Should you sell your comics RAW or GRADED?

Great content. Learned a lot.

"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!

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.

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.

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?

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

It does heavily depend on the comic book.

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

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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....

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

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)

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

Great info, solid way of thinking

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

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

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 video ! Thanks for all the information

that flash statue in the back is fire

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

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.

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

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.

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

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'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.

Very interesting, this was great!

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

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.

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 ??

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

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

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

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

wow..just wow

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.

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

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

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

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

I was just wondering this because I sell on ebay. Thanks for the info.

I have quite a collection of comics, all are raw as I don’t believe in slabbing your comic! Yes the book can be honored as art, but once you put that comic in a prison you can never visit that story again! Online sure, buy 2 or 3 issues slab 2 sell 1 and you still have a raw issue to read…yeah if you loaded! Keeping books as raw issues are a staple of old Americana…just don’t roll it like a newspaper 🫢😢!