Got Them Outbid Blues

Dec 19, 2005

Tonight I bid on 4 hard to find volumes in the Fantagraphics Prince Valiant book series: volumes 34, 35, 38, and 40. And I lost every single auction. What's interesting is that, if I had won all of the auctions at the prices I was willing to pay, I would have spent $958.50 … for four books! That's an average of nearly $240 per book; books which cost a mere $16.95 when they were published. It's hard for me to justify paying such a hefty sum for a single volume, but I am simply smitten with the Prince Valiant comic. And to have come this far in completing my collection dictates that I go all the way. Perhaps I just need to become bolder in my bidding. There are clearly people out there who want them more than I. And at these prices, they must want them pretty bad.

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3 Comments

kip

4:14 PM on Dec 20, 2005
From my experience on ebay (all of 8 transactions), auctions tend to run high just before the holidays. You might have better luck in January or February. That being said- a thousand dollars for comic strips?? To each his own I suppose, but.. wow.

Jonah

4:20 PM on Dec 20, 2005
I whole-heartedly agree ... a thousand dollars is ridiculous for four books that (when published) would have sold for $67.80. I troll eBay pretty regularly for new auctions (I'm coming up on my 100th feedback rating), and I intend to keep an eye on them during the next few months. Hopefully I can get a much better deal. Interestingly enough, I've seen some entire collections of the series go for on the order of $800. At 50 books, that's only $16 a book (roughly what one would have paid originally). What a great opportunity for speculation! You buy the entire series all at once, break up the set, sell the individual books, and profit! The bottom line is that, at least currently, I have the money to buy at these prices. Having no dependents (and virtually no expenses) results in lots of spending money. :-)

SanctimoniousApe

8:08 PM on Dec 21, 2005
Got turned off to eBay after a deal gone sour, but shortly before I did I found an excellent free sniping tool called JBid (logo is a Jaybird) or something like that - should give it a try. Cross-platform as it is a Java app. Personally I dislike sniping (auctions should be extended 'x' minutes after each bid), but got to the point where "can't lick 'em, join 'em" just couldn't be avoided (much as I HATE such mob mentalities).

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