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Post by G on Aug 23, 2013 23:40:29 GMT -5
Often enough if a book is doing good and creates rarities, it becomes something uglier than a dying brand who puts out rarities because it is struggling to stay alive. My universally recognized "Good" comic that is rare will be hitting $1,000 by the end of next month on the going market. It's done priced me out of the picture. And in a way, it's kind of pissed me off slightly in the process because it made me feel "left out". The more common method of a dying company producing less because there is little demand actually almost creates a legacy out of a dying brand. Often said title struggles through the last 10 or so issues with each issue having a lower print run from the previous one. The proceeds aren't paying for the same amount next month and even less is made. Eventually, while no one is looking, that comic dies. No one cares. No one hardly even notices. Years pass. In some cases 2 or 3 decades. Suddenly nostalgia kicks in or a rebirth in the character brings interest back to the originals. Suddenly originals recognized as extremely hard to find. Print runs get researched and revealed. The print is extremely low. Suddenly prices go up because now people want that dead ass comic when they didn't 30 years ago. Suddenly people with same interests emerge and start scavenger hunting for these same lost relics that no one can seem to find. The joy of collecting is alive and the search for hidden treasure in the form of "most people have no idea what the hell they have in this stuff because they don't like it" and I can maybe luck out on people's indifference to it and they happen to own a few. Person with knowledge happens into comic boxes with other "considered junk" comics totally surrounding and dominating boxes. No one reads or collects these things. Except you know better. You know you probably won't find, but stranger things have happen to a fool and his collection. Collection owner has a $1 price tag on a comic with only 100 known copies. The resale market for enthusiasts of the beaten down companies makes competition for the rare ones high. I know I'm not telling you anything, but sometimes good stuff comes from junk. I didn't need books I loved to be rare. I only needed to be able to read them. I get more of a thrill of the hunt finding books from dealers and collectors who have no clue what they have. When I bought Valiants 4-6 months before they exploded, it was because I had privileged knowledge no one else had. I bought tons of Valiants at cover price and wiped up for the next 1-2 years as I had already stockpiled what others had no clue about. In this day and age, that is really hard to do. The Valiant scenario supports your wanting it to be quality before pursuing the chase. For me the chase was making money and a side benefit resulted from discovering these were good and worth the hype. Your side wins here and I'm all in if that should ever happen again. I had a blast. But the real thrill is beating dealers at their own game. No one knows everything. Azbatx used to hand me legit books that would go for $20 - $100 sitting in $1 boxes because he knew something I and the dealer didn't. When I got his 1 leftover copy, I felt lucky to have it and would later sell for high multiples of the $1 I paid for it. When I have this mentality, I don't really care what the book is. Greed rules here I guess. That and a satisfaction of knowing I knew something about books most people didn't. That for me is the thrill of the hunt and I guess I'm not a real enthusiast because it doesn't bother me if someone reads them or not. If I can make a buck off them, count me in! At times it has been more fun for me to flip a comic for excellent profit, than to read comics I have 19 times out of 20, already way outgrown. I'd collect Cherry Tart Comics if I thought it would make me a few bucks in profit. It's not that dealers don't know what they have, they are just at the mercy of economics. There used to be a convention dealer in Atlanta that always had every rare variants at top dollar. One day he decides he likes selling comics more than his computer programming job. He quit his job and bought a store. At that point he had overhead and a full time responsibility. He put his rare variants on display and got two reactions. The first reaction was to piss off half his customers because the previous owner didn't try to get top dollar. The second reaction was that the people with fat wallets bought him out of all the rare stuff. Selling comics quit being a hobby at that point. It was work. He paid his rent and had no money or time to acquire more rare variants to replace the ones he sold. Cash flow went sour. He had inventory because he bought someone else's store. It wasn't selling because it was stuff his customers had picked over for years. They either already had the books or simply didn't want them. At this point retailers quit caring. They don't have time or resources to sell items one at a time on eBay. Paying someone else to sell for them would negate their profit. The books might be worth $20 to you because you are playing around with selling on the side. You have time to make connections and you don't have business overhead to pay every month. The bills you pay are bills you'd pay anyway. The owner starts to resent their inventory because it's not selling. When prices go up on a back issue, they figure it didn't sell last week at $5, why pull it out to mark it up to $7. If they mark it up to $7, someone will complain that the book had been $5 and that the owner is gouging them. Some retailers mark it up and piss off the customers. Some just wait until the customer thinks they are getting a bargain and let it sell that way. They are throwing money away, but it keeps the customer happy and they come back more often. It's hard to get customers to shop more if they feel like they are