Josh-da-man

What happened? I haven't been watching this since they moved it away from Walking Dead.

PhantomStranger

If you notice, most of the sellers are people only marginally aware of the current market prices. If you do know the current market price, don't expect to get more than 50% of the street value from a store unless it is a superhot item.

I would never take an issue worth more than a couple of hundred on this show, it's simply too easy to sell it on eBay if the issue is competently graded.

dalbowski

A guy came in with some The Amazing Spider-Man issues. Walt paid $450 for 101, 121, 129, 300, and 36 (the 9/11 issue).

hdtv00

Yea ok so what were they actually worth then

LosingMyMind

Over 9000.

Josh-da-man

A quick search shows:

#101 - $385.00
#121 - $450.00
#129 - $950.00
#300 - $160.00
#36 - #32.00

These are the values from the first price guide site I found.

The guide value for these books in NM condition would be around $2000. If the books were in lower grades, like VG or so, then $450 would probably be a fair price for the store to pay.

#129 is the first appearance of the The Punisher, and high grade CGCed copies can go for upwards of $4,000.

kgrogers1979

#121 is the death of Gwen Stacy. It seems odd to me that its only worth half as much as #129.

I doubt that #101, 121, and 129 were in NM condition. Its incredibly rare to find comics that old in NM condition. They were more likely in VF/F condition at best.

The store didn't give him a bad price in my opinion. Remember that the store is just a middle man. They have to turn around and resell it and still make a profit. So of course they are going to only give you a fraction of the true value of the comic. You will always make more if you cut out the middle man and sell it directly yourself.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, if I were selling comic books to a store I certainly wouldn't expect full guide value; 50% of guide would seem to be a fair price, though I think I'd want a bit more for high demand issues like Walking Dead #1 if I were selling it.

Evan Meadow

But like I said, its not about getting full guide value, but it is about knowing what that full guide value is to help yourself negotiate better.

If you're just like "Oh I don't know, what's your best price" without knowing a damn thing, you'll get lowballed and be none the wiser.

madcougar

I've seen better deals cut at Game Stop. But seriously, what the kid wanted was very reasonable for this bunch of comics. At the end of the day, it's his fault for going into a comic book store to sell comics. That was just dumb.

The other issue is that Walter is going to screw you over no matter what. You can come in and ask for a reasonable amount and he's not going to give it to you.

Ultimately, if I was the kid, I'd have plucked down the cash to get the books professionally graded and slabbed. That's the way you make some money.

fumanstan

He got on TV too. That's probably worth something to him.

Josh-da-man

I was surprised that he gave that guy $500 for those Star Wars toys.

Is that stuff really worth that much? They all looked like recent reissues, and in theory there should be a lot of those kicking around MIB.

Patman

I'm sort of tired of watching Walt bargaining down would-be sellers of stuff.

JeffTheAlpaca

Since that guy selling GI Joes was Bryans son they had to give him a good deal

Shannon Nutt

I thought they overpaid too. None of that stuff was very old, even if they were unopened.

dex14

That's what I was saying towards the end of last year.

Troy Stiffler

I don't know what the turnaround time is. But it's not like the store has unlimited funding.

I sort of do this in my business. Except it's industrial equipment. Someone might sell me a pump for $500, when the list price was $20,000. I'll rebuild it and try to get $8,000 for it. But it could take years to sell. In between, gotta pay the bills. And I have to put up the money to buy it.

Worst is when someone sees my $8,000 pump, and think I'd be interested in another one at $5,000. Nope. That's just not how it works. If you want to get $5,000 for it, I dare you to put in the time and effort to sell it yourself. Even with unlimited capital, it's just not feasible to work on that kind of scale.

Their store never looks busy. If they have 10,000 comics in stock, they might only sell a handful a day. It's not like someone is going to come in the next day and buy those Spiderman comics. If they do - great. But it's more likely that those Spiderman comics will sit on display for a long long time until someone puts up the money to buy them.

I think I'll leave it up to the comic book men running the store and paying the bills to make those kinds of decisions.

LosingMyMind

That naboo starfighter has sold for over $500 at times. It wasn't in stores for very long and had an original MSRP of $99.99. It was never re-issued, either.

kgrogers1979

Yeah, the back issue market hasn't been in high demand in a very long time. People just don't want a lot of back issues anymore. Even key issues like some of those Spider-Man comics aren't likely to sell that quickly. I have seen some ebay auctions get relisted dozens of times before someone ever actually places a bid.

So when a comic book store gives a low price like that, its not because they are really being all that greedy. They have to resell it and still turn a profit AND also they have to make up for lost costs on comics that will sit unsold for a long time (or even worse, never sell at all).

Running a comic book store isn't a high profit business. You don't get into that business to get rich. You get into it because you love comics.

PhantomStranger

Most of the comic book stores actually survive now on products other than actual comic books, from what I've seen. Toys and card tournaments make them more money. eBay has basically decimated the price levels of back issues. Apparently every single person since about 1980 kept their collections in mint condition and since so many were printed, the supply is too great.

Lastdaysofrain

I've personally sold probably 10 copies of ASM #129 over the last 20 years and at the height of the boom and Punisher popularity in the 90s the most I ever sold one to a store for (keeping in mind they have to make some money) was $350 for a VF copy. If you could sell a copy for around $200 these days that's a pretty great price. I still have one I'm holding on to but I wouldn't expect to get too much for it.

I also have an issue #95 and #97 and those are probably $50-$100 issues tops. The guide books aren't really all that practical these days. A lot of stores will look on ebay and see what stuff as sold for recently in order to price stuff.

mphtrilogy

i've got amazing spiderman 24, 41, 48, 51, 54, 57, 58, 59, 87, 131, 137

but dont want to spend the $$ on getting them graded, some of them are in decent shape, but they do have some wear. in some cases, the grading price might be worth half the value of the comic...

i have been tempted to walk into a comic shop myself... i am always afraid of selling it on ebay without a grade and people getting pissed at what they were buying if it does not have a grade..

i also have some nice silver age FF (FF 49, 50, 51, 52, 58, 59) and X men (30, 31, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45), but run into the same problem.

i can totally see why someone would just want to get the cash and walk away...

dalbowski

Those comics weren't bagged!

I wonder if that was the same Spider-Man 300 that they had bought last week.

Evan Meadow

That was what I thought, that it was the same issue.

Was a nice comic book auction they had too, the prices all seemed very fair for their conditions as well as because of where the profits of the auction were going.

LOL but you can get Stan Lee to help, but nothing from Kevin Smith himself?

Eric F

Kevin Smith was busy eating a sammich.