Selling Large Comic Collection

Fantastika · January 2016

Alright, so I have a pretty sizable comic collection that I'm tired of lugging around. I'm ready to sell it and I have no idea how to do it with a collection this size. There's about 7000 books and the majority of them are recent-ish Marvel/DC/Image with most being from the last 15-20 years. There's a lot of full title runs but also a lot of singles as well and most of the books are in pretty decent condition. All of them are bagged and boarded and are probably min 8.0-8.5 on the CGC scale with a lot of them being above 9.0. I've priced them all using a couple of online sites, so I have an idea how much the entire collection is worth and I'm not expecting to get full value. I'd be happy with like 25-30% of their value.

I checked with my local comic shop but he's not buying anything right now. I was looking at eBay but given the size of the collection, it's gonna get pretty pricey to sell all these on there. Especially given that I live in Canada and shipping typically costs $Texas up here. And I could try Craigslist but I don't live in a major city, so it's probably a crapshoot but I'll still give that a go.

Are there any other methods that anyone can think of to sell these? Is there a cheap way to ship these Internationally from Canada? What's a good way to ship these? Especially if I find someone that wants to buy 50+ of these at a time.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Psychotic One · January 2016

I'd probably recommend sorting the collection into Lots (xmen, avengers, JL, etc etc and then going to a comic con and speak to the dealers there. Some of them might be looking to purchase lots of certain types of comics. Maybe sort it out on a spreedsheet and maybe list some of the highlights of each lot (First Runs, Alt covers, etc). This way you can email it and your contact info to them and they can reach you after the event if you have items they would be willing to purchase.

Lord Palington · January 2016

Normally I'd recommend mycomicshop.com, but with you being from Canada and most of your books being modern, I don't know if shipping would cover your profits.

I agree that selling lots is a good idea.

Hawkstone · January 2016

I know it is a pain but short of continually searching for a store that will buy the whole collection, your best bet is Ebay from what I have seen do this in the last few years with friends selling collections...Pull individual issues of value over ten bucks and sell individually with reserve of their value. Break runs of sequential issues into lots and sell at a reserve of the cost of shipping plus what you want to make (a dollar per issue is a decent target) donate what is left to your local library or the like.

durandal4532 · January 2016

eBay is a bit of a shitshow, but it really does work reasonably effectively. I've been selling a 17,000 comic collection for a few years, and just packing things into lots, taking photos, and selling has worked alright.

I have an older collection with a lot more single issues that are $50+, so I've focused on those. But for newer books, 1-50 of a new series can net $20 easy, sometimes more if it's a short run that happened to get popular. I've seen The Walking Dead and Y The Last Man stuff go for a bunch.

I'd just set up a system that's as easy as possible for yourself. Ship by some standardized method. Pack by wrapping in a bit of bubble wrap. Divide your books into lots that you've got reason to believe are approximately $20+. You won't necessarily get a big hit of cash at any one point, and it'll take some annoying hours of photographing and listing, but once you've got ~50 (the max monthly free listings) up you can just re-post until you're satisfied that enough have sold to add more.

I've been using the USPS flat-rate boxes and envelopes for shipping.

Unfortunately any big buyer will give you maybe $700 for the whole shebang. It's just not worth that much to someone who's already trying to move a half-million comic books.

manji · January 2016

consider the virtues of donating some of it to a children's/ teenagers hospital or somesuch. i'm hoping my son will develop an interest in my collection when he's old enough, but that is at least partially plan B

Fantastika · January 2016

Alright, sounds like the lot idea on eBay is the best way to start at least. That reserve price including the shipping is a really good idea so I'll use that, thanks. I think I'll email or phone Canada Post and see if they might have any tips on how to save on shipping. I know they used to sell cheap, pre-paid boxes for shipping on eBay but don't know if they still do that or not. I'm thinking anything I have that's over $85 I'm going to submit to CGC and get it graded before selling though. See if I can up the value of them.

And anything I don't sell, I'm definitely looking at donating to a kid's hospital. As long as it's age appropriate. I don't want to be giving 7 year olds a bunch of Garth Ennis books.

Thanks for the advice. If you've got any other tips, let me know.

durandal4532 · January 2016

With CGC, I'd recommend sending one or two books and calculating the actual investment vs. return.

I definitely liked being able to post up a CGC-graded book and ship it with confidence that it's pretty much going to be fine because it's wrapped in plastic.

BUT I also basically decided not to bother with it again. There's an outside possibility you've got a 9.9999 book that's worth some significant chunk more due to grading, but the prices they charge have such an impact on whether or not it's worthwhile. I found that it was a lot more effective to just sell rare books for the $250-$500-ish I was getting ungraded than go through the whole process in order to bump the price up to $600-$700. Plus, it took six goddamn months. It's basically only worthwhile if you've got just a beautiful copy of something very rare.

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