paying top dollar for everything. The dealer I was talking about quit giving his customers as good of a discount because he wasn't making enough money. That ran them off and he was struggling worse. He ended up giving up his house and living out of the back room at his store. When things got worse he started having long box sales. Buy a long box for $30 and fill it up with whatever back issues he had in the bin. I got a complete run of Green Hornet (Now Comics) that way. Eventually he was still left with dead inventory. The crap they couldn't pay you to take. My point is that placing orders, customer service, and maintaining the store is enough work alone. Spending hours going through back issues to squeeze every penny out of something can make it unsaleable at all if you are stuck running the store. Many store owner don't care that you got a deal. They just want money exchanged. Well, I agree with MOST of that to an extent. I agree they probably don't mind giving up a $10 book for $1 for the reasons you mention, but I also honestly think that comics are too vast and it's hard for everyone to know everything. I think the Azbatx story was a good example. I forget what book it was, oh I remember. It was Agents #6. Me and Azbatx went to a convention in Richmond a few years ago. On the way back, we stop off at comic stores. At this one store, it was 90% dollar boxes with mostly new modern books in pretty much NM condition. Box after box of stuff like this. In some cases, I think you could legitimately find $2-$10 comics in there. I'm sitting there shopping with Azbatx and he pulls out like 8 of these Agent #6's. About the corniest looking Image cover that looked like nothing special at all about it. Az goes "Do you know what this is?" and I go...no. No clue. He said "This is the 1st appearance of Walking Dead". I had no clue. Being Az was being good natured because he just landed a steal, he gave me 1 of his 8 so I wouldn't leave empty handed. A few years later I sold my copy easily with no problem for like $40. Az had 7 of his own. No telling what he got for his. The thing is, I imagine the dealer had no clue this is what he had in those boxes. He's not going to give away approximately $320 in comics for $8. He just didn't know what he had. Knowledge of what makes money is an ever shifting area. By time it is common knowledge that a book you had at cover or less is not passing the $20 and above area, I think it starts to become worth the dealers time to seek out his copies and readjust. It was really the same with me and Valiant's all those years ago. Joey of Comic Kings was on a BBS trading site (pre-internet as you know) where dealers on the west coast was making bank on Valiant comics. However, in those slow moving information days, dealers on the east coast had no clue. I literally road tripped from store to store buying each and every copy I seen for 2-4 months buy Valiant comics at cover price or less. Literally hundreds of comics where the dealer looked happy I was buying these books that for some reason wasn't moving for him otherwise. He looked happy I was paying cover for them. And the whole time I knew these books were gold. I had done seen evidence of it. I had massive print outs off the BBS that Joey gave me showing how much dealers were paying for these books. I knew it was just a matter of time before it exploded here. So buying up these books as fast as possible was key. I literally had hundreds if not close to 1,000 when that day finally arrived. However, as many as I had, Joey had 50 times more. For me, I went to shows and just made the most money I ever made selling comics. So fast. So quick. So often. And yet I was mad I didn't have even more. But what I had was Gold. And then I seen Joey with literally thousands of these books. At least 50 copies plus of all the hottest issues. At least. In many cases, he probably had 100 - 200 copies. But at least 50 copies of each and every hot issue. While I went on to have lots of cash and a great experience, Joey went from working in a Baseball Card shop (where he had access to the BBS and gained this knowledge) to taking the money he made off of this and starting Comic Kings. It was literally like less than a year after the Valiant boom hit, Joey had his own store. The rest is history. The key was. It wasn't that the dealers were happy to give away books they knew they get more for just to keep inventory moving and customers happy. The key was....the dealers had NO CLUE what they had. It's a slippery slope. Most dealers are very knowledgeable and they keep up to date. And the internet makes it much harder to pull this kind of stuff off. But no one knows everything and there are lapses in knowledge because often the hot ones that get away from dealers are the books that typically no one wanted in the first place and therefore the dealers weren't keeping up with it or paying attention to messages about books like that. Or they just weren't seeing any. The opportunity may be brief because generally once a dealer sees everyone else getting top dollar for these books, they realize they have or had a few and they go looking. And I've been back to stores where I seen books I wanted at $2 - $3 and I just ran out of money to buy every copy I wanted. And came back a week later cash in hand and seen the same exact books now sitting with $20 - $50 price tags on them. Once the dealer knows this is a money thing and not just a little loss, they adjust accordingly. The trick is finding that sweet spot of "before the dealer knows and everyone else knows". I honestly believe Az was truly gifted in this area and it was what he did the most any time I hung around him. He literally bought off the weakness of dealers not knowing and he did. Over and Over. It's very hard to do these days, but he had a talent for it. And speaking from experience myself. It's very satisfying when you know you got something that the dealer had no clue.
