As a comic book seller, it makes more sense for me to sell books raw, take that profit and buy new stock, and with that profit do the same, over and over. For the time it would take to get books back from CGC I can flip my inventory many times and make more money, and I'm not tying up capital with books in the grading process. CGC books also take longer to sell unless you want to sell them below the current FMV. And the books I buy, I look to at least double or more my money each time, I won't buy a book for $7 to sell for $8.

Never underestimate the potential value of a raw book! If it presents well and the customer is right there (and not online), then you will do fine on the price. Especially if the customer is thinking that to buy the same book graded would mean paying even more.

Thank you for another interesting video. I think books should be sold raw. I have a feeling that the "Slab Bubble" will burst sometime, soon all the hype will die down. Raw books will always sell and in my humble opinion a collector still wants to feel, read, and maybe even smell his books which is not possible if a book is slabbed. A Slab is a luxury object for the collector who already has anything in his collection twice or three times. But the normal collector might be happy to get a raw book without a plastic prison for still a reasonable price. BTW I really, really liked your Halloween quiz video. I bet you made a lot of people happy this day.

Great video ! Thanks for all the information

Excellent video!! You're a great resource for us in the collecting community!

Great info and perspective of things. Thanks for another great video James! 👊😎👍

Interesting food for thought. Great info as always, James!

This ties in great with your video on assuming the raw copy you’re buying will rate higher that what it’ll get realistically. Bought an uncanny 266 that was an 8.0 which isn’t great but the cost of cgc grading was already priced in and now I can debate breaking it and getting a clean/press in the future. I’m not confident enough grading on my own but am slowly learning what to look for. Thanks for the awesome videos!

Great info, solid way of thinking

loved your style of detailed price info, hope to see more.

Very interesting, this was great!

Great video on an interesting topic. One idea for the future might be looking at the pro's and con's of the different venues to sell your book.

Very educational video for beginners in comic book collecting. Thank you

Damn I was just thinking this the other day

that flash statue in the back is fire

Every single comic is a case by case basis. Key issues, condition, recent sales data, and speculation all contributes to the decision process of raw vs. Grading. In the end, its your own personal decision how you wish to proceed.

Great video! Loved the insight into what goes on behind the scenes. Any possibility that you'll make similar videos on other interesting cases among your for-sale piles?

Excellent examples and lessons to be learned. I did the same analysis when I sold my ASM 316 raw ~9.2 a few months back. It was going for ~$200 raw or ~$220 slabbed. Figured I’d save the trouble and sell raw. I love this type of content, Matt, keep it up!

Great content. Learned a lot.

Thanks for this explanation of buying and selling. One thing to also keep in mind in selling is timing, as you said that it is newer books may not hold their value long enough to send away to get graded.

Great video as always James. The only thing I might add as devils advocate; professional grading does not always give an accurate grade as we all know. But you are at their mercy because nobody really cares what I think my book is worth. A buyer will assess the grade themselves or sacrifice the pig and leave it up to the professional graders. Thus grader notes are a must have with your grading in my opinion. I wonder if those CGC graders would actually grade differently if it was mandatory to publish their grader notes. A collector should have a right to dispute a grade if the notes don’t justify the grade. I’m glad to see CGC has published a grading guide, mine is in the mail but does it actually have a grading scale like overstreet? I’ll know in a week or so. Your outstanding, keep up the great work.

Great video as always, I had quite a few books graded I wanted to get rid off. Luckily I traded them all for some silver age keys at a convention.

You make far more money to quickly sell than tying up capital with cgc. Think how many times you can churn your capital over and over with quick sales in the time you’re waiting on cgc

"Doesn't happen at a con" - oh, it does; it's just a lot more rare. 😊 Was at a con 4 or 5 years ago and found a copy of Adventure Comics 283 (1st Zod and Phantom Zone) in a long box, priced similarly to the 282 in front of it and the 284 behind it, and the books in the boxes were 25% off. I don't think they know what they had. Great vid!

I have about 300 raw silver age Marvel comics. Included is a Daredevil #1 bought used in about 1975 for $20. The woman I bought it from wrote this price in pencil on the outside of the back cover as she did with other comics I bought from her. How does the pencil marking affect the value? Outside of that I guesstimate the condition at 8.5 at the lowest. Do I sell raw or graded? Do I clean & press? If the current fair market is $18,000 value is how much do I have to pay to get it graded? How much for clean & press? Who do I use to clean & press? Do I need to get it insured before I send it out? Is Heritage Auctions the way to go? On a hypothetical sale at $18,000 how much does Heritage get? Is the price negotiable? Or is Ebay the way to go? Or some other options to sell? I know nothing about auctions or ebay?? I recently had a more knowledgeable friend look through some of my comics and he noticed that a couple had what he called a subscription crease down the middle of the cover. It was faint but there and I had never noticed it before. Can a subscription crease be pressed out? Thanks.

Great video. I just bought a 5.5 1st Ocean Master and 6.0 1st Mera for $250 already slabbed. Shocked how cheap Aquaman keys go for now looking for first black Manta

*_When there's no book on the CGC census, don't forget to look up and see if there are any in a CBCS._* *_Let's say there are none, but there is a PGX: buy it and list your CGC book, very high. After the sale, slab the PGX in a CGC. When it returns, list it higher than the first one._* *_I think that Blue Beetle no.1 will climb a lot next years, if you can, do a clean, press and slab of that book and hold on to it._* *_Is Blue Beetle serious or is it wacky, zany and silly? Anything that is "a bit off" like this will be made into TV or movies with James Gunn running the DCEU._*

There are certain Silver age books that present a lot better than the grade they're going to get due to things like detached covers loose centerfolds stain on back cover coupon clipped out. Unless it's a huge key you're better off selling that book Raw

It does heavily depend on the comic book.

