Buying Comics

While my main goal is to sell comics, another part of my business is buying comics. And I buy a lot of them. Many are attic finds, or from the basement of a relative. Many are just thinning a collection. Far too many are people looking to cash out of their vast fortune of early Image and late Valiant comics. "But I have 6 copies of Spawn #1?" To which I answer "And if I buy these I will now have 258." But lately I have gotten some very nice collections. And it is reassuring. For all the crap I have taken in, it is nice to finally get some stuff I can put up on the wall. And with the recent expansion, it is also nice to have a place to put these books out for sale.

So, here is a quick lesson on how I buy books. One of my favorite questions I get on the phone is what percentage of book do I pay. Not all books are created equal. In the card (sports and non-sports) there are many card that are just called commons. Nothing exciting and minimal value. Most comics fall into this category. While the price guide my list these at cover price or a little above, that is more a factor of the guide not wanting to show that a comic is ever worth less than cover price. At worst, it will say "Cover price or less". But, sadly, during the overproduction (and poor quality) of books in the early 90's to early 2000s, many books can easily be found in Quarter or Dollar boxes. For these books, I typically pay $20 a longbox and hope I can turn them at a quarter each. While I may profit on them, the goal is more to make them go away. It puts books into peoples hands, but not a real profit maker.

Getting back to the "What percentage of book to I pay?" question, even if you have great books, I don't think you'll like the answer. I am buying books at wholesale and hoping to sell them for a profit. At some time. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, maybe in ten years. Asking me to pay you $20 for a book that guides at $40 isn't going to happen. I sell most of my back issues when they are on sale. So buying a book for $20 that I am more likely than not to sell for $20 doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And if it doesn't sell for several years, I am really out. So unless it is a book I know I can sell right away, my offer is going to be less. I just took in a nice collection of Thor, but it may take me 10 years to sell all of those books, so my offer was much less than book value.

This all brings me to a situation that happened this week. I bought a large (19 box) collection of books that ranged from commons (a lot of them) to really really nice books. My problem was this. The commons aren't worth a lot. The really nice books may be too nice in that they are very valuable, but because of that I don't know when or if I will be able to sell them. And all of those concerns were factored into the buying decision.

Now is it all as easy as this. No. Each case is different. but the overriding thing that I have learned is that I am not going to pay too much for books. If the customer takes my offer, great. If not, oh well. Most people that refuse my offer are for books that I didn't want in the first place. If you really want good money for your books, sell them yourself. Put them on eBay or get a table at a flea market. I'm not here to help you get rich off of your books. I am buying them in the hopes of being able to resell them. Given that back issues are a very small part of my business, I am not going to overpay for anything. It just doesn't make sense.