It's home cleaning time, and I'm staring at several shelves of comics, mostly DC Vertigo, bought 1991-1998 or thereabouts. I haven't looked at them in years; it's time for them to go. I'm afraid that, if I walk into a comic store with buckets of comics, that I'll be offered some insanely low price for them. What are these things actually worth? What's the right way to sell them?

Google didn't turn up very much in the way of useful information. eBay has a couple auctions on these sorts of comics, and they tend to be going for roughly $1/each, at least for the more popular titles like Sandman. Thoughts anyone?

From my experience it is just like you said. You walk in a comic store with a box of 100, and they give you like $15-$20 for 'em. The way to get the most money out of them is to sell them at conventions. You can get prices from Wizard magazine. Those in my experience are higher than they will sell for in comic stores, and it also depends on location.

No, but I've bought many lots of comic books. The store I worked at only really bought large lots of comics unless there was something special in there. At the time, we got our prices from the Overstreet Price Guide and its monthly updates, but I think that everyone's pretty much moved to Wizard prices since they put the Overstreet monthly updates out of business by inflating their listed prices so that more people bought it so that they would feel better about their collections. Since then, Wizard has become much more respectable, since they're the only monthly game in town, but still somewhat pandering, IMO, but some shops will still probably go by Overstreet for older stuff. You stuff is probably right on the borderline.

Anyway, we usually purchased lots at about $0.50 on the dollar, give or take some depending on the desirability of the comics. Of course, that was after we graded them. Comics prices drop dramatically if there's much damage at all.

If someone came in with a handful of comics or less, then we wouldn't usually bother buying them unless it was something we wanted, which could vary from whether we simply didn't have any of that particular issue to only if it was a highly desirable comic, depending on what business was like at the time. If we were buying lots, we just took the whole lot, whether or not we wanted the individual issues. Unless it was just a load of utter crap, in which case, we might pick and choose if there were a few good things in there. What crap is is going to depend largely on the store. Of course, some crap is always crap. Vertigo is probably of the sort that's not too interesting to some shops, very interesting to other shops, but definitely not always crap.

I will have to note that we were very reputable as far as comics shops go. Many shops are underhanded. I'd definitely make sure you have a good idea of the value of what you've got before you take it in. I'd also suggest that if you have some that are particularly valuable that you pull them out of the lot and sell them by themselves, even if it is just to the same store, as you'll probably get more for them that way than if they were just mixed in, and that wouldn't even be especially underhanded. It's just that if you have, say, a Sandman #1, then you're going to get 50% or whatever the lot percentage would be if it's in the lot, but if you sell it separately, then you might get up to 65%, which could be quite a bit if it's still about $50 in mint condition.

Check out this grading guide; it's pretty good. Assume that the numbers in brackets next to the grades are one-tenth the percentages of what's listed as the price in the price guide. That is, if you had a book that you judged to be very fine, which is listed at 8.0, the price that the shop would try to sell it for would be 80% of what's listed in the price guide.

HTH. Let me know if you need more info.

The best way to sell ANYTHING is to fund a sucker. I bought tons of comics when I was a kid for this very reason! Now, I am waiting for the perfect chance to unload them on someone else.

Anyone interested? I have almost all Marvel. Good, popular stuff. Lots of first appearances, oldies, series, some #1s, etc. I had a list somewhere, but lord knows where it is.

Ah, I bought them to read. Read each one once then put them back in the case for good. Sad, but it was entertaining. Let me know if there's anything anyone is looking for. I promise I won't consider you a sucker.

I sold a complete and pristine collection of Heavy Metal magazines (#1- April 1977 to whatever issue I had at the time) to a comics shop a number of years back for an insanely low return...how I wish eBay was around back then...

or maybe I should have just kept 'em

> Good, popular stuff.

That's my problem. I have wonderful collection of very well taken care of, bagged and card-boarded.....Alpha Flight comics. Oh yeah, that's worth a lot. The bags are probably worth more.

Magazines never sell for that much. I don't know how littel you got paid, but I would be surprised if anyone would get more than $10 for a Heavy Metal #1 or more than $5 for any issue from #2 on.

Oooh, good information. I've decided to keep all my trade paperbacks and a handful of others (like my signed Sandman #1 -- I handed the thing to Neil Gaiman when he was at a signing event in town and he started doodling all over the cover in silver paint pen. I nearly had a heart attack. Please somebody tell me that issue is worth more as a result...).

Still, there are some possibly valuable issues I'm planning to sell (e.g., the Dave Sims-written issue of Spawn).

Question: these comics are in no particular order. Should I go to the trouble of sorting them? I could definitely go to the trouble of pulling out what may (or may not) be particularly valuable issues. All said and done, I'm ditching about ten linear feet of comic books, which should be enough to at least get somebody's attention.

The eBay thing sounds nice, but I just don't have time to deal with it. My goal is to unload this stuff. Any thoughts on whether I should haul this around to multiple comic stores and ask them to make bids on it?

Comics that are signed by a creator are usually worth no more and no less, unless you can find an individual who's a big fan.

Actually, the Neil Gaiman issue of Spawn is worth more than the Dave Sims issue, mostly because Gaiman introduced the character Angela in that issue. There's an interesting legal battle that later ensued (that was wrapped up just recently) that goes, yet again, to prove that Todd McFarlane is a big asshole.

You might want to go over to Comics Price Guide. They seem to have not-totally-unreasonable price listings available for free.

You definitely want to sort your comics. Generally, the less trouble you put a comic store through, the more you're going to get. Constantly flipping back and forth in the price guide is a big pain, and whoever's doing it will get pissed off.

You should probably also make a list of what you have and copy it for however many shops you're going to go to. (Call first, though.) My shop wanted to see the comics in person, but many others prefer to just get a list initially to determine if it's stuff they want. There shouldn't be a problem with shopping them around, but I wouldn't try to start a bidding war unless you've got an Incredible Hulk #181 or something.

Um, I have Hulk #180, does that count? 1st cameo of Wolverine. In fair condition, but it's one of those nice Marvel pieces I have in my collection.

But yeah, find a sucker. Like, how about this story:

When I was in High School, a thing called Pogs came out. They were some stupid carboard disks that you threw a plastic thing at and tried to knock them over. Naturally, they came in all colors and styles.

So, one day, this kid in my class started showing off these Pogs that he had. But he was a cool kid, why was he talking to me; who wasn't in his crowd? I thought and thought and finally guessed that the local hobby shop (who he knew the owner's son (who was in our grade also)) had given him a bunch of Pogs to try and go start a trend at school. Ah, being a sucker, I went and bought some. But, then I realized I was a sucker and stopped.

So, don't just find one sucker, create a whole horde of them! Try to start a trend somehow. Sell at a flea market or garage sales; somewhere that you can get the attention of less-savy people. Hey, maybe they'll want 'em for the same reason I did; to read them and follow the cool story lines. Nothing wrong with that, eh?

Oh, and to add to the list of favorite-yet-worthless comics, I was into the character Deathlock back in the day. I was somehow interested in the fact that he was super tough but hated to kill anything. I have his first apperance (in some super old, weird comic) along with a good long run from his own series. Good reading material.

Remember Alf? Well, now he's back! In Pog form!!!

>Remember Alf? Well, now he's back! In Pog form!!!

Ah, what I wouldn't give to throw a metal chunk at HIS friggin ugly head!