Shipping comic books

[whimzicaltreasures]

Asking any folks into comic selling and not a dealer....

How do I prove without this CDC stuff etc..that I have actual comics from 30 years ago...

I just want to sell what i have. Use to collect with my children when they were teenagers.

Should I take a particular picture showing the main page?
Any suggestions.
Am a Top Rated Seller....

Thanks in advance.

Just want to sell what I have just happen to have a few good ones in there.

[mopata]

I would take pictures of the cove and the back as well as an inside shot that shows the condition of the contents. There should be some small print at the bottom a page or two inside the front cover that shows the copyright date. I would try to include a clear shot of that info.

[namele365]

---

@whimzicaltreasures wrote:

Asking any folks into comic selling and not a dealer....

How do I prove without this CDC stuff etc..that I have actual comics from 30 years ago...

I just want to sell what i have. Use to collect with my children when they were teenagers.

Should I take a particular picture showing the main page?
Any suggestions.
Am a Top Rated Seller....

Thanks in advance.

Just want to sell what I have just happen to have a few good ones in there.

---

Are 30 year old comics being faked?

If so, I imagine only the most valuable are counterfeited.

If your research indicates you have more than a couple valued over $100, you may want to dig deeper.

If your research indicates they are worth less than $100 each, I wouldn't be too concerned, but happy if they were worth more than 5 bucks each.

That being said, many throwbacks, replicas etc.  have identifying characteristics easily identified.    Google "bronze age comics value guide" (or similar) and you'll find your answers.

Good luck!

[anthology-of-treasures]

The ads will help date the comics. A lot the stuff sold in older comics would not be considered safe for kids these days. The ads also have prices that are well out of fashion. I recall sending away some hard earned lawn mowing money away on a couple ads. A whipping $1.98 got me a World War II battle game with miniature tanks, guns, etc played on a large plastic colored battleground. I later sold it on eBay for a profit. Then there was a Revolutionary War miniature plastic toy solider set with blue and red armies for the British and Yankees, complete with tiny cannon with rotating wheels. They came in a white cardboard box via 4th class mail.

[Anonymous]

Comic book collectors are notoriously fussy about condition.

Get ready for a lot of nonsense about staples being 1/1000 of a millimeter out of alignment, glaring imperfections that can only be detected with the aid of an electron microscope and the million-plus gradations of the color white.

[anthology-of-treasures]

You should take photos of every page in the book if these are high value or if you don't mind possibly being scammed by not providing images of all the pages. eBay limits you to 12 pictures and has pretty well killed off embedding images in the description. eBay Pictures also downsizes images.

What you can do is place those photos into a slideshow and upload it to YouTube. Once its published on YouTube grab the share URL and place into this form to create eBay compliant HTML code to embed it into the listing.

http://www.isdntek.com/tagbot/YouTubeConverter.htm

On a Macintosh I use iPhoto to create a slideshow of all the images in the listing. I use a 7 second delay on each image and export it as a 1080p video. No music, Classic theme, hide title slide, automatically repeat slideshow. Whatever app you use make sure it will construct the slideshow in the background while you do other work.

Here is a live example of an early test (that includes a unwanted title slide):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/U-S-Navy-Armed-Guard-Indian-Hat-Wooden-Locker-Robert-Bob-Johnson-1920-2016-...

If you are using listing software like GarageSale then the video will appear in the Preview Mode (WYSIWYG editor) after you pasted its HTML code into the listing.

You will have to switch over to an Editor mode that allows direct editing of a listing's HTML in order to insert the slideshow's HTML.

I like to leave some empty vertical space in the HTML so the code for the video can be easily removed or replaced. These vertical spaces will not show up in the actual listing. The other HTML code you see is automatically generated wen you type content in the WYSIWYG editor.

[argon38]

---

@anthology-of-treasures wrote:

Here is a live example of an early test (that includes a unwanted title slide)

---

The copyright statement in your listing involves a misunderstanding, I'm afraid:

"Copyright Notice:

• All images & text are the intellectual property of the seller. eBay has been granted a temporary and limited license to display the seller's text and images on their site for the sole purpose of offering the seller's merchandise for sale."

It would be nice if that were the case. Actually, eBay's requirement is that "When you provide content using the Services (directly or indirectly), you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all Intellectual Property Rights (as defined above) you have in that content in connection with our provision, expansion, and promotion of the Services, in any media known now or developed in the future."

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/member-behaviour-policies/user-agreement?id=4259#9.%20Content

[maxine*j]

I assume CDC was a typo and you meant CGC, but that aside:  If I were you I'd use eBay to decide how to sell the comics on eBay.  Pick a dozen or two of the titles you have that you think have some value.  Then look at both active and completed listings on eBay to see how other sellers list and describe those same titles.  Follow the active listings to see the final results.  Study the completed listings that you already have to see the results.   Model (not copy) your own efforts on the succcessful ones.

[maxine*j]

---

@anthology-of-treasures wrote:

You should take photos of every page in the book if these are high value or if you don't mind possibly being scammed by not providing images of all the pages. eBay limits you to 12 pictures and has pretty well killed off embedding images in the description. eBay Pictures also downsizes images.

The problem with that is that many collectors, as *palmtreelucky* pointed out, are so obsessive about perfection that they won't even look at a comic that has been ... Gasp!  Opened!  Handled!  Touched on every page! 

Now, if your comics have already been handled and read, rather than slabbed upon purchase, that's another matter;  but in that case, they're unlikely to fetch high prices, anyhow, unless there is something special about them.

[anthology-of-treasures]

Like anything else decide if the effort is worth the amount it will sell for and then sell it on eBay, sell it elsewhere, or sit on it as an investment or possible loss. I moved most of my inventory off eBay years ago.

If you plan to sell it on eBay and want more than 12 images then a slideshow via YouTube is about the only option you have left as eBay has killed off linking to external picture galleries.