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Post by defiant1 on Aug 24, 2013 3:46:44 GMT -5
It's not that dealers don't know what they have, they are just at the mercy of economics. There used to be a convention dealer in Atlanta that always had every rare variants at top dollar. One day he decides he likes selling comics more than his computer programming job. He quit his job and bought a store. At that point he had overhead and a full time responsibility. He put his rare variants on display and got two reactions. The first reaction was to piss off half his customers because the previous owner didn't try to get top dollar. The second reaction was that the people with fat wallets bought him out of all the rare stuff. Selling comics quit being a hobby at that point. It was work. He paid his rent and had no money or time to acquire more rare variants to replace the ones he sold. Cash flow went sour. He had inventory because he bought someone else's store. It wasn't selling because it was stuff his customers had picked over for years. They either already had the books or simply didn't want them. At this point retailers quit caring. They don't have time or resources to sell items one at a time on eBay. Paying someone else to sell for them would negate their profit. The books might be worth $20 to you because you are playing around with selling on the side. You have time to make connections and you don't have business overhead to pay every month. The bills you pay are bills you'd pay anyway. The owner starts to resent their inventory because it's not selling. When prices go up on a back issue, they figure it didn't sell last week at $5, why pull it out to mark it up to $7. If they mark it up to $7, someone will complain that the book had been $5 and that the owner is gouging them. Some retailers mark it up and piss off the customers. Some just wait until the customer thinks they are getting a bargain and let it sell that way. They are throwing money away, but it keeps the customer happy and they come back more often. It's hard to get customers to shop more if they feel like they are paying top dollar for everything. The dealer I was talking about quit giving his customers as good of a discount because he wasn't making enough money. That ran them off and he was struggling worse. He ended up giving up his house and living out of the back room at his store. When things got worse he started having long box sales. Buy a long box for $30 and fill it up with whatever back issues he had in the bin. I got a complete run of Green Hornet (Now Comics) that way. Eventually he was still left with dead inventory. The crap they couldn't pay you to take. My point is that placing orders, customer service, and maintaining the store is enough work alone. Spending hours going through back issues to squeeze every penny out of something can make it unsaleable at all if you are stuck running the store. Many store owner don't care that you got a deal. They just want money exchanged. Well, I agree with MOST of that to an extent. I agree they probably don't mind giving up a $10 book for $1 for the reasons you mention, but I also honestly think that comics are too vast and it's hard for everyone to know everything. I think the Azbatx story was a good example. I forget what book it was, oh I remember. It was Agents #6. Me and Azbatx went to a convention in Richmond a few years ago. On the way back, we stop off at comic stores. At this one store, it was 90% dollar boxes with mostly new modern books in pretty much NM condition. Box after box of stuff like this. In some cases, I think you could legitimately find $2-$10 comics in there. I'm sitting there shopping with Azbatx and he pulls out like 8 of these Agent #6's. About the corniest looking Image cover that looked like nothing special at all about it. Az goes "Do you know what this is?" and I go...no. No clue. He said "This is the 1st appearance of Walking Dead". I had no clue. Being Az was being good natured because he just landed a steal, he gave me 1 of his 8 so I wouldn't leave empty handed. A few years later I sold my copy easily with no problem for like $40. Az had 7 of his own. No telling what he got for his. The thing is, I imagine the dealer had no clue this is what he had in those boxes. He's not going to give away approximately $320 in comics for $8. He just didn't know what he had. Knowledge of what makes money is an ever shifting area. By time it is common knowledge that a book you had at cover or less is not passing the $20 and above area, I think it starts to become worth the dealers time to seek out his copies and readjust. It was really the same with me and Valiant's all those years ago. Joey of Comic Kings was on a BBS trading site (pre-internet as you know) where dealers on the west coast was making bank on Valiant comics. However, in those slow moving information days, dealers on the east coast had no clue. I literally road tripped from store to store buying each and every copy I seen for 2-4 months buy Valiant comics at cover price or less. Literally hundreds of comics where the dealer looked happy I was buying these books that for some reason wasn't moving for him otherwise. He looked happy I was paying cover for them. And the whole time I knew these books were gold. I had done seen evidence of it. I had massive print outs off the BBS that Joey gave me showing how much dealers were paying for these books. I knew it was just a matter of time before it exploded here. So buying up these books as fast as possible was key. I literally had hundreds if not close to 1,000 when that day finally arrived. However, as many as I had, Joey had 50 times more. For me, I went to shows and just made the most money I ever made selling comics. So fast. So quick. So often. And yet I was mad I didn't have even more. But what I had was Gold. And then I seen Joey with literally thousands of these books. At least 50 copies plus of all the hottest issues. At least. In many cases, he probably had 100 - 200 copies. But at least 50 copies of each and every hot issue. While I went on to have lots of cash and a great experience, Joey went from working in a Baseball Card shop (where he had access to the BBS and gained this knowledge) to taking the money he made off of this and starting Comic Kings. It was literally like less than a year after the Valiant boom hit, Joey had his own store. The rest is history. The key was. It wasn't that the dealers were happy to give away books they knew they