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.
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've listed a bunch of specific books below, but here's some catch alls to keep in mind. We'll always want to take a closer look at:
• Comics published prior to 1970
• 1st issues of very prominent series
• Key issues - these are books that feature first appearances, the first published work of famous writers or artists, major character deaths, etc.
• Gorgeous covers by artists like Jenny Frison, Adam Hughes, Stanely "ArtGerm" Lau, Frank Cho, David Nakayama, Leslie "Lierix" LI, Shikarii. Collectors especially like "Virgin" covers by these artists - that's cover without the logos or trade dress, just the artwork.
As far as specific books we'll currently looking for right now, these books are ones we'll always want to look at:
DC COMICS
Pre-1975 issues of Superman, Batman, Detective Comics, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Justice League of America
Absolute Batman #1 - 12 (First printings preferred, but we'll buy later printings, too.)
Absolute Superman #1 - 10
Absolute Wonder Woman #1 - 10
Action Comics #242
Batman Adventures #12 (1st Harley Quinn)
Batman Beyond #1 - 6 (Original mini-series)
Batman - Early appearances of his well-known villains are always going to be popular
Brave and the Bold #28
Green Lantern #76, 85, 87
House of Secrets #32
Justice League of America (1970s and earlier titles)
Showcase #4, 22
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (1st printings of the original Tom King mini-series)
MARVEL COMICS
Pre-1980s issues of Amazing Spider-Man, Captain America, Moon Knight,
Savage She-Hulk, Uncanny X-Men
Amazing Fantasy #15
Amazing Spider-Man (We seem to always need any issues from #200 or earlier)
The books illustrated by Todd McFarlane will also be in demand (#298 - 325)
Fantastic Four #1 - 20 (Silver Age series)
Giant Size X-Men #1
Incredible Hulk #180, 181
New Mutants #98
Star Wars #1 - 12 (Original 1977 Marvel run - especially if you have any 35¢ priced covers)
Tales of Suspense #39
Tomb of Dracula #10
Ultimate Fallout #4
Werewolf by Night #32
Uncanny X-Men / X-Men - Most keys considered
IMAGE, DARK HORSE, and other Independents
Bone #1
Calber Presents #1
Cerebus #1
Cherry Poptart (any first printings in the series)
The Crow #1 (Original Barr mini-series)
Danger Girl #1 - 7 (Original J. Scott Campbell seriers)
Disney Comics published by Gemstone in the 1990s (Little Mermaid, DuckTales, etc.)
Faust #1 - 13
Flintstones (Any comics published in the 1970s or earlier)
Gobbledegook #1
Invincible (any first printings from the original series)
Lady Death (This is one of those comics that a lot of people collect for the covers, not for the story. It will depend greatly on if we already have it, and what the cover looks like.)
Red Sonja (Same as above)
Saga #1 - 12
Scooby-Doo (Original 1970s comic books)
Spawn #1, 8, 100 - 200
Strangers in Paradise #1
TMNT (Books from the original Mirage series)
Vampirella (This is one of those comics that a lot of people collect for the covers, not for the story. It will depend greatly on if we already have it, and what the cover looks like.)
Walking Dead #1 - 10
OTHER COLLECTIBLES -- The list of what we're looking for is too long to list here, but here's some of the definites. Please note we're only looking for figures that are sealed and in good condition. We try to keep loose and damaged products to an absolute minimum.
DC Figures (MATTEL’s DC UNIVERSE, DC DIRECT, classic SUPER POWERS and McFarlane’s versions of the classic costumes always are wanted. )
MARVEL SELECT (These are getting tougher to find with the closure of Diamond Comics, so keeping the popular figures in stock will always be a priority.)
MARVEL LEGENDS (Classic costumes for the popular characters are preferred. )
McFARLANE: Tortured Souls, Twisted Land of Oz, Twisted Fairy Tales, etc.
TRADING CARDS - The market is extremely thin on these, but we will consider sealed, unopened boxes of popular trading cards, like Marvel Masterpieces.
GAME CARDS - Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, Lorcana, Star Wars Unlimited - we're looking for the rare cards from these sets - but we don't have much demand for the common cards.
By the way, if you have a LOT of cards to sell, please call and make an appointment so someone on staff can be available to give your collection proper uninterrupted attention.
DRAGONBALL Z action figures get a lot of requests
HORROR FILM Iconic characters (Freddy, Jason, Ghostface, Leatherface, etc.)
GODZILLA - We gets lots of requests for Godzilla figures. We don't see them come in too often.
LIVING DEAD DOLLS (The early 2000s figures)
MUPPETS (The original PALISADES figures)
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)
STATUES / BUSTS - We will consider them as long as they have the original box and it's a popular character on the market.
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, as are the 18+ figures.
1980s toys like TMNT, GHOSTBUSTERS, MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, TRANSFORMERS will be also be considered.
So if it’s not on that list, you aren’t interested at all?
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, to save you some time, here are the things that we’re probably NOT going to be interested in.
• COMICS WITH CONDITION ISSUES - Comic books that have significant condition issues such as water damage, spine roll, staining, tears and chipping, creases and dents - these are issues that hurt the chances that a collector will buy it from us and we wouldn't be interested in - especially if it's a book that has no real collector interest and would retail for $5 or less if it were in perfect shape.
• COMIC BOOK TIE-INS to older TV SHOWS or MOVIES - For example....SMALLVILLE, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, 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. 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.
• 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. If you ever see any sports collectibles on our shelves, it's probably because it just came as part of a collection of things we really DID want.....but we're not actively buying sports memorabilia.
• 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. But it typically works this way:
• We'll research your items by comparing them not only to current market value, but how much buyers are currently paying for those items. If those numbers are wildly apart from each other, we'll lean towards the average of the two.
Once we've determined what we would sell an item for, we'll offer you between
15% to 60% of the value in cash or credit. The more likely an item will sell, the higher a percentage we'll offer -- we'll do our best to explain why when we break down our purchase offer.
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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?
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, such as 70% of the price. 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.
Nope, I need 90% of the price.
Then we don't have a deal - it's nothing personal. But we invite you to shop around to other stores and see if you can get a better deal. You might find a store that needs what you have to sell more than we do, but at least you'll walk away with an honest appraisal of the value of your books.
Can I just walk in any time?
If you're trying to just sell a couple of items, someone here can usually make some time for you. However, we request that you make an appointment for collections such as multiple boxes of comics, several tubs of action figures, more than 50 gaming cards, etc. Our staff is very busy every day, often doing appraisals for other folks, and we don't want you to waste your time arriving on a day when we can't give you an appraisal. We ask that you call us to set up appointments if you would like us to consider a potential purchase.
If you have any other questions, please reach out to us!