Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Comics, NYCC, rocket raccoon, speculation, walking dead

The Evil Of Speculation Unleashed At NYCC

Published Sun, 20 Oct 2013 12:00:22 -0500

Jeremy Konrad attending NYCC for Bleeding Cool;

When I first heard that I would be going to NYCC, I knew it was the chance of a lifetime. I also knew that it was going to be quite expensive. Knowing that money was tight, I decided to bring some comics from my personal collection to sell at the show. Having done this before, and from working in a comic shop, I knew that there are certain books that people can always move for a higher number. So I decided to go through my comics and see what I might be willing to part with and got about 22 comics together. It was a good mix of key issues and modern variants. The list:

Amazing Spider-Man #361- 363 (First Carnage)
Star Wars (2013 Brian Wood Series) 1-9, all first prints
Marvel Skottie Young variants (Avengers, Superior Spidey, Thunderbolts, Iron Man)
Uncanny X-Men #266 (First Gambit)
Batman #1 (New 52)
New Mutants #87 (First Cable)
The Walking Dead #100 (Wrap-around Cover)
The Walking Dead Free Comic Day Issue 2013 (Origin Of Michonne) 2 Copies

As I said, there were a few key issues and a couple more modern issues that are blowing up a bit on the back market. Especially Batman #1, even with such a high print run, being one of the hottest runs on the character ever published, the back issues have continued to grow in value. Carnage is not as in demand as it once was, but New Mutants first appearance of Cable is starting to creep back up with the announcement of the X-Force film. The others are some current stuff that was a little harder to track down.

Hitting the dealer area, I decided to start with a booth called The Comic Interlude, apparently based out of Kentucky. Two men were running the booth, one of them was on his cell phone the whole time and ignored me completely, the other was busy with a customer. When I got the other man's attention, he looked through my stack, even doing the classic dealer trick of saying, "Well, there is nothing here I can really use," while stopping at each book he wanted and checking them thoroughly. When done, he asked what I wanted for them. I knew what the number in my head was, and I hate this tactic more than any other. We both know what the number should be, and we both know that he will come in lower than that. So, what I usually do is go about $30 higher than my actual number. Now, keeping in mind none of these books were CGC graded, just plain old comics, I figured $100 was not unreasonable. So I came in at $130. He looked like I killed his dog. He countered with $60. That far apart, I walked away. He was a nice guy, but he also had a copy of Uncanny on his wall for almost my asking price for the whole lot, so I left.

Next up was Heroes from North Carolina. I have sold a couple times to them before, so I felt pretty confident walking up to them and leaving with cash. After an associate looked over my books, he passed them along to his boss, who passed on all of them except Batman #1. He said if I came to the store he would take them all, but here at this show he had no use for them. For Batman #1 he offered $15, which was not going to happen since it is going for $80-100 right now, so once again I left empty handed.

At this point I started to get upset. I went to 3 booths after Heroes where I was completely ignored. And I do not mean they were busy helping other customers or tied up with something, I mean I walked up to them and stood there awkwardly until I felt like walking away. After a few misses, I stopped at my next booth that actually paid attention to me, Cash for Comics. At this booth, they went through the stack and book by book told me how worthless my comics were, besides the New Mutants and Uncanny issues. The man put them aside with the Carnage issues and asked what I wanted for just those. Before I could answer, he walked away and sat down and ignored me. As I stood there staring at him, he got up and started looking at his own comics. So I grabbed my books and left, feeling that it was pretty rude to just walk away from someone in the middle of a negotiation.

At this point, I started to get nervous. Not only did my backpack weigh a ton from the comics and everything else I was carrying, but I needed this money to pay for the weekend.

Enter Joe Kool Comics. A little booth tucked away near the end of the dealer's aisle, the owner called me over and was nice, went over each book with me, and even asked if it was ok if he took the books out to check, which none of the other dealers did. After checking them out, he said he wanted them, and by them he meant all of them. After telling him what was offered before, and a little back and forth, we settled on $95 for the stack, and that was ok with me, since he was so honest and upfront about the whole process, and he was saving my weekend. So Joe Rodgers, thank you for saving my weekend,

As far as the rest of the show, it was all about the exclusives, and the biggest ones were by far anything Image, and especially The Walking Dead. The NYCC exclusive 10^th Anniversary cover was routinely selling at about $20-25. Plush Rocket Raccoons (as covered by Rich) were hard to come by as well. The DC Villain month 3D covers have cooled down a bit, most of them could be had for $5, with Joker's Daughter, Count Vertigo, Harley Quinn, and Dial E being the tough gets. Deadpool continued his reign over the back market, with back issues of his first solo series selling anywhere between $8-15 a book, and New Mutants #98 no lower than $300 unslabbed. Image #1's were also hot, with Lazarus, East Of West, and Ghosted all at around $10.

Jeremy Konrad is a contributing writer for Bleeding Cool. Find him on Twitter @jeremyohio

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