get more for just to keep inventory moving and customers happy. The key was....the dealers had NO CLUE what they had. It's a slippery slope. Most dealers are very knowledgeable and they keep up to date. And the internet makes it much harder to pull this kind of stuff off. But no one knows everything and there are lapses in knowledge because often the hot ones that get away from dealers are the books that typically no one wanted in the first place and therefore the dealers weren't keeping up with it or paying attention to messages about books like that. Or they just weren't seeing any. The opportunity may be brief because generally once a dealer sees everyone else getting top dollar for these books, they realize they have or had a few and they go looking. And I've been back to stores where I seen books I wanted at $2 - $3 and I just ran out of money to buy every copy I wanted. And came back a week later cash in hand and seen the same exact books now sitting with $20 - $50 price tags on them. Once the dealer knows this is a money thing and not just a little loss, they adjust accordingly. The trick is finding that sweet spot of "before the dealer knows and everyone else knows". I honestly believe Az was truly gifted in this area and it was what he did the most any time I hung around him. He literally bought off the weakness of dealers not knowing and he did. Over and Over. It's very hard to do these days, but he had a talent for it. And speaking from experience myself. It's very satisfying when you know you got something that the dealer had no clue. My point was that dealers don't care enough to invest the time into discovering every gem in their stock. Their job is already consuming more time than they want it to. If you told them the the first walking dead was in their boxes, they'd do something about it. They aren't going to track 100 worthless comics in order to pinpoint that one. All they care about is what they have in the book and what they get out of it. To them it comes out in the wash and they make about the same by investing only a fraction of the effort. It's the difference in something being a hobby and a job. People are forced to do a job to make money. They hate it more as time goes by. A hobby is something we do by choice. We can stop at any moment. Once you get a fixed building and have to pay rent, the hobby becomes a job. Hobbyist choose to spend hours looking through quarter boxes and don't factor their time. If they factor all the time and travel expense to go to the quarter boxes, it starts negating the profit. To some degree, just bullshitting with the customers and making them feel welcome is worth more for their business than slaving over boxes investigating every comic they have two (or 10) times a year. df1
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Post by G on Aug 26, 2013 8:47:16 GMT -5
My point was that dealers don't care enough to invest the time into discovering every gem in their stock. Their job is already consuming more time than they want it to. If you told them the the first walking dead was in their boxes, they'd do something about it. They aren't going to track 100 worthless comics in order to pinpoint that one. All they care about is what they have in the book and what they get out of it. To them it comes out in the wash and they make about the same by investing only a fraction of the effort. It's the difference in something being a hobby and a job. People are forced to do a job to make money. They hate it more as time goes by. A hobby is something we do by choice. We can stop at any moment. Once you get a fixed building and have to pay rent, the hobby becomes a job. Hobbyist choose to spend hours looking through quarter boxes and don't factor their time. If they factor all the time and travel expense to go to the quarter boxes, it starts negating the profit. To some degree, just bullshitting with the customers and making them feel welcome is worth more for their business than slaving over boxes investigating every comic they have two (or 10) times a year. df1 Well, I'll agree with all of that. It all makes sense because it is true that a dealer doesn't have time to track down what each of his comics is worth and his main concern is making back plus profit what he put into it. It is a business for him. I think this is where the opportunity is created for collectors/hobbyist. The fact dealers don't always care about what they have and how it comes out in the wash is where opportunities exist to find books of great value in dumpster dives. Some dealers I know right away it's a dumpster and not worth picking through, others I know to keep looking because great things pop up. I used to go through Comic King's dumpster boxes all the time. I would all the time find books worth $5 - $20 or more in there because he had so much turnover and bulk, he didn't often go through them thoroughly to see what he had. I could very often go and spend $20 in his dumpsters and turn around and make $100 off the same books on ebay. It's too much time and work for him. It's easier to stick it in a dumpster and label it $1 or less with other surrounding junk and good stuff and let people feel like they are getting something. For him, it is coming out in the wash. For me, its worthwhile to look. I think I am on the cusp of both hobby and business. I don't have a brick and mortar store, but I have been selling comics all year. However, I'm selling as more of a hobbyist but trying to run it more like a business. However, unlike a business, I am unable to put back into it like a business would. Basically a lot of the books I am selling today are books I spent all the times dumpster diving for for all those years. Yeah, you'll see a lot of books go for 99 cents and it'll be a break even or even a light profit deal for me. Or in the wash as you say. Still others, I have gotten $5 - $20 and even more for books I spent $1 or less on. My point is, I see a lot people act like you can't make money on books like this and I say, they are wrong. $1 that becomes $5 is much the same as $10 becoming $50. The $50 will always look better for the quick flip, but the $5 add up just the same. Yes, it will take 10 times longer and 10 times more work than the $10 becoming $50 book. And I get those too and have all throughout my collecting career whenever I can. But it doesn't mean $1 books becoming $5 isn't worthwhile. It's all additive and it all goes towards a bottom line number. It all adds up in the end.
