SELLING TO SCREAMING MONKEY COMICS
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Every week, we get new comics and games shipped to the store. The latest issues of X-Men and Batman, great new trade paperbacks, new games, as well as cool toys and statues.
But quite often, we have customers strolling in who are looking for something a bit older. Maybe someone is looking for a silver age issue of GREEN LANTERN. Perhaps some MAGIC cards from a long since retired set. Or perhaps an action figure from the McFarlane TORTURED SOULS collection. Unlike merchandise that went on sale in the last few months, we can’t call up a distributor and ask them to send us a new copy of something that went on sale a year, maybe even decades ago.
In order to keep our inventory stocked with a little bit of something for everyone, we’re always willing to look at collections for sale.
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What falls into the “What We’re Buying” category is as fickle as the wind, and it can change as quickly as the market itself. We’ll always look at:
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• Titles (especially super-hero titles) from 1975 or earlier
• First issues of prominent series
• Key “1st Appearance” issues.
But here's some of the specific books we'll currently looking for right now:
DC COMICS
• Pre-1980 issues of Superman, Batman, Detective Comics, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Justice League of America,
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Action Comics #242
Batman Adventures #12
Batman #227, 251, 404, 423
Brave and the Bold #28
Green Lantern #76, 85, 87
House of Secrets #32
Justice League of America #1 - 10 (Silver Age)
Sandman #1, 8
Showcase #4, 22
MARVEL COMICS
Outside of pre-1980s issues of Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America, Moon Knight, She-Hulk,
and Uncanny X-Men...
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Amazing Fantasy #15
Amazing Spider-Man #100/earlier
Amazing Spider-Man (McFarlane)
Fantastic Four #1 - 6
Giant Size X-Men #1
Incredible Hulk #180, 181
New Mutants #98
Star Wars #1, 2 (35¢ price)
Tales of Suspense #39
Tomb of Dracula #10
Ultimate Fallout #4
Werewolf by Night #32
X-Men - Most keys considered
IMAGE, DARK HORSE, and other Independents
Bone #1
Calber Presents #1
Cerebus #1
Cherry Poptart
The Crow #1
Danger Girl #1 - 7
Faust #1 - 13
Gobbledegook #1
Invincible #1
Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Lady Death comics
Saga #1 - 12
Scooby-Doo #1 (1970)
Spawn #1, 8, 100 - 200
Strangers in Paradise #1
TMNT #1 - 4
Vampirella #113
Walking Dead #1 - 4
ACTION FIGURES -- The list of what we're looking for is too long to list here,
but here's some of the definites:
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DC Figures (MATTEL’s DC UNIVERSE, DC DIRECT, classic SUPER POWERS and McFarlane’s versions of the classic costumes always are wanted )
MARVEL LEGENDS (Especially the classic costumes)
McFARLANE: Tortured Souls, Twisted Land of Oz, Twisted Fairy Tales, etc.
HORROR FILM Iconic characters (Freddy, Jason, Leatherface, etc.)
LIVING DEAD DOLLS
MUPPETS (PALISADES)
SPAWN - Spawn in his classic costume are always wanted. The many, many other obscure characters....not so much.
STAR WARS (BLACK SERIES figures, or 1977 - 1983 figures)
MORTAL KOMBAT Figures (Any era, as long as they’re the main characters and not the “guest” characters.)
ANIME FIGURINES (Posed Female Figures are always popular) 1980s toys like TMNT, GHOSTBUSTERS, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, TRANSFORMERS will be also be considered.
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So if it’s not on that list, you aren’t interested at all?
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Not necessarily. There are so many cool collectibles out there, and just because we haven’t listed it doesn’t mean we’re not interested. However, we can give you a good general idea of some of the things we’re probably NOT going to be interested in.
• COMIC BOOKS WITH WATER DAMAGE – You can spot these easily by the wrinkled appearance of the cover or interior pages, when they should be smooth and flat. If it’s a major key book, we might make an exception – but our customers expect their books to be free or moisture.
• COMIC BOOK TIE-INS to TV SHOWS or MOVIES - For example....SMALLVILLE, JUSTICE LEAGUE ADVENTURES, Fox’s animated SPIDER-MAN and X-MEN series, etc. There’s always exceptions – we’ll always buys BATMAN ADVENTURES #12. But for the most part, there’s no market for those media tie-in books.
• VALIANT, MALIBU, EARLY IMAGE COMICS - Bring them in, there's always exceptions.
However, the vast majority of independent titles from the 90s – many of the indy comics, the very early Image comics that don’t feature Spawn - we probably already have more than we need. Here’s a good rule of thumb: if it’s a title that you’ve never heard of and no one is currently making a television show or movie about it, it’s probably not going to have many buyers.
• LOOSE TOYS – Most loose, unpackaged toys will be passed on. However, we may make exceptions for figures that are extremely sought after and in great condition, especially if they fall in one of the categories mentioned above. We also tend not to purchase toys that were primarily marketed towards young children, or figures in seriously battered and damaged boxes.
• USED TRADE PAPERBACKS – We do sometimes buy trade paperbacks, but we’re very selective about what we buy in used condition. If it's a book still in demand and it's no longer available to order in new condition from our distributors, we might be interested in it.
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• NON-SPORT (SUPER-HERO, MOVIE, TV SHOW) TRADING CARDS – Generally, no. The trading card market is seriously thin these days. We may make exceptions for complete runs of popular sets (Hildebrandt Art cards, Marvel legends, pin-up art) but even those can be slow sellers. Most sets, especially incomplete sets, are just not what we’re looking for right now.
• SPORTS MEMORABILIA – It’s not just a market we’re knowledgeable enough about, and we don’t believe it’s worth offering sports memorabilia unless you’re going to devote a sizable portion of the store to it. So no sports at this time.
• COINS, STAMPS, CIGAR LABELS, OLD NEWSPAPERS, NON POP-CULTURE RELATED MAGAZINES - We love the historic value of these cool things, but these are better suited for a vintage or antique store. We specialize in comics, action figures and pop-culture collectibles, not Life Magazines or Hummel Figurines.
• LIVESTOCK – We don’t care how much milk it produces. We’re not buying animals.
How do we decide how much to
offer for things we want to buy?
We choose our products on a number of factors.
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Current demand, condition of the item, do we have it in stock or not? - these all play a part in our decision. We typically pay between 15% to 60% of what we plan to sell a book for, depending on how likely we feel it will be to sell the item.
But I want 90 to 95% of the full value!
Totally understandable, and it’s your collectible - you have that right. But if you want the full value of your item, you have to do what we do....sit on it until you find a customer willing to buy it at that price. Most people know this of course, but we’re always surprised how many people seem to be surprised by this. If we want to keep the lights on and the rent paid, then we have to turn a profit on products that we purchase, just like any other brand-new inventory that we order for our shelves.
But what if I have a very, VERY high end collectible? I know you have a
business to run, but can’t you offer me a better deal?
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Let’s say you have a book that’s worth $1,000. You can’t use anything less than $800, but you don’t want to search for a customer to buy it and you don’t trust on-line sales. There’s always consignment. With a consignment deal, we’ll offer you a much larger cut of the sale. This is a great way to work with very high end collectibles that we know will likely sell fast for a good price. Let us represent your item, both in the store and through our website stores. If it doesn’t sell, you can pick it up and take it home. If it does, we’ll give you up to 70% of the sale. So if you have a copy of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #300 or INCREDIBLE HULK #181 that you don’t want to be low-balled on, talk to us. We’ll find you a buyer and get you a fair price.
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If you have any other questions, please reach out to us!
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