I bought second-hand porn in Amsterdam.
It was part of a buy-and-exchange scheme. You brought back DVDs you had watched and got money off those you wanted to buy. It was much cheaper than buying online.

Hey UT, do you buy Mad Magazines or vinyl albums?

No, the shop is really a bad place for collectibles. Pawn Stars it ain't. You'd get good money for the former on eBay, I don't know about the vinyl market.

(I should, since I have about 500 LPs headed for storage in a few weeks)

(I can be hired to do eBaying)

How much for an Ebay?

Current market capitalization is $64.1 billion.

Haggis!

How many magazines are there and what are the general years of publication, and what condition are they in?

I think there are 70ish, starting in 1954 (in fact there are a couple of copies of Mad's precursor, "Maniac" IIRC), including many special editions. Condition is "read, then stacked or packed".

My question, though, is how do you charge? Do you take a percentage? Or a per-item fee? Or something else? Would you sell anything? Well, anything legal... I have this 21 year old daughter that I might sell, but that's a different story.;)

Yah eBay won't take daughters, you gotta go to Craigslist for that.

Turns out it's only the older mags in excellent condition that are worth anything, and even then, it's not an antiques roadshow lottery winnings kind of deal.

To give you an idea, there was a lot of 3, 1953 #3 #6 #8 that went for $187. But it falls right off the cliff, in condition and era: a set of 12 from 1955-1960, in average to poor condition, went for $40.

It appears collectors want individual issues, and it's ALL ABOUT THE GRADE.

Individual 1955-57 goes from $20-$50 depending on grade. 58 and on, the floor price for an individual issue goes all the way down to $3. By 1959 the average price is $15 with shipping.

It takes me a good 15 minutes per listing to scan/photograph, write it up, and list, and I like to get $15/hour. If I take a percentage and they sell for an average of $5, it wouldn't be worth it to either of us!

So!

What I would do is go to the eBay guide page on comics, read the grading scale from mint to poor, and then evaluate only the early editions 1954-1959 for grade. I would not go Buy-it-Now on these, I would set a reserve at an estimated value minus $5-10 and see where it goes.

If you do that and let me know what the grades are, I'll come up with a plan for how I can eBay them for you and get reasonable value for both you and me. Howzat?

We can do this on my eBay account if I'm in charge of shipping. I have a 100% eBay rating for about 170 items. Also, actual scans of the magazines is best for this kind of thing. I have a good, but slow scanner...

The only Mad that gets antiques roadshow levels is #1, 1952. If you have that one, you should get it encased in plastic straightaway. One in Very Fine grade got nearly $1000.

I guess all of mine from the 1980s will continue to sit in my attic until I'm much older, then.

Oh, I'm falling in love with you again all over. You dorky, nerdy geek.

I'll work on it. Thanks.

I've done real well selling on Ebay over the years but when I started I had some bad experiences. I sold some big items from my studio, big light stands and a huge boom light and I way underestimated the shipping and took a bath on those items. I find it best to try to take good pictures (not a problem for me as I shot tons of catalogs in my past life) and have good descriptions. Last month I sold the last of my darkroom gear, some of which was pretty thrashed. I also had a Canon lens which was in great shape and with camera stuff I always save the boxes and paperwork. I ended up making about $1500 and turned around and bought another lens; a Tamron 24-70mm with IS (which Canon's version does not have). Loving the lens!

I've mostly bought guns and camera gear from pawn shops and only once sold to a shop. Actually I guess I took a loan out against the item as I could get more for it. It was my first 10 gauge shot gun, a Spanish side by side that I shot many many geese with. It was getting barrel bulge down at the end of the barrel from shooting steel shot which it was not designed to do and is rather dangerous as the barrel can eventually explode. I got $350 for it, the pawn shop never checked the barrel or saw the bulge. I took the money and went and bought an Ithica 10 gauge automatic shotgun, quite possibly the best gun ever made for goose hunting. Big and heavy but absorbs all the kick.

:redcard:

Hi, remember me?

I'm enjoying this thread. Since I left you last, I've opened an antiques & vintage shop and selling on eBay is something I do every damn day. :)

I really enjoy it; it works very well for me and keeps me afloat during slow times at the shop. I want to know, however, how do you properly ship a guitar? Seems complicated. Anything bigger than a large USPS Priority Mail box I generally make people pick up in person. Largest thing I've shipped was a 1950s heavy-duty sewing machine, but that wasn't particularly fun to do.