The "Fifty-Seven Thousand Dollar" Dollar Debacle

[MTNLaurelPoacher]

Yes... The coin is worth 57,000 Liberian Dollars. Like that silly $20 gold piece they try to hawk on late night tv.

[Gruesome]

I like to tell people I own an $1800 comic book! Avengers Number 4, baby!

Well, it might be worth that if it hadn't been trashed by 2 different generations of kids. I bet its in 'Fair' condition and I could maybe get $50 for it, but I'll never sell. It's too cool a thing to own. I got Avengers 8 and 12, too!

I've got 2 boxes of worthless comics from the 80s (damn my eyes for selling my good Uncanny X-men collection back then!) and I'm just keeping them around for my son. I might have a couple gems in there, but in this economy nobody is buying so why bother?

My mother in law thinks every damn thing she owns is collectible and valuable. I guaran-damn-tee you that even if any of that crap WAS valuable, the 20 years in a wet basement with 20 cats using it as a litter box have pretty much destroyed any value it might have had. I pity the antique dealer she abused trying to convince him her stuff was worth more than a match to set it on fire.

[repsac]

Protege, Tyco isn't the worst. The worst that I can think of is those knock off ones that were battery operated. Bachman put out a ton of them, and while they looked OK at a glance, they had this really bad (read constant) tendency to get too hot and melt.

[Gabrielle Proctor]

X-men #1? I've got five of those. Three different covers. Pfft. The most valuable comic in my collection is an Uncanny in the 100's, and it's only worth about $20.

Yeah, I collect manga. They all made fun of me when I collected sailor moon. Who has the last laugh? Me. They sell the stars series for a crap load. Something around the hundreds.

Other than that, I think my stuff is pretty worthless(monetarily).

[bloodrose]

People don't understand the basic concept of collectables. Someone has to WANT it first. BTW.. Anyone want to buy Harbinger#1... Cheap??

Well, and it has to be rare. If people want it but there are lots of it, well, it's not worth much. Harbinger #1 is worth a few bucks though! However, now that they've got the rights back and are putting out trades, the value is going to change. It may go up as people get into Harbinger again. (F.- My geek is showing)

Thankfully for my budget, the comics I'm interested in are usually worth zip. I follow Gambit's story, so I couldn't care less about pre-1990. I have his first appearance: was a birthday gift. Still can't find Uncanny #350 (when he was abandoned in Antarctica). Grr.

I have the unfortunate love of Sub-Mariner, Marvel's first comic book character. Yeah, can't afford all of those. But my other love, Ms. Marvel, yeah, all of her comics are in the dollar bin. Again, it has to do with the rareness. Ms. Marvel, being newer is hecka cheap because everyone was saving their comics thinking they'd be worth something.

[Gurndigarn]

If you know that you won't get much for them, you also have the option of not selling them. If you think you'll read them again, just keep them. They'll give you more pleasure that way than whatever money you'll get.

Well, that's why I still have them. I thought my kids would get more milege out of them than they are doing, sadly.

Another option would be to give them to someone cool who you think might enjoy them. Do you know anybody deployed in the service who also has buddies who might also like some light reading material?

I'll have to think over that one. Thanks for the idea.

If you donate them to a charity, you can also get a tax deduction (if you itemize and are in the US).

>ahem<

Yes, that's a wonderful idea... or it would be if, due to some rather screwey tax laws, I actually make more money if I don't claim this type of deduction right now...

[Chromatix]

You say Liberian dollars... but what about Zimbabwean dollars? (They've got rampant hyperinflation at the moment, because Mugabe's a useless pile. Which means the Z$ is worse than worthless.)

[cinema guy]

Yep, a loaf of bread in Zimbabwe costs six billion dollars.

[Chromatix]

They did actually do a "rationalisation" at some point recently, so there weren't so many zeroes after everything (gets hard to count them accurately). So it's probably "only" Z$60,000 now (remove six zeroes, then add a few weeks' inflation back).

