So You Want to Sell Your Comics

I have a hard time understandng you. I’d rather die than part with my collection accumulated over a lifetime, but I’ll just assume that you are in desperate need for financial aid and try to help you out. I’ll also help me out by cutting down on the same repetitive emails I get every month, by answering all of your questions here.

The first thing you need to do is price your comics to determine the value. If you have a lot of comics published prior to 1979 or so, I suggest you invest in an Overstreet Price Guide. You can get one at your local comic shop or order one online at the Gemstone website: http://www.gemstonepub.com/

You should also be able to purchase one at your local comic shop. Too cheap to go out and spend some money on a price guide, or have comics from the 80’s and 90’s you want to sell? That’s fine, there *is* a price guide online. I don’t guarantee it is complete or anything. You’ll have to investigate these for yourself, because I’m not selling my comics. I can tell you that the link works, you can go over and see if your comics are listed. http://www.comicspriceguide.com/

Alright, so you aren’t happy with what you have found in terms of pricing, and I just *know* some of you will not be happy with the prices listed. You can trot right over to http://www.ebay.com and run a search on a book you want to sell, and track the auction in real time, and see what it really is selling for. Sometimes that early 90’s speculator mentality takes some work to get rid of.

Theoretically, you should now know what your comics are worth. Where are you going to sell them? Online you have several choices. You can get yourself an account with http://www.Ebay.com/ if you have a credit card, and put your comics up for auction. The various ways to do it are on the site. http://www.yahoo.com also has an auction site, but I don’t know all the account rules...you can check that one out yourself. OK, so you don’t have a credit card, or you don’t like taking your chances at auction. There are two places online where you can post your "To Sell" list. The first is the rec.arts.comics.marketplace newsgroup. Don’t go posting on the other rec.arts.comics groups, those folk tend to get testy when your violate netiquette, and you don’t want to alienate your potential customers. If you don’t have access to usenet through your internet service provider, or don’t know how to access it from your computer, you can go through http://www.deja.com. Deja offers free accounts and you can access rec.comics.arts.marketplace from there. The second site is http://www.comicweb.com/ They have a classified section where you can post your lists of comics to sell.

Not comfortable with selling your comics over the internet? You do have real life options. I don’t suggest you take your collection over to the local comics shop. The comic shop owner cannot afford to pay you what your comics are worth. He or she has to make a profit to stay in business, and that means buying low and selling higher. Probably the easiest way to sell your comics is to rent a table at the flea market. They can range from $5-$30 a table, depending on the market, and where you live. Another option is to rent a table at your local comics convention, but not all locales have them, and the table price is usually higher. Of course, it does put you in direct contact with your market, so you have to weigh the money you outlay against your potential profits. There are also a lot of public bulletin boards around. Check your grocery store, or your local college campus. You can post a flyer with your phone number on it.

I’m sure there are other ways to sell your comics, but these are the ways I can think of. I hope I have been helpful, and good luck to you. And no, I don’t want to buy your comics, I have 30 some odd long boxes of my own: )

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