The new History Channel show about auctions, dealers and antiques featured a collection of Marvel Silver Age comic books recently.
Among the seven or so books that the comic book fan presented were:
X-men #1 (1963) Slabbed and graded
Iron Man #1 (1968)
Captain America #100 (1968)
Avengers #2 (1963)
Hulk #181 (first Wolverine)
Amazing Spider-Man #123 (first Punisher)
New Mutants (first of Cable's new team, I believe)
The fan asked $4000 for the books, but the dealer asked him for a real number instead.
The dealer also asked if he had ever been to Comic Con (san diego) and the fan said he had tried, but tickets were always sold out. The dealer assured him if they could come to an agreement, he would assure two tickets for the fan.
After a counter offer for the books at $1200, the price floated until they reached a value of $1800.
The fan took the cash,saying he didn't know who was going to be in the audience that would know the value of the books, but the two promised tickets to ComicCon was what he REALLY wanted.
Do you think he got a good value, knowing that he was a knowledgable collector and up against an experienced negotiator?
Replies
I saw that. It just proves more that you'll never get rich selling your comics to dealers! That guy will probably get his $1800 back on X-Men #1 and the rest become pure profit! Great for him but not incentive to actually cash in your comics!
Obviously, it depends on the condition of each of those. At that stratospheric level, any little nick can reduce the price by hundreds or thousands.
As with most of these guys--especially the ones on Pawn Stars--they don't understand they're selling wholesale to a retailer, not retail to a collector, as they think.
He should have slabbed them all and put them into an auction or sold them on eBay. But those negotiations are all about what knowledge you have, and he probably paid dearly for being clueless about what he was selling.
OTOH, if what he really wanted was a SD ticket, those aren't easy to come by on the second-hand market, so I don't know what its value is. I'd say he way overvalued it, but that's for him to decide.
-- MSA
If he got airfare and lodging for the San Diego show, I'd say he made out like a bandit, but it doesn't sound like that was the case. From that lot, it sounds like only the X-MEN comic had any real value -- the others are nice books to have, but hardly the type to make a dealer's heart start racing.