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Post by defiant1 on Aug 26, 2013 20:02:25 GMT -5
My point was that dealers don't care enough to invest the time into discovering every gem in their stock. Their job is already consuming more time than they want it to. If you told them the the first walking dead was in their boxes, they'd do something about it. They aren't going to track 100 worthless comics in order to pinpoint that one. All they care about is what they have in the book and what they get out of it. To them it comes out in the wash and they make about the same by investing only a fraction of the effort. It's the difference in something being a hobby and a job. People are forced to do a job to make money. They hate it more as time goes by. A hobby is something we do by choice. We can stop at any moment. Once you get a fixed building and have to pay rent, the hobby becomes a job. Hobbyist choose to spend hours looking through quarter boxes and don't factor their time. If they factor all the time and travel expense to go to the quarter boxes, it starts negating the profit. To some degree, just bullshitting with the customers and making them feel welcome is worth more for their business than slaving over boxes investigating every comic they have two (or 10) times a year. df1 Well, I'll agree with all of that. It all makes sense because it is true that a dealer doesn't have time to track down what each of his comics is worth and his main concern is making back plus profit what he put into it. It is a business for him. I think this is where the opportunity is created for collectors/hobbyist. The fact dealers don't always care about what they have and how it comes out in the wash is where opportunities exist to find books of great value in dumpster dives. Some dealers I know right away it's a dumpster and not worth picking through, others I know to keep looking because great things pop up. I used to go through Comic King's dumpster boxes all the time. I would all the time find books worth $5 - $20 or more in there because he had so much turnover and bulk, he didn't often go through them thoroughly to see what he had. I could very often go and spend $20 in his dumpsters and turn around and make $100 off the same books on ebay. It's too much time and work for him. It's easier to stick it in a dumpster and label it $1 or less with other surrounding junk and good stuff and let people feel like they are getting something. For him, it is coming out in the wash. For me, its worthwhile to look. I think I am on the cusp of both hobby and business. I don't have a brick and mortar store, but I have been selling comics all year. However, I'm selling as more of a hobbyist but trying to run it more like a business. However, unlike a business, I am unable to put back into it like a business would. Basically a lot of the books I am selling today are books I spent all the times dumpster diving for for all those years. Yeah, you'll see a lot of books go for 99 cents and it'll be a break even or even a light profit deal for me. Or in the wash as you say. Still others, I have gotten $5 - $20 and even more for books I spent $1 or less on. My point is, I see a lot people act like you can't make money on books like this and I say, they are wrong. $1 that becomes $5 is much the same as $10 becoming $50. The $50 will always look better for the quick flip, but the $5 add up just the same. Yes, it will take 10 times longer and 10 times more work than the $10 becoming $50 book. And I get those too and have all throughout my collecting career whenever I can. But it doesn't mean $1 books becoming $5 isn't worthwhile. It's all additive and it all goes towards a bottom line number. It all adds up in the end. You might make $20, but like I told Whetteon, you aren't factoring what it cost to make that money. You aren't factoring gas and time because you did it for fun. All you did was find an alternate reservoir for your money. It's better than paying to see a movie and walking away with nothing, but there are still costs that you and others who do the same are ignoring. df1
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Post by G on Aug 26, 2013 22:40:55 GMT -5
You might make $20, but like I told Whetteon, you aren't factoring what it cost to make that money. You aren't factoring gas and time because you did it for fun. All you did was find an alternate reservoir for your money. It's better than paying to see a movie and walking away with nothing, but there are still costs that you and others who do the same are ignoring. df1 I'm not ignoring that at all. Look I get it. If I was you, I wouldn't sit there and listen to someone like me preach about making money selling comics from various dumpster dives throughout my life and so on. You have a good job. I'm sure you make good money. In your position, there is probably nothing appealing at all about the process of which I speak of. And if I wasn't in the position I've been in for awhile now, I wouldn't find it too appealing either. This is not what I envisioned for my comic collection. I actually felt like I would hold onto it another 20-30 years and continue to fine tune my collecting habits to round out my collection and sell at a time of my life when it is more leisurely than it is currently a needful thing. I also get that there is time and gas involved going and buying books, not to mention the time and labor involved in picking out books, grading, scanning, uploading images to hosting sites, typing up auctions, packing books, bringing books to the post office and replenishing supplies. It all is factored in. My shipping charges probably net me between 50 cent and $1 profit per book. This pays for all my costs to pay for postage and packing supplies and the remainder probably pays for my 1 trip each time to the post office. In terms of hourly wage, I'm probably making less than a McDonalds worker per hour over the summer. During the winter, I was probably making more in the neighborhood of $10 - $12 per hour. Couple of factors were more customers and better books being sold. It would be a bit different if I was sitting here with no books and I suddenly had to go out and FIND comics and THEN sell them. The cost for finding and buying has already been occurred a LONG time ago. I've been collecting since 1978. The last time I bought books was approximately 2010. So it's been roughly 3 years since I last went out looking for comic books. There is no longer any costs to go out and find and pay for books. Sure, those charges didn't go away. They still are real. But they already have been consumed. I've already spent the time and the money buying the books. The books now are taking up space and for the longest time, they were an untapped asset. If I never sell my comics, my comics are basically sitting there making me no