[Mike Taylor]

Oooh. You see that all the time with comics. Most people don't realize that most comics aren't worth diddly. No, really, X-Men #1 isn't Uncanny X-Men #1 (by a difference of decades!). X-Men #1 might be worth $1 but people who aren't comic book readers constantly think they are on a gold-mine when they have that one. Or the guy who brings in a long-box of old 80s comics and thinks he'll get a mint for them and is lucky to get 10 cents a piece. And these guys get all pissed like you're trying to scam them.

Tell me about it. Just because a comic lists at $20 in mint condition in a guide doesn't mean the collector will get $20 from the shop. He's lucky if he gets $10. eBay has gone a long way to drive the values of comics down as well. Why should the store buy that comic at $10 when they can get it for $5, from eBay? Then there's the fact that said person might not have taken care of said comic as well as he should have, driving the value even lower.

[Namrepus221]

I acctually think I've found the website this woman was talking about.

http://coins.ha.com Heritage auctions.

Only "current" auction I can find for a Susan B. Anthony coin is for a 1981 in mint condition...current bid......$0.

This woman had probably deluted herself into thinking that she was looking at somethign from teh early 1800's must be the exact same as the coin she had and therefore the price is the same.

[KhirasHY]

Oooh. You see that all the time with comics. Most people don't realize that most comics aren't worth diddly. No, really, X-Men #1 isn't Uncanny X-Men #1 (by a difference of decades!). X-Men #1 might be worth $1 but people who aren't comic book readers constantly think they are on a gold-mine when they have that one. Or the guy who brings in a long-box of old 80s comics and thinks he'll get a mint for them and is lucky to get 10 cents a piece. And these guys get all pissed like you're trying to scam them.

Kinda funny you mention that...I have a mint condition Uncanny X-Men #1 that someone tried to offer me $5 for once.

.......

Uh, no.

[Dips]

This woman had probably deluted herself into thinking that she was looking at somethign from teh early 1800's must be the exact same as the coin she had and therefore the price is the same.

I think that's it. I registered on that site and Mr. Dips and I went through some of the auction archives there and found a few 1879 Morgan Dollars which sold in that price range. If she misread 1979 as 1879 and mistook the woman's profile on the Morgan as Susan B...

So perhaps the poor dear just needs glasses.

She hasn't been back anyway, so it remains a mystery.

[depechemodefan]

Oh God
People are always calling the library for the value of "antiques" and "collectibles". We probably get 10 calls a year from people saying they have a copy of the Declaration of Independence, but it was an original/an 1820 copy/the same copy that is on Antiques Road Show.

And there was this one guy who called who wanted to know how much his Delaware (I think Delaware, could have been any other of the original colonies) quarter was worth. I kept on telling him it was worth .$25.

Today I had a woman call to find out when the Alaska quarter came out. At least she didnt' ask how much it was worth.

We have a collection of books that tell the price of a book, but somehow they are very complicated.

Oh, and no one wants to spend money to take their "collectible" to an appraiser. Esp. the Declaration of Independence. It's one thing to have a book show the firestone Snoopy cup, with Snoopy vs. the Red Baron, is worth $100, because it's kind of hard to make a fake cup that doesn't look fake, but a document needs some expertise, a person who recognizes the paper and stuff since the spent years studying. Though really, I don't know how a first ed. of Harry Potter and TPS is worth beaucoup d'argent, considering it's just text. But anyway, like someone said, it depends on how much a person is willing to spend money on it.

One time on ebay I tried to sell a paperback edition of Interview with a Vampire, that had a cover I never seen, and was published in 76 or whenever it first came out. No response. Then I had a Snoopy cup that I saw was selling for $200, and when I tried to sell mine, I only got $50. I didn't mind selling it, because I bought it for $.99. But reputation is valuable. I've only sold 10 things, while the person who got $200 for his cup had sold like 500 things. So something on auction at Chrisie's will get more money then at Bubba's Emporium.