It's far more difficult to get good raw data than slabed data. The absence of data for non marvel silver age and older books makes it difficult.

Have you ever done a video about selling a whole collection and not looking back?

I didn't see a cost of grading factored in your spreadsheet which factors in to profit.

I am slabbing less Gold, Silver, and Bronze Age books…instead putting them in Mylar with acid-free backing boards. I like my customers to decide on the raw/slabbing, generally speaking. Plus, grading has become a hassle. YMMV. There are exceptions with these of course, and it’s important to be able to grade a comic/check for restoration/dry clean and press/check market prices before submitting to a third party company, especially if it’s a key issue. With the modern/variants, I tend to slab 9.6+ raw after clean/press (as needed) with the goal always of a 9.8+…I personally like any modern above 9.0, but the market seems to want a 9.6+. Hopefully, folks lighten up overtime and accept 9.0+. Time will tell.

Hey James I follow your channel daily.I really love your videos.I learn a lot.Could you please assist me with a question. I saw a comic called A nice house on the lake.Its a pretty recent comic adaption.I would like to buy it but I am struggling to know which one is the first appearance or first issue.There are two comic book stores selling this book.The first comic book store sells it for R 650 raw and the other comic book store sells it for R 150.I am worried because the one comic store website says A Nice House On The Lake #1 and the other calls it A Nice House On The Lake issue #1.What does it mean when they say "issue"..Is it still the first print and does the higher price mean it is the first print.Basically are they both first prints and is issue #1 the same as #1 Please note I looked at both front covers the books from each store online and they both have the same barcode number and the same issue number which is 00111. Thank you (Sorry for the long message)

Great video!! Do you keep records on the price of everything you bought?

Love the thinking. I guess the subjective question for people is “how much profit is worth it to grade?”

Thanks for the breakdown James! Do you find some books move easier as graded versus raw (does this depend on age and type of comic?) especially since your examples were always found as raw.

Some others have commented as well, but you didn't discuss the time involved in the grading process. Might not be an issue with established keys, but with Marvel books and the MCU, timing can be an issue.

It does take a lot of time and money just to get something graded ,its just not worth it sometimes.

I’ve been wondering about this recently

Cool video! Although I personally disagree greatly on the captain atom. No sales data tells me you would sit on that book forever. No one wants that thing and those who are hunting to fill their 9.6/9.8 runs will do so with a raw copy.

This is why I got out of sports cards and video games. I had over 30,000 cards I need money to fix my car . 1 out 50 == $1.00 , 1 out 100 = $5, I ended up with about $400.00 . I had 3 ring books , hard cases. It's just like they said to me. There's 3 prices (1) your price (2) book price (3) buyers price. Would you pay 1 million dollars for a card ??

Are you using 4 mil mylar bags on the Blue Beetle comic? If so why do you like them? Their so hard to fold-over....

I’m jealous of that blue beetle I have the first appearance of Ted kord blue beetle, captain atom #83 definitely on the fence with sending it to get graded those older blue beetle books have always been a favourite of mine

Any recommendations on cleaner/presser not CGC or CBCS?

If there is such a thin line between 9.6. and 9.8, and you insist that basically every book sent into CGC 'needs a press'...aren't you then insinuating that 1. The books that aren't pressed would come back 9.6. and below 2. Therefore, a good number of the books that are in the 9.8 census are really just 9.6. grade books that have managed to disguise some handling damage, or creases etc. through pressing? That, in effect devalues a good portion of 9.8s doesn't it? Oh, believe me, I 'believe' in the 'magic' of pressing, since for example, this guy's book got bent in the mail and he pressed it back to a 9.8...now...would you want that book? A book that was 'restored' by a master presser? Or would you want one that was actually perfect? (kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rrlzhJqBvt2lmHU.html). The lot of 'collectors', in order to get a top grade, pay that extra bit of cash for a pressing. But what they're really doing is flooding the 9.8 census with books that are below grade, because they have disguised their flaws through a restoration process. That, of course, causes the book to lose value, in that it shows that high grade copies are not rare, when in reality, someone just paid 15 to make their book look as high grade as possible, using some extra process that does not naturally occur in the life of a comic book (steaming etc..).

wow..just wow

How do you know which books to buy that will give you that 50% profit raw or getting it graded?

I wouldnt grade Shazam #28 cause I expect the price to go down since it was heavily influenced by the black adam movie and when it comes back (even as a 9.4) the odds that it still holds his value is pretty low in my opinion

Can you teach me to learn how to grade books? lol

I HAVE OLD COMICS BUT TOO POOR TO GET THEM GRADED. WHAT DO I DO?

Part 2= If you a pay $30,000 for a book what you think your odds is for you selling it for $60,000

Would you be interested in trading?

Most of what you say is theoretical give real numbers if your going to do a video like this.

If it’s filler only in exceptional cases of high grade or just a cool cover it’s better to sell raw

Have you ever tried covrprice? Its my favorite place to go for comic info