What comics DIDN'T you buy today?

[Digifiend]

2011 Beanos not worth £1? That's 50p off the price when they were new. If they're in good condition, yes, it is worth it. But I do agree about the bulk buy problem, it is all or nothing when you find multiples of the same series.

[Jon]

2011 Beanos not worth £1? That's 50p off the price when they were new. If they're in good condition, yes, it is worth it.

I don't know... when you compare to original retail price then yeah it's good value but considering Beanos from the 1970s and 1980s also sell at £1 each - I know which I'd rather spend a pound on.

[Phoenix]

Charity shop volunteers are mostly elderly, without a huge amount of training. They are, in most cases, not up to dealing with customers who try to get discounts - especially not to the degree of the aggresive type of haggling you often get at car boot sales.
Also, the whole point of a charity shop is to try and raise money for a charity. Yes, most goods are donated anyway but I expect it can even be viewed as unethical to try and get discounts in a charity shop.

Look, Jon, the prices these elderly volunteers put on their items for sale are plucked out of the air. The next charity shop along the block could well be selling an identical jacket, dress, lawnmower or book at £10 more or £10 less. It is perfectly legitimate to make an offer. I wasn't advocating the aggressive type of haggling that you mention. Don't forget, though, that up here a significant number of families are grateful for the very existence of charity shops, and £1 saved in one shop is £1 that can still be spent in another.

[Digifiend]

I once managed to get The Simpsons Season 2 on DVD from a charity shop.... for just £2. Second hand copies are usually at least a tenner. So yeah, it's clear that charity shops workers don't check the going rate when setting prices - some items are bargains, others are rip-offs.

[philcom55]

Unfortunately some charity shops seem to be consulting a central office which uses catalogues and price guides to fix the 'going rate' for printed items. Presumably they're afraid of letting an Action Comics no.1 slip through their fingers for 50p (regardless of the fact that the hapless donor has already let it go for nothing), but as most of us are well aware there's a wide gulf between what most ordinary comics actually sell for and the values assigned to them by price guides.

- Phil Rushton

[felneymike]

How often do people see individual comics (not annuals, reprint collections, or manga books) in charity shops, though? I can count the instances:

1 - A tiger Tim's Weekly from 1940 in Lincoln Oxfam (bit thier hands off)
2 - A bunch of Victors in plastic wallets in Lincoln British Heart Foundation for £5 a pack. In as-new condition with free gifts (also bit thier hands off)
3 - Loads of American comics in Cambridge Oxfam
4 - "Rolls" of modern Beanos and Dandy's (no older than about 1990) in Lincoln Oxfam.

Hmm, I need to keep my eyes open when I go back to Lincoln in a couple of weeks!

[big bad bri]

Charity shops in my area of london never ever seem to have individual comics just womens mags & annuals

[Digifiend]

Same here.

[blaing]

I was at a second hand bookshop at Toowong yesterday, and they had a Bobo Bunny annual from 1973, but they wanted $20 for it, so unfortunately I didn't end up buying it.

[McSCOTTYS GHOST]

I don't see many individual comics in charity shops now in the Glasgow/Lanarkshire area as I did about 5 -10 years ago when they were everywhere (you can still pick up comics at some car boot sales/fairs though) but still a few if you look - UNICEF shop in Glasgow has a load of US comics (all way over priced for what they are) - a batch on Roy of the Rovers weekly and monthly for 80s in Hamilton - that's it - I tried to give a shop a batch of about 00 US comics and 50 UK comics last year and they weren't interested ( a nice no thanks) thay said they cant shift them now (only annuals accepted)

[felneymike]

Two big bundles (possibly 6-monthly) of Bunty from the mid 90's, for £1.99 each!

...I'm driving round there Monday lunchtime, hope they're still there. Ought to have had them put behind the counter I suppose, but oh well!

[PaulTwist]

The Dandy. Because I couldn't find it anywhere.

Manchester-types - I've asked this in another thread, but if anyone could point me towards a shop in the city centre that consistently stocks it, I'll be eternally grateful. It's usually in WH Smith, but they occasionally sell out.

(Tesco in Prestwich have it, as do Asda in Wigan, but I have to make special trips to get to both and I'd rather just pick it up in town...)

[Digifiend]

Nobody's been buying the Beano from my local newsagent recently. They still have last week's (only one copy) and no sign of this week's. I got mine (along with the Dandy, which the newsagent doesn't stock) from Asda instead.

[Shaqui]

Charity shop volunteers are mostly elderly, without a huge amount of training. They are, in most cases, not up to dealing with customers who try to get discounts - especially not to the degree of the aggresive type of haggling you often get at car boot sales.
Also, the whole point of a charity shop is to try and raise money for a charity. Yes, most goods are donated anyway but I expect it can even be viewed as unethical to try and get discounts in a charity shop.

Look, Jon, the prices these elderly volunteers put on their items for sale are plucked out of the air. The next charity shop along the block could well be selling an identical jacket, dress, lawnmower or book at £10 more or £10 less. It is perfectly legitimate to make an offer. I wasn't advocating the aggressive type of haggling that you mention. Don't forget, though, that up here a significant number of families are grateful for the very existence of charity shops, and £1 saved in one shop is £1 that can still be spent in another.

As someone who has actually worked for Oxfam (back in the 1990s - policies may have changed with the increasing advent of Oxfam Books shops) the deal used to be - put the items out at about half the original cover price (or approximate selling price now if it was an older book which had, say 25p on it). Prices were most certain not just plucked out of the air. If it doesn't sell and stays on the shelf longer 1-2 weeks (prices were dated) then it would be reduced. And continue to be reduced until sold. If it didn't sell within a time span (I think 4-6 weeks) it would be withdrawn, and if possible shipped to another branch or central Oxfam to be redistributed. Stuff was never junked unless it was dirty or incomplete and wouldn't have gone out on the shelves in the first place - we prided ourselves on quality control.

Staff weren't trained in pricing but where possible there we had contact with local experts who would advise. The guy who did books, etc at the branch I worked had done it for some years, and I recall giving him a batch of Book & Magazine Collector which he found very useful, before the advent of the internet. I daresay the wildly varying and steep prices B&MC published were probably to blame, ditto the prices now asked on eBay, Amazon, ABE etc.

As for customers asking for discounts, the policy back then was a polite decline. If someone got pushy or hostile they would be asked to leave. If they didn't, and we had our fair share of disreputables looking for bargains or just stuff on the cheap (homeless, drunks, etc), we would call the police. Most of our staff were elderly (I was one of the more junior Saturday staff at age 25-28) but we were not expected to tackle them, even if we could.

[George Shiers]

I missed out on the third Willy the Kid book on ebay by just a penny! Damn!

And the other day I lost Lew Stringer's auction for some of his original drawings - lost out on those by £1!