Three Key Things To Do Before Liquidating a Comic Book Collection

This article contains references and affiliate links to products. The author may receive compensation when you click on links to these products at no cost to you.

So, you’ve decided to sell the vintage 1930s to mid-1970s comic book collection you’ve hoarded for decades, inherited, or stumbled across at a yard sale. Good for you! You may be sitting on a small fortune, or at least some serious vacation money.

As tempting as it would be to list the whole batch on eBay or Craig’s List, or take it down to your local comic shop and see what they’ll give you for it, those are the last things you should do. If you want to sell a comic book collection of any value, and you want to get as much for it as you can, you’re going to have to work for it. You’re also going to have to spend a little money before you see a dime. Here’s how to get started.

1. Buy a top-notch guide to comic book grading

Before you do anything else, you’ll want to get a good idea of the value of your collection. When it comes to comics, one of the most significant factors impacting value is condition. Comics are graded on a scale from 1 to 10 and points in between. (Grading can go as low as 0.1 but anything below a 1, no matter how rare, has virtually no value to a collector.)

There are online sources that explain how to do this, but I’ve found the easiest to use and most comprehensive source of information is the Overstreet Guide to Grading Comics. The guide goes into minute detail about the grading process and includes examples of each grade with over 200 full-color images and additional valuable information.

Most people overvalue the condition of their comics. Overstreet is a great reality check. If you price a book as an 8 and it’s really a 6, you’re either not going to be able to sell it or whoever buys it will very likely end up asking for their money back. That’s a headache you don’t need.

2. Subscribe to an online comic book price guide

The value of a collectible comic book rises and falls based on various factors. Is there a movie featuring the title character coming out? Did a movie come out, but it flopped? Is it a sought-after key issue that introduces a new character or involves the death of an existing character? How many issues of that particular title, at that specific grade, are on the market at the moment? My favorite online price guide is GoCollect, which bills itself as “the stock ticker” for comics.

GoCollect tracks sales of professionally graded comics and provides a search engine where you can see how much a particular title at a specific grade is selling for at any given time. A subscription costs $5.99 a month, but it’s well worth the investment. Once you’ve identified your key issues and their grades, you’ll want to check in to GoCollect regularly to monitor sales of comparable issues. You can find out whether or not a specific item sold at auction and where it sold, such as eBay, ComicLink, or Heritage Auctions.

There’s also information about the market in general and advice about which issues you should sell now and which ones are worth holding on to for a bit longer. GoCollect is an invaluable resource for setting the right sales price.

3. Consider CGC Certification

The Certified Guaranty Company (CGC) is the leading third-party grading service for comic books, magazines, and other collectibles. If, after comparing one or more your comics to the examples in the Overstreet guide, you have reason to believe that it is worth over $500, you may want to consider submitting it to CGC for grading. The company provides precise, objective, and impartial assessments of authenticity and grade. CGC certification assures a prospective buyer that the comic you are selling as a grade 7, for instance, is indeed a grade 7.

After grading, CGC seals the comic in a plastic holder that allows the owner to store and display the book safely. Unfortunately, if you break the seal, the grade is no longer valid, so, once sealed, you can no longer read it.

CGC provides this service for any comic, regardless of value. The process costs between $20 and $100 per book or 3% of the fair market value for books worth over $3,000. The price is dependent upon the value of the book, so you probably don’t want to spend the money on a book that is only worth, say, $50 since it cuts so sharply into your profit margin. For more valuable comics, CGC makes more sense because it makes them easier to sell. Not many people are going to spend $1,000 on a comic unless they have some kind of professional assessment that it’s worth that much. You can certainly sell a very valuable comic without CGC certification, but there’s a whole host of problems that can accompany that decision. CGC provides both buyer and seller a measure of security that’s well worth the expense.

Whether or not you plan to sell your collection piece by piece or as a whole, these three tools will put you in a position to get the best possible price. There are numerous sales channels where you can sell your comics, but that’s a topic for another day.

To get your comics ready for professional grading or sale, here are a few more things you will probably need:

Plastic comic book bags and backing boards are essential to maintaining the all-important condition of your comics. They come in different sizes, so make sure you get the right ones. A Golden Age comic won’t fit in a Modern Age comic book bag. Always use acid-free boards that will not only keep your comic from bending, but they will also protect it from chemical disintegration.

Bubble wrap, painter’s tape, and packing tape are especially important when shipping multiple comics to be graded or sold. Most dealers provide wrapping instructions on their websites. You can use the painter’s tape to seal bags, and it guards against damage from sticking when you remove the book.

When shipping individual comics or just a few at a time, comic book mailers can be handy and provide additional protection. For more valuable books, I sometimes use these and add them to a larger box when I’m shipping multiple comics of varying grades. If you are sending an extensive collection and can fill a whole box, comic book storage boxes can be employed successfully without additional packing material. They come in both short (150 to 175 books) and long (200–225 books) sizes.

©2020, Denise Shelton. All rights reserved.