DETERMINING THE VALUE OF YOUR COMICS

When you’re looking at Ebay trying to figure out what price to pay or what price to sell your comics at, you should keep these important points in mind

1 – Page quality – there’s a huge difference between a comic that’s graded and has a designation of WHITE PAGES, vs. one that has OFF-WHITE to WHITE, or lower quality.  Keep this in mind when you buy or sell any comic book.

2 – Grading company – like with cards, there is a clear undisputed leader in terms of preferred graders.  With cards it’s PSA, with comics its CGC.  A CGC comic will have up to a 20-30% higher price sticker on it typically than a CBCS and up to even 100% over a PGX graded comic.  Not all grading companies are created equal and it’s important to keep this in mind when buying or selling. 

3 – Seller Popularity – Auctions are run by a variety of sellers ranging from individuals who sell a couple comics a month to auction houses who sell thousands of comics a month. Someone has to notice an auction in order to make a bid. A seller without a group of established customers might get a significantly lower price for their comics than an auctioneer who has thousands of collectors watching out for their auctions. Sometimes you’ll see this reflected in the final prices. I’ve seen a comics sell for 40% (or more) when offered by one of the well known Ebay sellers versus an unknown seller. This disparity is even more pronounced when the comic isn’t CGC graded.

4 – Watch the Trend – Comic prices aren’t static. It’s a good idea to give more weight to recent transactions. If a comic had a couple of sales at $200 sixty days ago but the last 5 transactions have been between $150 – $180, you should account for that trend in your pricing model. Buyers tend to look at the lowest price and work from there. Sellers tend to find the highest price and think they can get a few dollars more. Try to take an approach in the middle.

5 – Thin Markets – If there’s been 20+ sales of the comic you’re trying to price in the last 2 weeks, you’ll have plenty of information to put together a good estimate of the card’s current market value. But what if there was only one or two sales in the last 2 months? This is where some skill is required. Take a look at the comics that didn’t sell, also look at the cards that are currently for sale. These can provide clues as to how to determine the market price. Accurately pricing comics isn’t as easy as it might seem, especially when the market for the comic you’re trying to price isn’t active.

6 – RAW vs. GRADED COMICS –This is a biggie, we often get told that someone’s comics are “MINT” or “9.8” or “PERFECT” or “In Plastic” and thus they are comparable to a graded CGC 9.8.  Unfortunately, this couldn’t be further from reality.  It’s very important to compare apples to apples, or raw comics to raw comics, and graded ones to graded ones.  #1 you can’t guarantee a comic will grade a certain grade, and #2 there’s a large cost in grading comics that needs to be factored in as well. Just because a comic is in a bag and board doesn’t guarantee it’ll grade high. It might, but it might not, whereas a graded comic is a known factor. 

 As with raw comics, you can use eBay SOLD comp prices as a go-to, IF there is a consistent trend and there are at least 5 or 6 recent sales and on those you can’t find you can likely Google them and find a sale or two.  If you still can’t pull up recent comps, you might have a particularly rare comic, which may or may not make it incredibly valuable.  That’s where we can certainly help you get comfortable with the proper value with a free appraisal.