Expert: Mark Harmon - 2/7/2004

Question
First of all I want to say thank you for taking my question.  I have been given about a hundred comic books mostly from the 1960's.  Most of them are super hero comics such as Superman, Batman, Spiderman, X-men, and so on.  Most of them are in good condition but since I know nothing about comic books I really don't know how to grade their condition.  Anyway I would like to sell these comic books but am afraid that if I take them to a dealer that I might be taken advantage of because I have no knowledge about them or their value.  Any suggestions on how to get an accurate value on these comic books and the best way to sell them?  I appreciate any help and thanks again for taking my question.

                            R Cloyd

Answer
Hi Rodney,

First thing, you will only want to take them to a dealer to sell as a last resort.  The one advantage of selling to a dealer is that you can unload your comics quickly.  However, dealers will typically only offer you 10% of the guide value, sometimes more if you have anything in high demand.  

To make the most money, I would recommend selling them yourself.  To do that, you will want to get an idea of the value of the comics as well as determine the grades.  Check out comicspriceguide.com.  Last I checked, the site could be used for free for gathering price guice information.  The site also provides tips on how to grade comics.

As far as where to sell them, I would check out one of the various web sites that are out there that have a collectibles category for sellers.  There are plenty out there, but I would suggest going with ebay, Yahoo Auctions, or ioffer.com.  Pros and cons of each are as follows:

ebay - they have the most traffic and so you will have access to the most potential buyers.  Downside is that they have the highest fees.

Yahoo Auctions - they have low listing fees compared to ebay.  Downside is that the volume of traffic is lower.

ioffer.com - I just recently started using this site.  Traffic is lower than Yahoo Auctions and ebay, however, you only pay a fee if your item sells.

You may want to start out by selling a few items on each of the sites to see which works best for you.  If you don't have the time or desire to create auctions yourself, there are people out there who will sell your items for you on a consignment basis.  

You may also want to do a search on bulletin boards for comic collectors.  You can advertise your comics on these sites without paying any fees.  Only drawback to using the bulletin boards is that it can sometimes take awhile to find buyers.

Hope this helps,

Mark