Too many.

§ June 19th, 2006 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on Too many.


71 COPIES OF NEW TEEN TITANS #20

So you may remember my discussion from a few days ago regarding a large collection of books that was essentially dumped on us. A small portion of the books we could actually use, but the rest?


58 COPIES OF PHANTOM ZONE #2

Well, I’m not sure what we’re going to do with these excess books…aside from my taking pictures of the books en masse for my own amusement. A number of the books I may be able to sell off on the eBay…one at a time may take a while, and even lots containing, say, 20 copies of the same book may be difficult to move. Of course, there are always donations to various charities, which may be the final fate for some of these books, at least.


74 COPIES OF THE SMURFS #1

There may have been another option, as we’re still in the process of selling tens of thousands of comics in bulk to an international buyer, and perhaps we may have been able to unload some of these books on him. However, that buyer’s condition of purchase is that the books be in new shape (Very Fine or better). About 90% of the books in this collection I’m discussing are in average shape (VG) at best.


83 COPIES OF KRULL #1

Which brings up another point. This collection is comprised mostly of multiple copies of first issues, early issues of some series, anniversary issues and annuals, and so forth. The person who assembled this collection was obviously interested in “playing the market” with these books, investing for future resale. However, no attempt was made at keeping these books in sellable condition. They were stored in unwieldy cardboard boxes, with flaps that didn’t even seal off the boxes when closed, and many books have dust damage, mold spotting, crunches and creases from being piled improperly in the boxes, and so forth. Most of these books are today only a few dollars even in mint condition, and easy to find in that shape. In the conditions the these books are in, the only way they’ll sell is for pennies on the dollar.


32 COPIES OF SAGA OF THE SWAMP THING #2

So basically, all this effort assembling this collection, purchasing dozens of copies of each of these comics, was for nothing. The books were gathered, and left to rot.

And the thing is, even if the books had been kept in perfect, pristine mint condition, they’d still be hard to sell. Yes, Krull #1 may list in the price guide for a few dollars in mint condition, but you’d still have to find a buyer…which may not be easy since they’re virtually no demand for it. And even if you do find a buyer — a store, or a private collector — it’s unlikely you’ll be able to sell all 83 copies to that same person. Any profit you may have realized selling your mint copies of Krull would be eaten up by the time searching for potential buyers, who are few and far between.

Of all the books from this collection, the ones I might be able to sell in fairly short order are the copies of The Life of Pope John Paul II. A distant second would be the Smurfs comics, which will sell eventually, but I certainly don’t want or need to store 74 copies. I might be able to sell a dozen or so over the next year…having more copies than that gets into “diminishing returns” territory, as I now how to worry about storing the darn things for the foreseeable future.


117 COPIES OF THE FALCON #1

I’m really not meaning to single out this particular collection for abuse. I’ve seen several collections along the same lines…people buying for investment who 1) invariably choose the wrong comics to buy in multiples, and 2) don’t take care of them anyway, so the books end up being even less desirable. It just seems so…wasteful, I guess.

However, the comics appear to be our problem, now, so it looks like I’ll have to go to extreme measures to move these books out. I wonder what our customers would think if they came to the store one New Comics Day and saw this on the rack:


77 COPIES OF DRAGONSLAYER #1

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