Collection Intervention

kevinvolo

So I'm watching collection intervention and the host says something like, "he needs to get ride of some of the not so hot stuff and collect more quality". It made me think. I'm in the process of cataloging my entire collection using collectorz. Its fantastic, but I'n not half way there and I have 4k comics cataloged. I should be done at around 9k. Thanks to many comics. I've had to move them more times than I can count.

So here's my thought. I have 33 boxes of comics and some loose stuff I'll need more boxes for. I'm going to cull the herd down to 20 boxes and use the money to fill holes in my Amazing Spiderman run. But man, that's a lot of books. Many may not be worth a lot, but they all mean something to me.

But seeing people on the show react so irrationally to their collections is making me think. And I believe I can get it down that far and fill the few holes I have in big runs.

So two questions, whats the best way to get rid of so many books, I don't want to nickel and dime over at ebay, so I thought maybe craigslist. What are your thoughts?

Secondly, anyone need 13 boxes of comics. :))

rkbrasse

I've culled my collection several times using this very forum and ebay. I've found most of what I had was barely worth the paper it was printed on. Others are worth more but never as much as I wanted for them. Be prepared for a little disappointment and some surprises. Also anything you can replace with a trade could be fair game. The things I couldn't sell but didn't want to keep, I donated to other forum members.

kevinvolo

Good idea. When I have a list together, I'll post it here. Then donate to my library and the scouts or something. And believe me, I have no delusions that I'm sitting on gold. Yes I have a pretty good collection, that stuff stays, its the little stuff that goes. For example, I found about 10 mini series of one sort or another that I remember not really caring for the end, or whatever. That's about 100 books that I may make 10 bucks on. So that's why I figured get 10-13 boxes together and just sell them on craigslist in one fell swoop. I'd l've to post them here but I don't have the time to be shipping 13 boxes of books 1 to 20 at a time. We'll see. I'll keep some stuff to post here and then sell the rest in a big lot.

Nick

I moved a friend's grandmother last weekend, and she had so much crap, literally broken tables, boxes and boxes full of cassette tapes and VHS players. I'm slowly listing stuff on eBay that is worth anything, otherwise it all goes to Goodwill or the library. @rkbrasse is right though, most stuff goes for less than I thought, but to have $20 and a little less clutter it's worth it. It is hard getting rid of collections, but at the same time will you ever re-read 9000 books? No way. You are on your way to recovery!

Trev

If you have a half price books they buy my drek at $10-15 a short box.

Basically the less work you want to do the cheaper you have to sell because eventually somebody has to do the work.

I can drop a box at half price books, have a little cash and be rid of them in about 30 min.

Or I could parse them out in 10-20 book lots on eBay and spend a month or two plus multiple trips to the post office for about $50-$75.

The extra time is not worth the extra dollars to me.

RedRight88

I know that nowadays people say comics aren't really for kids anymore, but if you did have some age appropriate material you could donate to something like a Boys and Girls Club or a school reading program.

fredzilla

kevinvolo said:

Good idea. When I have a list together, I'll post it here. Then donate to my library and the scouts or something.

RedRight88 said:

I know that nowadays people say comics aren't really for kids anymore, but if you did have some age appropriate material you could donate to something like a Boys and Girls Club or a school reading program.

I heartily endorse this route. I've made a couple of trips to our Children's Hospital with a medium sized all ages box of floppy funny books and the volunteers are so thankful for them. Since my son has had to stay a couple of nights before, I know that they provide a good respite from the TV and Playboxes. I'm sure you can get some kind of write off if you needed it.

There's also ways to donate to the armed forces (especially if you need to unload those more mature titles).

dubbat138

fredzilla said:

kevinvolo said:

Good idea. When I have a list together, I'll post it here. Then donate to my library and the scouts or something.

RedRight88 said:

I know that nowadays people say comics aren't really for kids anymore, but if you did have some age appropriate material you could donate to something like a Boys and Girls Club or a school reading program.

I heartily endorse this route. I've made a couple of trips to our Children's Hospital with a medium sized all ages box of floppy funny books and the volunteers are so thankful for them. Since my son has had to stay a couple of nights before, I know that they provide a good respite from the TV and Playboxes. I'm sure you can get some kind of write off if you needed it.

There's also ways to donate to the armed forces (especially if you need to unload those more mature titles).

