Ebay Comic/Annual Prices

[Phoenix]

I was surprised to see a run of Victor go for £190. Admittedly the run was 1 to 45, but was missing issue 2.

There are three factors to bear in mind here, Colin. First, your decision not to bid was not determined by the rising price but by the fact that you only needed fourteen of them. You decided that a probable outlay of between £14 and £15 for each of the issues missing from your collection was too much. However, the auction winner, if he needed them all, will only have paid £4.32 for each one. Secondly, the fact is that the total price of £190 for 44 of the first 45 issues, from nearly fifty years ago you must remember, of an iconic and long-lived boys' paper, is actually very reasonable. I would be very surprised if the number one on its own didn't fetch around the £100 mark in an eBay auction. Finally, how do you know that the winner hadn't already figured out that very fact, and knew that he would at least double his outlay by auctioning the lot off one at a time piecemeal on eBay. I think it is worth taking a bit of a chance in such situations. I have often bought big lots in order to fill small gaps in my collections in the full knowledge that I would be able to move the surplus items on. Just imagine how much of your outlay you would have got back by selling the thirty very early issues of The Victor that you didn't want. Some people would nearly rip your arm off for the one or two missing from their collections. Ask yourself what you would pay for each of the fourteen you are missing. In my experience, the fewer you need the more you are prepared to pay to get them.

[colcool007]

I was surprised to see a run of Victor go for £190. Admittedly the run was 1 to 45, but was missing issue 2.

There are three factors to bear in mind here, Colin. First, your decision not to bid was not determined by the rising price but by the fact that you only needed fourteen of them. You decided that a probable outlay of between £14 and £15 for each of the issues missing from your collection was too much. However, the auction winner, if he needed them all, will only have paid £4.32 for each one. Secondly, the fact is that the total price of £190 for 44 of the first 45 issues, from nearly fifty years ago you must remember, of an iconic and long-lived boys' paper, is actually very reasonable. I would be very surprised if the number one on its own didn't fetch around the £100 mark in an eBay auction. Finally, how do you know that the winner hadn't already figured out that very fact, and knew that he would at least double his outlay by auctioning the lot off one at a time piecemeal on eBay. I think it is worth taking a bit of a chance in such situations. I have often bought big lots in order to fill small gaps in my collections in the full knowledge that I would be able to move the surplus items on. Just imagine how much of your outlay you would have got back by selling the thirty very early issues of The Victor that you didn't want. Some people would nearly rip your arm off for the one or two missing from their collections. Ask yourself what you would pay for each of the fourteen you are missing. In my experience, the fewer you need the more you are prepared to pay to get them.

A well reasoned reply, but marred by a few minor facts. Most of us on here are collectors, so most of us don't look at the resale market with such a clear view to making a profit in that way.

In addition to that look to the resale market, how many of us procrastinate over selling our doubles? I know that I do, and someone else by his own admission does as well...

On the other side, I have seen one and one issue only of Victor No 1 hitting triple figures.

And yes, I have also bought large runs for bargain prices in order to get the odd comic or ten. Now I just have to remember to sell the doubles for a decent price to make my money on them!

As to the ones to get, I probably will pay higher and higher prices to get them as time marches on. After all, to get an item over 50 years old for prices less than current publications is not to be sniffed at.

Apologies to all if the post is rambling but posting and Smirnoff do not mix well!

[tony ingram]

Moving back on track, I was surprised to see a run of Victor go for £190. Admittedly the run was 1 to 45, but was missing issue 2. As I was only after 14 of these issues, it certainly rose beyond my grasp in the last hour of bidding. I was moderately surprised to see that there were 8 people after the same lot. So perhaps the final price was not so surprising after all.

Last year, I listed a copy of Warlord #1 for 99p. It eventually sold for £36.00. That's the thing about auctions-people get carried away, and once they've gone past a certain point there's no stopping. I've seen the same thing in village hall auctions all over Suffolk. People will pay far beyond what an item could possibly be considered to be worth because they get caught up in the excitement of bidding.

[stevezodiac]

On the other hand just suppose that, from the very start, ebay had never had a postage field in the seller's list and just expected everyone to include then postage in the price of the item? We wouldn't be having this argument and everyone would have been content from the start. Also some of us in the past have combined/reduced the postage for multiple purchases. Say if you had added a pound per item and sold ten items - you wouldn't have charged a tenner postage, you would have reduced it to four or five pounds. Now you will add a pound per item and no longer have to reduce the postage because it is not there anymore. So the buyer loses out. I will probably give a discount but not many will now.

[tony ingram]

On the other hand just suppose that, from the very start, ebay had never had a postage field in the seller's list and just expected everyone to include then postage in the price of the item? We wouldn't be having this argument and everyone would have been content from the start. Also some of us in the past have combined/reduced the postage for multiple purchases. Say if you had added a pound per item and sold ten items - you wouldn't have charged a tenner postage, you would have reduced it to four or five pounds. Now you will add a pound per item and no longer have to reduce the postage because it is not there anymore. So the buyer loses out. I will probably give a discount but not many will now.

