Comics UK

Of course, there's always the other problem of finding something, getting excited about it, or worried it may go and buying it there and then, only to think later on that maybe you paid too much or, as I have done, bought something you already had! This Sunday I was at a car booty and found 2 Warlord annuals, a Victor annual and a Shiver & Shake which I bought for £3. I wasn't sure about one of the Warlords, though it turned out i had the other one and the Victor. Never mind, at that price I can't complain, more to add to my sell/swap lists!

The bit about Comic Fairs reminded me of when in one Manchester Comic fair I had to wait while a man finished looking through an assorted Brit comic boss; he pulled one one comic I would have liked along with many random others; he put some back he took out and considered putting back one I wanted but did not in spite of my telepathy.

He bought in & I was thinking of saying you ******* for getting that or making an un reasonable selling price to buy off. BUt decided that was a mug's game and stayed silent. Found nothing I like when my turn came.

Have only been collecting 2 years - I must be taking this too seriously! My politeness won through there as my competative spirit may have been too much perhaps...

Just remind yourself that another opportunity will come. Most British comics sold in the tens of thousands. There are still a fair few about.

I've reached the point with Tammy that I end up passing on most of the issues I want when they turn up on ebay because they are inevitably part of a collection of four or five, and I don't want them enough to pay for three other comics I already have.

Marionette wrote:I've reached the point with Tammy that I end up passing on most of the issues I want when they turn up on ebay because they are inevitably part of a collection of four or five, and I don't want them enough to pay for three other comics I already have.

I have this problem quite frequently with eBay sales items. As you say, Marionette, it's a case of balancing out how badly you want the advertised issues that you haven't got against the higher unit cost. if there are two or three that I want in a batch of four I will bid, but if there is only one I won't. The advertised condition matters here too because I can always readvertise on eBay the ones I didn't need so long as there is a reasonable chance of someone else wanting them, and of course the ones I discard might just be the very ones that you or some other eBayer would have bid for if they hadn't been in a bigger batch.

Phoenix wrote:I have this problem quite frequently with eBay sales items. As you say, Marionette, it's a case of balancing out how badly you want the advertised issues that you haven't got against the higher unit cost. if there are two or three that I want in a batch of four I will bid, but if there is only one I won't. The advertised condition matters here too because I can always readvertise on eBay the ones I didn't need so long as there is a reasonable chance of someone else wanting them, and of course the ones I discard might just be the very ones that you or some other eBayer would have bid for if they hadn't been in a bigger batch.

That's very true. I suppose I have a fairly relaxed attitude to Tammy because there are always dozens of Tammys on ebay on any given day (checking now I find around 70 separate auctions). It would be a different story with Spellbound, where there are maybe half a dozen auctions a year, and once a year someone will parcel out an entire collection in twos or threes. When that happens I grab whatever I can afford. Which is how I ended up with three copies of issue #1.

Marionette wrote:It would be a different story with Spellbound, where there are maybe half a dozen auctions a year, and once a year someone will parcel out an entire collection in twos or threes.

That's very true. Fortunately the only issue I don't have is 65. In one sense I don't need it because having 64 and 66 means that I know that no serial started or finished in 65. However, they were in the habit of providing a Turn Of The Key complete, a Tale From Cremond Castle, a Damian Darke complete or even just an ordinary complete on an ad hoc basis, and I would like to know those titles. If Marionette or any other member with that issue could let me have that information, including any exclamation marks, inverted commas etc, I would appreciate it, as it could be a year or more before I get a copy.

Until Blaing provided me with the three missing Sparky's I needed for my collection-I was prepared to buy- if they ever came up for sale - a years (1966) worth to get them! Depends how much you want really.

Marionette wrote:I've reached the point with Tammy that I end up passing on most of the issues I want when they turn up on ebay because they are inevitably part of a collection of four or five, and I don't want them enough to pay for three other comics I already have.