Two times a year I cull my comic collection. Dividing the stuff I don't want into two big piles. The all ages stuff gets split up between the local hospital's children's ward and the local woman's shelter. Then non-all ages stuff I give to my Uncle.

[Deleted User]

I've culled my collection several times using this very forum and ebay. I've found most of what I had was barely worth the paper it was printed on. Others are worth more but never as much as I wanted for them. Be prepared for a little disappointment and some surprises. Also anything you can replace with a trade could be fair game. The things I couldn't sell but didn't want to keep, I donated to other forum members.

CaptShazam

I have no where near the collection as most people on the forum do, but there is still a shop where I live that accepts back issues for store credit. The store has taken pretty much anything I have brought in except for some late 80's Thor. I used the store credit to get trades which is what I want my collection now mostly to be.

dubbat138

CaptShazam said:

I have no where near the collection as most people on the forum do, but there is still a shop where I live that accepts back issues for store credit. The store has taken pretty much anything I have brought in except for some late 80's Thor. I used the store credit to get trades which is what I want my collection now mostly to be.

I used to do that when I lived out in Texas. The owner gave a me a good deal. But that was mainly cause I was good friends with him. Most of the time I would use my store credit to get stuff out of his cheap bins or get Magic cards.

matchkitJOHN

Thanks for the heads up on the show. Missed my radar.

kevinvolo

Great ideas. My local libraries graphic novel section is 90% titles I donated. Its nice, a little sticker saying I donated them, and the kids get a lot of comics. Since I do that they have me order the graphic novels for them.

But yeah, I'm for the cheaper route. Pull out all age stuff to donate. Then get 10-13 boxes together and put an add on Craigslist. Put the lot up for 600 or best and take 4 if offered.

If anyone is in the Utica area and wants to buy, contact me. Its going to take me some time to do this so save up. :))

Funny thing is that's how I started my collection. I had bought books here and there from 8 years old, but I saw an ad in the paper for comics and bought checked it out. It was 8 boxes or so for 300 or something. Can't remember since it was almost 30 years ago. But it was amazing. Three entire boxes were just Amazing Spiderman. And this was in the 80 so it was all Silver Age stuff. Good times.

phansford

First off..... 2 point deduction for anyone using the phrase "thin the herd" or the variant "cull the herd" :))

kevinvolo said:

So I'm watching collection intervention and the host says something like, "he needs to get ride of some of the not so hot stuff and collect more quality".

I hate these kind of comments. But its what you'd expect from a TV host. The reality is that there are tons of collection types. Not everything is based on the monetary value of an object.

If you're a completist.... then getting rid of books of lesser value defeats the focus of your collection.

If your budget is such that you can only collect books in VG and you like the depth of your collection by focusing on mid-grade copies, then selling off 100's of books to get a single issue in 9.8 doesn't fit your collection. I purposely purchased reader copies of early Sgt. Rock books. I wanted to read and enjoy the books.

What if you collect only certain artists? Or you want to have a collection with a wide variety of examples.... maybe you want a collection that has appearances of the Joker from the various "ages" from Golden to current. This again has nothing to do with quality or value.

Some of my amps and guitars are players. Meaning while they have a certain value due to their age and type, they don't demand the highest dollar because they are not pristine examples or have been modified or been restored. I have a 1938 Gibson L-00 acoustic. (Robert Johnson and other early blues players are associated with the L-00). Its been heavily restored and is worth about 25% of excellent. Which is fine with me. The wood has aged and it has great tone. And I want to play the damn thing - not look at it behind glass.

kevinvolo

I here you. But I have to say, for example, the Star Wars woman's house was FULL to the rafters. She had amazing stuff and then darth vadar spatulas she didn't even remember having. The people on this show have serious issues and many seem to be more like hoarders. Its pretty extreme in some cases. Others not so much. Interesting show for collectors though.

But yeah, there is a personal thing to collecting. I want to get 10 boxes together, but man, these things mean something to me. I too buy low grade books to read. I think what I want to do is get ride of stuff I look at and say, "huh...I didn't really care for this, its worth this or that, I'm going to ditch it." Then use any funds to buy silver age stuff because those are where my holes in ASM are.