The buyer won't lose out because the buyer won't buy in the first place. Postage is a blind spot for a lot of buyers; they just don't register the cost. But they'll notice if the item price has doubled, and they won't buy it.

[brisey]

Few things here.

First Royal Mail pricing hasn't helped.Due to their pricing by size.The price of posting one comic has gone up from about 50p Second Class to £1.41 in a few years.

Second your can put your postage above £2.75-just choose the Courier option

Now the moaning, in the future you will not be able to offer discounts in postage for combining purchases.You can offer to knock something off your purchase price for multiple buys-but eBay will still make 9% on money you will not be getting in.EBay are basically getting 9% comission on your post costs.Also you will not be able to list an item at 99p-which is free at the moment-if it sells for just 99p you are out of pocket on the postage.I usually list things in batches of 10 and start at 99p.If I want to see the 80p I make at the moment on each lot at the moment I will have to pass on 40p to my customers per listing.

On the strange sales thing-I once sold a Scorcher Summer Special for £110 pounds.I sold all my Scorcher Summer Specials for over £500.Two bankers with bonuses went mad.

[Elliotgc]

I think this new policy is ridiculous. It means ebay will be making more profit from us, when they aren't doing anything and we're doing all the hard work. As someone said, we will now have to charge £3.30 for a comic we would have originally sold for £0.99 and no-one is going to pay that. I realise they are trying to stop people over-charging for postage, but they had already set a limit of £2.75 per annual, so I don't see what they hope to achieve.

[kevf]

Is there an online Comics Price Guide, keeping track of the latest trends, just like those listed above? Certainly the old printed price guides must be obsolete, and the news of things like that Viz just seem to appear randomly and never get collated.

Kev F

[Digifiend]

I think they might still do those books each year, but they must go obsolete almost as soon as they're printed.

http://www.comicspriceguide.com/ would fit the bill - except it seems to all be US comic books. Someone should definitely do a UK version.

[Lew Stringer]

I think they might still do those books each year, but they must go obsolete almost as soon as they're printed.

http://www.comicspriceguide.com/ would fit the bill - except it seems to all be US comic books. Someone should definitely do a UK version.

There have been UK price guides over the years (Duncan McAlpine, Denis Gifford, to name but two) but Kev was asking about online versions that could be updated quickly.

Such price guides seem pointless in practice though as people will pay what they can afford. Just because a comic sells for a certain amount to one buyer doesn't mean everyone else will pay that. Comic collecting is often based on nostalgia but we don't all share the same passion for every old comic.

I've only bought price guides for their historical reference points (dates, length of runs, cover images etc) and never took any faith in the monetary angle. As eBay has demonstrated, prices vary considerably for the same items, plus most sellers are not aware of any grading system, so their idea of "excellent" might be our idea of "left in shed for 20 years".

Lew

[Digifiend]

Thank goodness for photos. Better to judge by that than by a seller's opinion.

It's a pity the website I mentioned only covers US comic books. A UK version would be exactly what Kev was after.

[dreamticket]

Is there an online Comics Price Guide, keeping track of the latest trends, just like those listed above? Certainly the old printed price guides must be obsolete, and the news of things like that Viz just seem to appear randomly and never get collated.

Kev F

There will be later on this year. Duncan McAlpine is compiling one which is up to 700+ pages, I believe. In the meantime you can preview about twenty pages of it here:

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/dream_director/

He also sells on e-bay. Always nice condition stuff. NM means NM, etc. I'll be curtailing any ebay activity until the proposed postage changes have sorted themselves out, though.

[colcool007]

I must admit that I find dreamticket to be a good seller on Ebay as his NM means that it looks like it has just been delivered to the shop be it last week or last century.

I was blown away to see a 1976 Action Summer Special recently hit £45! Wow, is that mark-up or what?

Re Tony's comment about bidding frenzy, it must be great to be that seller to see a comic go above and beyond the expected price. I am not sure where you would get the greatest pleasure. One for making a serious profit (C'mon, I am a Jock after all and I need some pleasure after getting gubbed 3 nil with us going down to 10 men for soft yellow cards!) or to know that the buyer has made a serious step towards completing their collection.

And Brisey, you are doing it again! Putting lots on Ebay to tempt me. (tongue firmly in cheek) I wouldn't mind, but for the bargain Victor lots that you have listed, I am only after about 9 comics spread over five lots! Arrrggghhhh!

[stevezodiac]

Long before ebay existed (and being a fan of vintage magazines) I picked up a load of Radio Times's from around 1970/71 for 50p each. Sold them on ebay a couple of years back and was astonished when a few fetched £25-£30 each! You can never anticipate what a item will go for.

[presterjohn]

Any surprising ebay prices for Comics or Annual that shock you.

£23.50p for this Vulcan Annual.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... K:MEWAX:IT

Ive got that one. I don't even think it is on my bookshelf though as I seem to remember it is a softcover or something.