Comic book secondary market place sees sales down turn in May

Interesting article From the Examiner.com:

The secondary market place for comic books, primarily eBay and Amazon, was thriving in the first half of 2013. New comics would hit the shelves and would sell for multiples of cover price. People who were not normally sellers on the two market places were placing books for sale and making serious profit. Message boards were on fire with tips on the latest books that were hitting $20 sale prices on new comic day, Wednesday’s in the U.S. That was until mid-May, when sales for many sellers fell off 70-90% according to many forum posts.

Read the rest of the article here.

7 thoughts on “Comic book secondary market place sees sales down turn in May”

  1. oddly, i have had a GREAT june, with some books that have sat finally starting to move. LAST OF US, BATMAN, BLACK BEETLE have all been selling. not anything TOO crazy, but at least moving and making me some vacation $$$

    1. I am glad to hear that some people are moving stuff. June has been non-existent for me. I have sold some Last of Us Stuff but not much else.

  2. Yes. Slow. I got in and got out. I’m waiting for the fall and the next speculation boom. Awesome site as always.

  3. Yes! Here’s a good question for speculation purposes.

    Does anyone see the value of investing in “store” variants?

    IE: Midtown, Forbidden Comics, Larry’s, Thirdeye, etc.

    Are these variants considered valuable in the same league as Phantom and Ghost variants?

    Tough question, some what – but I figured I’d ask, as I’m now hesitant to purchase store variants as opposed to their Phantom/Ghost counterparts. I’m confused on what to do. I realize incentives are the way to go, but I wish there was a speculation guide to collecting variants.

    1. One of the most expensive Invincible books is a Larry’s Variant. The most expensive Revival is a Third Eye variant. Zenescope Variants always a good bet, both store and event variants.

      I like Phantoms because I can get them easily and at cover or less most times. They do sell well, at least in popular books, but I have been unable to unload my Deathmate and Great Pacific ones. Ghosts are good too. They seem more exclusive as they do not do as many variants as phantoms do. Store variants sell well for me when they first come out, but it seems like when the next issue of the series comes out the interest dries up. For example, Guardians of the Galaxy #1 I was selling the heck out of the phantom, Third Eye, Limited Edition Comix, and Maximum Comics at $14.99 each until issue 2 came out then I had a hard time selling them at $8.99.

      The print run on them makes a lot of difference I think. For example, Marvel Store and phantom Variants are a print run of at least 3000. Image and IDW are a minimum of 1000. If 10 stores do a variant, like on the recent Iron Man book that’s 30,000 copies above what the standard print run was. Completists want all the covers, but I am not so sure everyone else would be interested as it was just the helmet that was different.

      Overall I think the store and ghost/phantom variants are worth picking up at the right price. Check on ebay for what the current going price for them is and do not pay above that threshold. If they go up then great.

  4. Thanks a lot. Very useful information!

    I always watch for a hot book and its variant(s). Then we have conventional variants, which really gets tricky haha. I remember a time, where there wasn’t all this variant jazz…but I like jazz, so I suppose it’s a good thing to us speculators…

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