money. Factored all in, I wouldn't want this for anybody. But there is smarter ways to do things if you are going to do stuff like this and I'm sure if you would do it, you would have the smartest avenues all mapped out. I think my days of doing conventions in the early to mid 90s taught me to buy books of significance no matter what the cost, as long as I felt I could resell them, the condition was ripe for reselling, and the price was right. I haven't spent all my money on dumpster books. In fact, the older I got, the more I bought expensive books. But when I did buy from dumpsters, I shied away from common issues and bought as I have mentioned before. Books of noteworthiness. First issues, appearances, historical storylines, rare, odd, unique, artist noteworthiness, speculation plays, etc. Just as a dealer cannot concern himself with losing potential big money books sitting in his dumpsters being bought from people like me, I cannot concern myself on factors of money I already spent on these books long ago in the past. It's a case of need and how can I get some money. When the total profit is added up and realized, I haven't made much and I understand that. I fully realize that this isn't the way I envisioned selling my beloved comics. I go through my comics now and I am quite amazed how much good shit I still have left. I could literally keep selling from here on out, and when I finally get going with a decent job again, I will probably continue to sell to supplement my income as I work my way back into getting my life back in order. I one day hope to slow down on the selling and maybe even rebuilding. But as mentioned before, the focused will be narrowed to roughly the estimated 5,000 or so books that fit my collecting criteria. At the same time, my overall collection has been certainly weakened. Till this day, I'm still trying to hold onto certain key books. I figure if I'm going to sell them, I'm at least going to do it when sales are up. The last few weeks have shown more promise than the entire spring and summer. I think with school starting back up and fall closing in, more people will be back in front of their computers, shopping on ebay. I'll eventually sell some more of my better books. But the bottom line I am saying here is if you're going to do dumpster diving, there is ways to do it smarter than just being common reader/collector pulling almost anything and everything out of the dumpsters and thinking it is good enough. There is ways to be selective and to have a better chance at making money. If all it is is entertainment, who cares? If you do desire to make a return one day, then do it as smart as you can to help offset all the costs involved. And yes, when you are hobbyist and you're buying, it is a joy and the costs don't mean as much to you. Doesn't mean it doesn't go away. You still incurred those costs. But as someone sitting in a house with comics filling up 3 different rooms. Those days of figuring whether or not I'm making profit is not as important to me as I need money and these are already paid for and my time looking for them has long since past. Now its just a matter of cost doing the business and what I keep after I pay for those costs and so far it's been just enough to keep me going. Which is all I can ask for at this point in my life.
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Post by defiant1 on Aug 26, 2013 23:05:58 GMT -5
You might make $20, but like I told Whetteon, you aren't factoring what it cost to make that money. You aren't factoring gas and time because you did it for fun. All you did was find an alternate reservoir for your money. It's better than paying to see a movie and walking away with nothing, but there are still costs that you and others who do the same are ignoring. df1 I'm not ignoring that at all. Look I get it. If I was you, I wouldn't sit there and listen to someone like me preach about making money selling comics from various dumpster dives throughout my life and so on. You have a good job. I'm sure you make good money. In your position, there is probably nothing appealing at all about the process of which I speak of. And if I wasn't in the position I've been in for awhile now, I wouldn't find it too appealing either. This is not what I envisioned for my comic collection. I actually felt like I would hold onto it another 20-30 years and continue to fine tune my collecting habits to round out my collection and sell at a time of my life when it is more leisurely than it is currently a needful thing. I also get that there is time and gas involved going and buying books, not to mention the time and labor involved in picking out books, grading, scanning, uploading images to hosting sites, typing up auctions, packing books, bringing books to the post office and replenishing supplies. It all is factored in. My shipping charges probably net me between 50 cent and $1 profit per book. This pays for all my costs to pay for postage and packing supplies and the remainder probably pays for my 1 trip each time to the post office. In terms of hourly wage, I'm probably making less than a McDonalds worker per hour over the summer. During the winter, I was probably making more in the neighborhood of $10 - $12 per hour. Couple of factors were more customers and better books being sold. It would be a bit different if I was sitting here with no books and I suddenly had to go out and FIND comics and THEN sell them. The cost for finding and buying has already been occurred a LONG time ago. I've been collecting since 1978. The last time I bought books was approximately 2010. So it's been roughly 3 years since I last went out looking for comic books. There is no longer any costs to go out and find and pay for books. Sure, those charges didn't go away. They still are real. But they already have been consumed. I've already spent the time and the money buying the books. The books now are taking up space and for the longest time, they were an untapped asset. If I never sell my comics, my comics are basically sitting there making me no money. Factored all in, I wouldn't want this for anybody. But there is smarter ways to do things if you are going to do stuff like this and I'm sure if you would do it, you would have the smartest avenues all mapped out. I think my days of doing conventions in the early to mid 90s taught me to buy books of significance no matter what the cost, as long as I felt I could resell them, the condition was ripe for reselling, and the price was right. I haven't spent all my money on dumpster books. In fact, the older I got, the more I bought expensive books. But when I did buy from dumpsters, I shied away from common issues and bought as I have mentioned before. Books of noteworthiness. First issues, appearances, historical storylines, rare, odd, unique, artist noteworthiness, speculation