Ka-pow! #NAAPro gives tips on maximizing comic books at auction
For those seeking advice about comic book auctions, it’s not a bad idea to take it from NAA auction professional Rob Weiman, CAI, AARE, AMM, BAS, CES, GPPA, who famously undertook an auction of 3,000 comic books with his wife, Tina, that garnered 500plus world records and all sold for a combined total of more than $1 million.
Unbelievably, that was the duo’s first comic book auction despite their having been in the auction business for eight years at that point. They’ve gained a fair amount of notoriety since then, and they’ve picked up a lot of knowledge about comic book auctions.
It’s not uncommon f or auctioneers who specialize in estate sales to run into large lots of comics, which can be a lot of work for little money. Because of this, Weiman now will run through a checklist to determine if he’ll take on the task. Among the questions he asks:
• Who is the owner?
• What are their expectations?
• What comics do they have?
• Why are they selling them?
• How old are the comics?
• What condition are they in? Determining who the owner is can affect the worth. For instance, if it’s a well-known collector or somebody famous, the comic will be worth more than if it comes from an unknown seller. In some cases, unfortunately, some collectors may have an emotional attachment to the comics, and they’ll have an inflated value assigned to the collection.
Knowing what their expectations are from the beginning can help determine whether or not this will be the right auction for both the seller and the auction professional.
“You can get yourself into a heaping helping of hurting if you get in there and a seller has a pie-in-the-sky expectation that they’ve got a million dollars’ worth of books,” Weiman said.
Weiman prefers to work with sellers who have books that are marked with an original cover price of 25 cents or less and have no bar codes, because these are the attributes of older, valuable comics that will pull in higher bids at auction.
“What’s printed on the cover?” Weiman warns questioningly. “Some of these stores will take the 10-cent comic and raise the price to 12 cents. They just ruined it because you can’t get that sticker off without ruining the paper.” Other considerations
Large collections can also weigh a ton (or more), which means the Auctioneer may have a much bigger task in front of them as they have to handle, sort and store them before auction. The cost of shipping them from point A to point B alone can eat into any potential profits, which may require that the auction professional needs to take a pass.
Weiman had to do so with one potential auction of 20,000 comics and 20,000 magazines because they were located six hours from his base in St. Louis, Missouri.
The condition of the comics must also be taken into consideration.
Weiman once sold a Spiderman #1 comic for $3,000 and another one for $300 due to the difference in the condition. Determining the condition and worth of a comic is also an area that requires accurate decision-making.
For example, auctioneers need to have comics “graded” by companies like CGC, which is an independent, impartial third party comic book grading service.
Shipping is also something that has to be planned out as the price of insurance on a single comic can go into the thousands.