpriced lots all in CAPS LOCK), the flip side is that creates extra noise and makes it more difficult to find the good lots - which I like. The only complaint I get on kijiji is I've had the crook in the past try to ship comics to me when he didn't pay. I've received further emails from this guy using a different name, so it becomes more of a waste of time as there's no way to block him.

Update to last night, I picked up TWD books - all sub books in NM- to NM+ shape, 80 comics from about 70 straight through to recent (including a ton of 100 printings which I'm sure has the most valuable rarer ones in the lot). I haven't decided whether I want to keep the lot or flip them; had I kept the other WD books I've encountered in other lots I'd have a huge run. The seller had a bunch of silver/bronze ASM/XMen also that I was interested in although many were in pretty beat-up shape.

[GGSAE]

The other call I had last night involving a seller with limited info in his ad, turned-out to be a waste of time as he rambled on about a ton of nonsense. I still don't know exactly how many books he had, or what he wanted he kept asking me about a price when I didn't have this info. What I do know is that he had several thousand books from the 80s until now (groan) and I think he was looking for all around cover price for his collection.

My favorite line was (and picture this with a French accent that made the line even funnier), "Maybe if I was a drug addict and was desperate to sell these for nothing, I'd take $500, but I'm not giving these away for some capitalist to profit on." He's expecting some parent is going to buy several thousand comics for their kids to read. I told him no one is going to do that....

[nycjadie]

Nice one on the TWD. I have had only a couple lots of TWD, getting me about issue 30-120. I'd love to make a run, but I think that will be next to impossible at my price point;)

There are a lot of crazies. I paid as close to book as I could get with a run of Tales of Suspense. 42-100. The guy tried to sell me his other books. Like a beat up Magnus for $80, etc. Hah! I took the ToS and ran. It had first appearances, and was a single owner run which was cool. 3rd appearance of Iron Man! First Black Widow!

[nycjadie]

Off to get 2 bankers boxes of 1970's gold key cartoon books tonight. I never get this stuff, but for $20, my kids will love it;)

Plus, who knows, maybe one of the rare books will be in there. A Scooby Doo 1? Pufnstuf? Underdog 1?

[greg]

Nice one on the TWD. I have had only a couple lots of TWD, getting me about issue 30-120. I'd love to make a run, but I think that will be next to impossible at my price point;)

There are a lot of crazies. I paid as close to book as I could get with a run of Tales of Suspense. 42-100. The guy tried to sell me his other books. Like a beat up Magnus for $80, etc. Hah! I took the ToS and ran. It had first appearances, and was a single owner run which was cool. 3rd appearance of Iron Man! First Black Widow!

Tales of Suspense 42 was the 4th appearance of Iron Man.
39, 40, 41, 42

[nycjadie]

Nuts! I have 41 then!

[nycjadie]

So, I bought 2 bankers boxes of 1970s Gold Key/Whitman/Harvey books. Nearly everything was cartoon, mostly Disney. Condition varied from about G-F. These are the first books I was weened on when I was a kid, and I could live in the smell of 1970s comics. Took me right back to my childhood.

I went through box one last night. Pretty common stuff, but the Uncle Scrooge books were worth a bit (one first print Carl Barks, which was cool). My favorites were the Hanna Barbera books - Scooby Doo, Harlem Globetrotters and Funky Phantom. They seem to be worth some. Unfortunately, those books were more VG than F. There was a Turok;)

There were also a couple of Richie Rich first appearances that were probably in the $20ish range based on condition. Some Archie I haven't reviewed yet. I think the Sabrina stuff might be worth a few dollars.

Definitely worth the short drive and the $20! I look forward to digging into the 2nd box.

Not sure what I'm going to do with them. I could see the potential of building a full Disney 1970s set using this as the basis. It's all original owner to. I'll sit on it for a bit. I'm keeping the HB books. I grew up on those cartoons, and now I watch them with the kids;)

[GGSAE]

Great stuff, especially if you have kids.

You can find that Disney stuff pretty cheap....I'm about to pickup a small collection because it has a number of Batman books for my run.

[nycjadie]

Nice. Good luck.

Have a possibility on 16 boxes tomorrow, but it comes with boxes of cards, games and figures as well, things I don't deal in. But hey, you never know!