Comic Dealer Tried to Rip Him Off! How to Value a Comic Collection!

For a dealer to pay 40-60 percent of value is good. For some keys and good quality I have seen them pay 70 percent. You are correct, if you want the full value you need to sell them yourself. I sold a few book to friends for 85-90 percent value.

When I was a kid, I used to pull out all the ads, especially the ones that were a full wrap from one side of the staple to the other. Didn't want anything that wasn't story. 😂 As an adult I realised I'd cost myself thousands. 😮😮

Short term this dealer probably got the collection literally for a steal. But word of his unscrupulous dealings will eventually spread and diminish his returns in the long run. Dealers out there please be fair. We the buyers will love and respect your business due to your honesty and transparency.

I remember about 7 years ago at my LCS that the owner had a person come in with a Amazing Fantasy #15 in about a 1.5 maybe a 1.8. And Amazing Spiderman #4 and 5 and a couple Tales to Asonish #38 and 45. The person asked if they were worth at least a hundred dollars! The owner of the LCS said I will give you that much!! Totally ripped the person off! I even told the owner that I couldn't believe you would ripped that person off. His reply was that he said that I offered him what he thought the comics were worth. In my opinion he ripped the guy off of at least ten thousand dollars!!

I’d like to know the name of this so called comic dealer. This person should be publicly shamed by the comic community. If it happened to me I’d be all over social media alerting my fellow collectors with the identity of this low life ! Thank you sir for bringing this to light.

Man finally someone told the truth.. I hate dealers ripping people’s off .!! For raw books yeah 30-50% value.. graded slabs reasonable 60-70 key and demand slabs ..!! Great video ..!!

Yes go to a dealer, dealer says yes .10 per book 😂

I agree with the points you made. Also when you get a collection a lot of times you don’t know the value until you get it home and spend time with it. Sometimes it’s lower than you thought and other times it’s higher. You made some good estimates based on what you saw. I have heard people over the years brag on what they got it for. I would rather hear a person talk about how they tried to give someone a fair value and what they based their estimate on. That kind of thinking just helps the community as a whole.

A really well organized video. Thanks, Ryan.

Wow thanks for sharing! I agree with all you said man.

Very timely info. Thanks.

The first (and last) time I sold my collection was when I was 17. I got $35.00 for my box of Silver Age gems that I bought as a kid. Long time ago, sure, but still hurts.

Raw books are rough unless they are clearly high grade, all the work of getting them graded and the expense is a ton of $$$. I’d probably offer $300 knowing I have dozens of hours of my time ahead of me to make a few hundred dollars is not a terrible offer. You need to pay yourself for your time, they make an easy buck. Shooting too low is not cool but shooting too high and working for nothing is not good either, but I’m not really a dealer anyway, just trying to find the habit.

If you plan on actually processing and prepping the bulk for sale (versus a quick key-scan and dumping them in a dollar bin), then I'd recommend putting a much lower value on them than $0.25/book, It costs me (on average using round numbers) $0.50 per book to process bulk (scan, grade, and list) using quite a bit of automation to reduce labor. Given that roughly 70% of copper+ bulk will never sell, adding another $0.25/book cost just isn't profitable. Of course, all of that changes based on numerous factors (age of collection, type/desirability of books, whether it's been picked through, etc.). In a nutshell, make sure you can make your margins based on what you can see without including any of the bulk. I'm not saying that there isn't profit to be had in the bulk, but it's slow profit with a lot of grinding behind it.

Great video, Ryan! A lot of sellers don't realize the time involved for the buyer. Grading, bagging and boarding, listing, shipping .... all that time adds up and has to be considered in the selling price. Hopefully more people watch this video.

This should be a basic guide for anyone selling a collection like this. Take the good stuff OUT, and either get them graded or sold individually raw. This guy would have made more just selling his top 10-15 comics than he got for everything. People see a bunch of boxes like this and they immediately want to pay bulk prices.

Great topic - thanks for covering this! Reminds me of that time I messaged you when I found out my lcs bought a great collection with a low grade Hulk 1, plus 2-6, Fantastic Four 1, 48, 49, 50, 52, etc & a big Tales to Astonish Hulk run among them for $2,200! You agreed that was a steal & pretty low. Thanks for your thoughts, I’m going to look at a small collection soon & I’ll try to be in the fair ballpark!

If you are selling a collection you should have 3 - 4 people look at it and give you a quote. Also set if up that they review the collection in one or two days (so they can't communicate to each other). Take the highest quote. If it's a average to above collection never just take the first person to look at its quote. And let them know that there will be other people looking at the collection.

Great video

I got me father’s collection and called a dealer to buy or just give some advice and he blow me off because I was female. So, I told him I was going to buy the property next store and run him out of business then hung up on him 😂