Expert: Mark Harmon - 8/2/2004

Question
My husband was given a box of comics that we are interested in selling.  I read your advice about setting up our own website, but neither of us have that kind of computer knowledge.  There are no sets, but most of them are horror comics from the 1970's.  Our questions are: What is the difference between a comic's value and it's graded amount and how should we proceed in selling these books?  Thank you for any help you can offer.

Answer
Hi Kirrie,

A comic's value will vary depending on the grade given. How that value varies depends on which price guide you use.  In general, I find that the values below are pretty consistent ranges for how comics are priced (based on grades) in the market that I live in:

Very Fine: 65-75% of the Near Mint value
Fine:  30-40% of the Near Mint value
Very Good: 15-25% of NM value
Good:  5-10%  of NM value

You might want to check out comicspriceguide.com to see how their guide values vary based on grading.  The site can be used for free for gathering guide value information and the site offers tips on grading if you need help with that.

As far as selling them, there are several routes you can go.  Quickest and easiest way to sell them is to take them to the local comic shop and sell them to the owner.  Downside, and why I don't recommend this option, is that a dealer typically will only offer 10% of guide value for your comics unless you have something that's really in demand.

Three sites I recommend are ebay, Yahoo Auctions, and ioffer.com.  You're probably familiar with most if not all of the sites, but here are my plusses and minuses for each:

ebay - king of the auction sites.  Has the most traffic, and therefore the most potential buyers.  Downside is there will be more competition from other sellers and they have the highest listing fees.

Yahoo Auctions - not as much traffic as ebay but still a decent number of comic book buyers frequent the site.  Their listing fees are lower that ebay.

ioffer.com - I just started using this site fairly recently but have been really happy with it to this point.  The best part of this site is that you pay no fees unless your item sells.  This site is gaining in popularity however, sales activity on this site are slower than ebay and Yahoo Auctions for me.

I usually suggest the sellers try each of the sites to get a feel for what they are like.  You can also do  searches on ebay and Yahoo Auctions of completed auctions which will give you some indication of what to expect should you put your comics up for bidding.

Horror comics will generally do well.  If you have anything of value like a key issue or 1st edition, I would sell that off individually.  Anything else I would probably group into a set and sell it that way.

Hope this helps.  Let me know if you have any other questions.

- Mark