But man its tough to let go.

phansford

Your approach is dead-on. Take items that don't fit your collection anymore and use the proceeds to buy things that do. I do the same with some of my guitars. The problem is my wife wants me to pass it all down to my youngest son - who is also a player. Of course with the comics.... she was all sell, sell, sell. :))

I just wish the talking heads on TV would talk about the broader ways to collect. Its not always about money. There's collecting..... then there's investing. My oldest son earned a merit badge on coin collecting and part of it was about the different types of collections you could create.

kevinvolo

I've only seen a few, I think there are only 2 out, but the host is pretty cool and she understands collecting. I think its on Syfy.

phansford

I was thinking of any of the shows in general.... American Pickers, Roadshow

random73

my girlfriend is forbidden from watching this show. :D

kevinvolo

HA. Yeah, if a blond woman comes to your house with a clipboard and a video camera, start hiding your stuff fast.

batlaw

Damn how nice would it be to have some help like this to thin things out!? Plus actually being able to get real $$ for your stuff. Dream come true for me.

matchkitJOHN

My issue has been that somehow I will bend time by my will and have more of it to read so I hang onto stuff. I need a pocket universe!

random73

doesn't everybody?

matchkitJOHN

Yep. Tonight's show is in our wheelhouse with a guy that has 30k comics. I'll watch the west coast feed.

Nick

matchkitJOHN said:

Yep. Tonight's show is in our wheelhouse with a guy that has 30k comics. I'll watch the west coast feed.

It was a pretty good episode, I thought it seemed like the host was trying too hard for him to sell his comics to get silver or gold age books. Maybe it was just the way it was edited, but he never said he wanted silver or gold age books. I think trading boxes of quarter bin filler for Hulk 181 was a good move. I've been thinning out my collection too, and replacing junk with books that actually may increase in value is a good move.

That Transformers guy was nuts though. When your collecting starts interfering with paying your bills, you know you have a problem.

matchkitJOHN

The thing with the comic guy, Joe, is that his wife really didn't mind his collecting it was just too much in their apt.

Trev

matchkitJOHN said:

The thing with the comic guy, Joe, is that his wife really didn't mind his collecting it was just too much in their apt.

This is my approach. My collection is bound to a certain space and our shed and attic are not climate controlled.

So I'm constantly revisiting what I have vs what I want.

What's hard is my modern stuff is getting down to only what I want. I've been through 6 short boxes in the current pass and only pulled about 20 books to get rid of.

I should be about 5x that already. Sigh.

Another thing I've done is temper my purchases of new stuff off the rack. I'm measuring how many books I actually read in 2012 and will use that to budget how many new books a week for 2013.

Buying only the new stuff I love is leaving me more time to read classic runs. And from a dollars perspective helps me get more books that will hold their value better.

kevinvolo

That's a good point. I had to cut back for 4 years to the bare bones on my monthly books and that helped focus my collecting. Now that I can get what I want again I went a little nuts about 4 months and I have a pile of books each month I look at and say wow, those sucked, but I wanted to try them. Not to say we shouldn't try new books, but maybe try 2 a month or 1 you wouldn't get. That's what I'm doing. I also only allow myself 1 mini series at a time. If there is another one I want then I get them in trades.

Funny thing is, I seem to be able to part with trades easier. When I had to move back to NY I honestly cannot remember how many trades I sold. At least a hundred, maybe more. It was crazy.

phansford

Trev said:

Another thing I've done is temper my purchases of new stuff off the rack. I'm measuring how many books I actually read in 2012 and will use that to budget how many new books a week for 2013.

Yeah..... I understand this situation. The newer stuff really isn't "collectable" in the traditional sense. You buy it for the entertainment value. I was getting to a point that a lot of titles were not getting read. I moved to getting TPB for certain storylines/titles. Then instead of filling my collection with boxes and boxes of recycle bin fodder, I was able to either give the TPB to friends or sell them at the local Half-Price books.

lobo1023

With me, everytime I go to "thin" out either my comics or action figures, I have pangs that I'm gonna deprive my grandkids of some good stuff. Who knows which particular character they may latch onto when they get older (they're only 3-4 right now). And as others have said, it isn't always the money, although I do think the host of the intervention show tends to devalue collections with her estimates. The one thing I do like about the show is seeing some of the couples working together. My wife is not the fan that I am but she does understand that these books, figures, posters, etc. all have some meaning to me. The worst thing that could happen from the show is some otherwise happy couple end up divorcing not because the house was full of toys but because some "consultant" convinces the spouse to destroy the other's memories.