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Where Do You Buy and Sell Your Comics?
Hemos asks: "I've been collecting comics for almost two decades now, and have been looking around for some back issues that I've never been able to find in the local shops. I'm also looking to sell some of the comics that I already have. Any recommendations for the good places online (or offline) for buying and selling comics?" Come to think of it, so would I!
OK, just to beat some of y'all to the punch.
;)
<COMIC BOOK GUY>
Worst. Topic. Ever.
</COMIC BOOK GUY>
Please take this humor in good spirits. Move along, now.
[Yes, I do expect to be moderated accordingly...]
Ebay!
Just look under collectables, there's approx 7000 entries in it for the uk alone!
http://www.22balmoralroad.net/ http://www.tinynetworks.co.uk/
OK,
;)
Let's start off that I'm talking about the European situation here (Brussels and around).
The best place for finding comics that were missing from your collection (particular edition or so) used to be flea markets before they caught on. Now, I have the impression that, if you are not there at 8 o'clock or so, you can only find rubbish.
This way, I was able to find a number of comics with the old "newspaper" look (Actually, Jommeke, mainly because they were missing from my all-newspaper-look collection nrs 1-96 IIRC).
The same for Tintin (or Kuifje) in an older 'Flemish' edition (As opposed to the newer 'Dutch' editions). And yes, we were reading them before that Spiel-guy got interested
If you are very lucky, you might still find something there if you get there early.
There are a number of comic book stores that do second hand comics, which might give you the possibility to complete your collection at a fair price (to my experience, these are also getting more rare).
If you are very lucky you'll be able to get your hands on some old editions by asking around to friends and family. It's amazing what ppl have stashed away in their homes (e.g. 1st edition Nero's).
Genius doesn't work on an assembly line basis. You can't simply say, "Today I will be brilliant."
M4d pR0Pz to Atlantis Fantasyworld in Santa Cruz. My wife and I have been buying comics there for ten years, even after we moved over the hill. Joe worked a mail order deal for us, he probably can for you too.
Contact information is at the Atlantis site
No Longer a Menace to Society.
Alexandria Morrigan born 2/22/01 l. 20.5in wt. 7 lbs. 5 oz.
Who does that?
I buy my comics close to exclusively at conventions. I tend to only like a few obscure titles, so I get by damn well at Conifur.
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Hi,
Selling is hard-- most folks want the 'valuable' issues in your collection so, after lots of sales work, you'll be stuck with, oh, 95% of your comics and all the really good stuff missing. That's the worth of both worlds, really-- still stuck with boxes laying around but no good stuff hidden in it.
In "Comics Retailer" a few months back, there was a great bit from a comic book shop owner on how he buys comic collections-- by the pound, $1/pound. "But I have X-Men 128! What's that worth?" '$1/pound'.
Rather than cherry pick collections, evaluate quality, etc, he just made the simple business case-- take it all at a fair price. I wish he was in this area. It'd be nice to regain storage space.
Mycomicshop.com and WizardWorld.com both profess to be comic-specific sales sites, you might want to try those. I plan to, once I get organized enough to sell my back stuff.
A.
so... what's your point?
My point is that people read your sig, know where it came from, assume that you also know where it came from, and then reach the conclusion that you are either a complete moron, a precocious but disaffected teenager, or, more likely, both.
If that's fine with you, then by all means, go right ahead. But in the meantime I will hold on to my impression of you as a mouth-breathing fifteen-year-old who read on AOL that Crowley was a Satanist and whispered, "Kewl!"
I write in my journal
Another resource is ComicFind which is a sort of Google for back issues...no really, check it out.
There are some big stores (e.g., Mile High) that sell back issues. I just dealt with Impulse Creations and was pleased. There's also Comic Link, which hooks up buyers and sellers - they are slanted towards Silver/Golden age.
As for selling, forget it. If you have some genuine key issues (hey, Fantastic Four #1 is always in demand) or a very limited number of hot issues, you may have something worth selling. The back issue market is dead, dead, dead and has been for many years.
Tangent: After the bubble of the late 80s (when stamp, coin, and trading card collecting also became hot as baby boomers reached nostalgic middle age and began spending their money on teenage memories), the market collapsed. And since the new comic book market was already in severe decline (as kids found video cames, computers, and a million other things were preferable to $2.50 comics), lots of shops closed and dumped their inventories on the market. End tangent.
Of course, the price guides are pure fantasy - check eBay's finished auctions or RACM for real values. As a collector, this is great for me - I buy and never sell ;)
I would give the required pitch to support your local shops. I've lived in four cities in the US and in each one I found Ye Olde Comic Shoppe, with a veteran behind the counter who was happy to talk comics, suggest good titles, heck sometimes even let you try a book or two on a trial basis. I buy the few new books exclusively from the local shop. There's a store about a half-mile from my house that sells trading cards, Magic cards, games, and oh yeah a few comics...I'll gladly drive to the other side of town to go to the place run by the guy who loves comics. At least in his store I sometimes see kids ;)
Oh, and re: back issue value, local shops also may be willing to take your back issues on store credit (trading) which will give you more value (if they have what you want, of course).
Excelsior!
Advice: on VPS providers
This would obviously mean, that most of our stigma's, moral's, and inherent beliefs that boils down to someone saying "it's just wrong" or "it's the word of god!" are obviously falacies of those who enjoy some sort of self importance.
Congratulations. You've discovered that there is no natural-law basis for behavior. Pat yourself on the back.
But don't break your arm. This "insight" is blindingly obvious to anybody with the slightest intelligence, and it doesn't serve any useful purpose. The world works better with rules for behavior-- morality, ethics, laws, etiquette-- than without. There's no natural law that dictates that I should say "excuse me" after I burp, but I do it anyway. Why? Because my world is better if I do; in this example, "better" means fewer people think I'm an obnoxious ass, which has all sorts of obvious benefits. That's the same basic principle behind all of ethics, although there it's applied on a grander scale.
I would suggest that you put this little insight of yours on the shelf and move beyond it. Living in a modern (i.e., "crowded") society, this idea is of no practical use to you.
I write in my journal
I've been collecting for a little over 20 years (since I was a teen). I used to buy primarily from actual stores, now I buy mainly from Federation Comics - they used to have a retail store but now they're just a cyber-only shop. For fills and back issues I mainly go to Harrison's Comics in Salem MA (I don't think he has a website), it's convenient to me and a pretty good shop.
I also really like New England Comics (the company that brought us The Tick), but all their stores are fairly far away from my home - I used to go to their Norwood store regularly when I worked there. Million-Year Picnic in Harvard Square is good, too - assuming they're still around (rents there got pretty nutty since the last time I went there).
I'm not so sure on selling. I virtually never do - I even built a storage room for my collection when we were doing some house renovations this year. I like to fantasize that my collection will pay for our dream vacation house some day, but it's likelier that our six-month-old will just find them and chew on them instead.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."