I have a shitton of old comics and Mad magazines that I want to sell.
I know that the local comic book shop won't give me even close to what they're worth, so I want to set up shop on eBay.

My question is:
How do I go about grading these things?
And... what is the market like for trade paperback, digest-sized graphic novels and Mad compilation books?

Is it worth it to sell these things?
Most of them are from the 1970's and early 80's.

What kind of condition are they in? If you kept them in bags and in boxes, you could get a decent price for them depending on what you have. Though now they have graded comics (see pic below) and I have no idea how they do the scoring/pricing on those.

[img][296:500]http://www.mediawyse.com/Comic_Auctions/cw1_98.jpg[/img]

They're not archived like that -- hermetically sealed or anything.
Many are in mylar bags (and have been kept together in boxes for years. But they have been read, of course. I was a kid who liked to read the damn things!

I forgot about CGC. None of them have been submitted for "Official" rating/scoring.
Without that number, will they sell? Even if they're in decent shape?

I honestly don't know. I have a ton of comics too but haven't tried to sell any yet and most of mine aren't in bags, just in boxes. I would just take them to a few comic book stores and see what you could get for them.

To get the comics graded like that, you have to pay a service to "authenticate" the condition. Then you can sell them as such. Otherwise you just document, any torn or folded corners, rips, water marks, etc.

i bought some 1970s-era mad magazines from a antique/collectables store in Dec. for a secret santa thing. they were 3 bucks a pop. that is all.

Good info, thanks Mark.

I'm gonna have to deal with this very soon. You might wanna check into selling them in bulk on ebay. There are some predatory nerds on there trying to fill holes in their collections.