plays, etc. Just as a dealer cannot concern himself with losing potential big money books sitting in his dumpsters being bought from people like me, I cannot concern myself on factors of money I already spent on these books long ago in the past. It's a case of need and how can I get some money. When the total profit is added up and realized, I haven't made much and I understand that. I fully realize that this isn't the way I envisioned selling my beloved comics. I go through my comics now and I am quite amazed how much good shit I still have left. I could literally keep selling from here on out, and when I finally get going with a decent job again, I will probably continue to sell to supplement my income as I work my way back into getting my life back in order. I one day hope to slow down on the selling and maybe even rebuilding. But as mentioned before, the focused will be narrowed to roughly the estimated 5,000 or so books that fit my collecting criteria. At the same time, my overall collection has been certainly weakened. Till this day, I'm still trying to hold onto certain key books. I figure if I'm going to sell them, I'm at least going to do it when sales are up. The last few weeks have shown more promise than the entire spring and summer. I think with school starting back up and fall closing in, more people will be back in front of their computers, shopping on ebay. I'll eventually sell some more of my better books. But the bottom line I am saying here is if you're going to do dumpster diving, there is ways to do it smarter than just being common reader/collector pulling almost anything and everything out of the dumpsters and thinking it is good enough. There is ways to be selective and to have a better chance at making money. If all it is is entertainment, who cares? If you do desire to make a return one day, then do it as smart as you can to help offset all the costs involved. And yes, when you are hobbyist and you're buying, it is a joy and the costs don't mean as much to you. Doesn't mean it doesn't go away. You still incurred those costs. But as someone sitting in a house with comics filling up 3 different rooms. Those days of figuring whether or not I'm making profit is not as important to me as I need money and these are already paid for and my time looking for them has long since past. Now its just a matter of cost doing the business and what I keep after I pay for those costs and so far it's been just enough to keep me going. Which is all I can ask for at this point in my life. About to crash, so I can't really read this all now. Al I can say is that I've been close to where you are. There was a period when I literally had $10 to my name and $8,000 in debt. I had no money for gas to look for a job. No money to pay my car note. I had no computer or eBay to sell comics. You did good with your purchases and you had fun doing it. My post above was intended to be in a general sense. There are a lot of people who talk about money they are making. I'd like to shatter the myth that money is being plucked out of back issue bins. You worked for what you had and you wisely put equity into something that can hold value. It just bothers me that anyone discounts that effort and makes it sound like the money was just there for the grabbing. You've done good. I'm not knocking anything you've done. In some ways I'm VERY impressed at the diligence in which you did what you did. When you first started selling, I thought... damn... you have more good stuff than me. df1
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Post by G on Aug 26, 2013 23:47:02 GMT -5
You did good with your purchases and you had fun doing it. My post above was intended to be in a general sense. There are a lot of people who talk about money they are making. I'd like to shatter the myth that money is being plucked out of back issue bins. You worked for what you had and you wisely put equity into something that can hold value. It just bothers me that anyone discounts that effort and makes it sound like the money was just there for the grabbing. You've done good. I'm not knocking anything you've done. In some ways I'm VERY impressed at the diligence in which you did what you did. When you first started selling, I thought... damn... you have more good stuff than me. df1 Well, thank you for that. The money is not there for you to go walking into a comic store and just walk out with a lot of money. You are certainly right. In fact, it's probably easier to lose your money. Anytime I read dealers talking about how to do this, I see most of them encouraging people not to. You can add me to that list, but I will say perseverance and persistence go a long ways. Also, just like you want to put an end to the myth that people just pick books out of comic stores and money is made, I too want to put an end to the myth that I didn't use every bit of my experience in collecting and learning about comics to factor into all my decisions. Like you, I have years of collecting. You appear to have more, but I have at this point 35 years under my belt. That is invaluable. When I dumpster dive, I do it knowing full good and well what I am looking at. I'm not guessing like a lot of less experienced people would be. This didn't make me a success by any means, it just helped me make better choices. A lot of less experienced people would tell you to buy CGC 9.2 and higher books and it's the only way you can make money. Well, that's the DUH way to make money. But that way COST a LOT of money. I'm trying to say there is a way to make money on a budget but you have to be smarter than just thinking the ONLY WAY to make money is CGC 9.2's and higher. All I want to do is also lay end to the myth that money is had simply by playing along, going to boxes and buying whatever you want. What I want to add to the discussion is, I'm trying to say if you take what you learn and continue to learn all throughout your collecting life, there are ways to play the game smarter. I'm not a genius, nor am I rich, but I'm certainly smarter in the last 10 years of collecting and buying than I was in the first 25 years. I had to learn from all my previous mistakes and from the mistakes I read about others making. No, there isn't money growing on trees searching through dumpster boxes. But if you use your knowledge and play the game right, there is ways to increase your chances. And that is the only thing I'm trying to preach. Play smart or don't play at all. There is more fools gold in comic boxes than gold. And I'm just trying to talk about ways to increase your chances because too many people just want to tell you to buy high end and high end only (CGC 9.2 and up) and don't want to help people learn that lots of people including tons of dealers make money the old fashioned way of knowing comics and not just grades on a CGC slab.