Ah, that's an eBay problem I still have - just got a big load of Talking Turkey comics the other day, and I already had about half of them, but it's the first time I'd seen those particular issues for sale. Usually it's the ones I already have, so found myself paying way more than I would've usually paid. That'll teach me!

The curse of the ham fisted royal mail large letter pricing; The larger UK comics 2AD, Tammy, Lion, Buster etc cost just under £3.00 to send and the slightly smaller size cost £1.17. Sellers feel forced into selling in batches to compensate for this but reading these comments that obviously isn't working!

japandroid wrote:The curse of the ham fisted royal mail large letter pricing; The larger UK comics 2AD, Tammy, Lion, Buster etc cost just under £3.00 to send and the slightly smaller size cost £1.17. Sellers feel forced into selling in batches to compensate for this but reading these comments that obviously isn't working!

It depends where you are in your collection. For a long time I was getting Tammy in chunks of various size, from two or three issues up to something like fifty in one go, but you reach a certain point where you are filling single issue gaps, so three consecutive issues are an expensive way of filling them. In that way I'm kind of lucky that the issues of Spellbound I'm looking for are essentially a run of twenty issues, so I'd be up for any pack of consecutive issues within that run.

I've hardly ever seen comics in charity shops, but most charity shops I go to have annuals. By that, I mean that most charity shops I go to have some sort of licensed annual from the late 2000's. Occasionally, however, I do find some interesting stuff in charity shops. For example, yesterday I found the first Sparky annual for £3 at an Oxfam bookshop and have found other Sparky annuals for similar prices (usually lower) at several other charity shops.

However, it seems that a lot of people are overestimating how much annuals are worth and how much people are prepared to pay for them, so I often find that comic annuals in charity shops are either overpriced or non-existent (presumably because the people owning the annuals want the money for themselves). For example, I remember seeing an early 90's Beezer annual in a charity shop for about £8! I probably wouldn't buy a comic annual from the 1990s for anything above about £3.

I mostly collect humour comics and annuals, though mostly from car boot sales, market stalls, bookshops and charity shops rather than online, at conventions or second hand comic shops (the latter is simply because I don't know of any near me). I rarely pick up licensed annuals (even if I recognise some of the artists) and I sometimes pick up oddities that relate to humour comics (such as the Jackpot annuals by World Distributors)

I maybe lacking in business sense but it seems to me that if a local newspaper sells at 50 to 80p why can't a comic be produced at a similar price .I know local newspapers have adds but comics could too.Obviously I'm not talking the glossy comics which are priced differently but ordinary bread and butter type newspaper print.I'm sure a local newspaper wouldn't sell as many copies as a national comic.Since this isn't being done at the moment it I should imagine it's not possible.Well ! Just a thought.

abacus wrote:I maybe lacking in business sense but it seems to me that if a local newspaper sells at 50 to 80p why can't a comic be produced at a similar price .I know local newspapers have adds but comics could too.Obviously I'm not talking the glossy comics which are priced differently but ordinary bread and butter type newspaper print.I'm sure a local newspaper wouldn't sell as many copies as a national comic.Since this isn't being done at the moment it I should imagine it's not possible.Well ! Just a thought.

You'd be wrong. Even a local newspaper would vastly outsell the average comic because unlike a comic, a newspaper is not a niche item. As for why they couldn't be produced for 50p: because the publishers would lose money on every unit sold. Remember, for one thing, when you buy a comic you aren't buying it from the publisher, you're buying it from a retailer who has already bought it from the publisher at considerably less than cover price.

When on holiday ,as a collector I seem to be drawn to junk shops and second hand shops.Recently spent a couple of hours in Norwich and found a place with loads of comics and annuals where I could have happily spent a week.I think when I enter some of these shops the rest of the family think I've entered the Bermuda Triangle.

As regards collectors who wish to fill their collections, I guess that's why there are so many sellers who put up "buy it now" bids for single issues whose price is quite exorbitant because they know that somewhere, someone will be seeking that particular issue and, inevitably, prepared to pay over the odds to complete said collection. These sellers aren't daft, damn them.