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Post by defiant1 on Aug 27, 2013 17:16:01 GMT -5
You did good with your purchases and you had fun doing it. My post above was intended to be in a general sense. There are a lot of people who talk about money they are making. I'd like to shatter the myth that money is being plucked out of back issue bins. You worked for what you had and you wisely put equity into something that can hold value. It just bothers me that anyone discounts that effort and makes it sound like the money was just there for the grabbing. You've done good. I'm not knocking anything you've done. In some ways I'm VERY impressed at the diligence in which you did what you did. When you first started selling, I thought... damn... you have more good stuff than me. df1 Well, thank you for that. The money is not there for you to go walking into a comic store and just walk out with a lot of money. You are certainly right. In fact, it's probably easier to lose your money. Anytime I read dealers talking about how to do this, I see most of them encouraging people not to. You can add me to that list, but I will say perseverance and persistence go a long ways. Also, just like you want to put an end to the myth that people just pick books out of comic stores and money is made, I too want to put an end to the myth that I didn't use every bit of my experience in collecting and learning about comics to factor into all my decisions. Like you, I have years of collecting. You appear to have more, but I have at this point 35 years under my belt. That is invaluable. When I dumpster dive, I do it knowing full good and well what I am looking at. I'm not guessing like a lot of less experienced people would be. This didn't make me a success by any means, it just helped me make better choices. A lot of less experienced people would tell you to buy CGC 9.2 and higher books and it's the only way you can make money. Well, that's the DUH way to make money. But that way COST a LOT of money. I'm trying to say there is a way to make money on a budget but you have to be smarter than just thinking the ONLY WAY to make money is CGC 9.2's and higher. All I want to do is also lay end to the myth that money is had simply by playing along, going to boxes and buying whatever you want. What I want to add to the discussion is, I'm trying to say if you take what you learn and continue to learn all throughout your collecting life, there are ways to play the game smarter. I'm not a genius, nor am I rich, but I'm certainly smarter in the last 10 years of collecting and buying than I was in the first 25 years. I had to learn from all my previous mistakes and from the mistakes I read about others making. No, there isn't money growing on trees searching through dumpster boxes. But if you use your knowledge and play the game right, there is ways to increase your chances. And that is the only thing I'm trying to preach. Play smart or don't play at all. There is more fools gold in comic boxes than gold. And I'm just trying to talk about ways to increase your chances because too many people just want to tell you to buy high end and high end only (CGC 9.2 and up) and don't want to help people learn that lots of people including tons of dealers make money the old fashioned way of knowing comics and not just grades on a CGC slab. I've been lucky to know some knowledgeable people in the industry. I had a friend that bought a Golden age collection for a thousand dollars and sold it for $10,000.... to another dealer... within just a few months. The collection was worth even more. The flip is where money is made. That friend taught me that if you buy anything cheap enough, you CAN make money. He also taught me that how fast you flip it is more important than how good of a deal you got. He could buy and sell 3 mediocre collections and have profit in his pocket while some stores are still thumbing through Overstreet trying to price a great collection book for book to get top dollar. I saw that friend buy a broken VCR at a garage sale for $5, and sell it for $10 just days later. The thing didn't even work and both knew it. df1
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Post by G on Aug 27, 2013 17:39:32 GMT -5
I'm obviously not going through Overstreet trying to get top dollar for my comics. Every single one of my auctions have started at 99 cents. Sure, there have been a few cases where this came back to bite me, but most of the time, the cream rises to the top and what deserves to sell, sells.
If I tried getting top dollar, I would start certain books at various prices like $5, $10, $20, etc. I think that way would have me seeing more no sales than sales. If I could afford to sit back and wait for my price, I would, but I cannot do that. I have to make money as fast and as often as I can. So 99 cents with no reserve and what it goes for it goes for. Again, it's not a thing where I want to grade how much profit I made. It's a thing where I need money now and this is how I go about it. I do involve some strategies. I have some methods I use. But most of it is a matter of getting the books online and out. One area I have improved over time is my efficiency to do the job.
The #1 thing holding me back from making more money off of this is just pure volume. If I could double or triple or even more on getting product out, I could make that much more multiples of money. I do think my feedback has helped me. I have lots of repeat customers now and that helps as well. If I had to do it over, I would have sold more of the lesser stuff first and built my reputation and then pulled out more of the good stuff later once my reputation was better. Instead, I needed money and got noticed for putting out some of my better stuff early and using a lot of that up (a mistake). The good thing is I am finding I am able to sell lesser stuff easier now. Sometimes for decent money because I think some people trust my grading and how I ship. I think dealing ethically this long is slowly paying off. In some ways, this is getting easier. Unfortunately, the summer was brutal.
I still think online sales are easier during cold winter months when people are home and more likely to spend their evenings looking at computer screens. June and July just felt like no one was online and I lost some books for nothing. August has been a lot better. I'm feeling the return of the last second snipers. I'm thinking once school is back in full swing and fall cooler weather takes shape, the more people will be around for those last second snipes.
I hate what I went through, but if I had to do it all over again, I would have done it a lot differently. But from what I learned, the knowledge of things has been very valuable.
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Post by defiant1 on Aug 28, 2013 3:41:02 GMT -5
I may have to do what you are doing one day. I am paying attention.
df1
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