The last week or two I've been in the market for buying full runs (for binding purposes), as well as selling some comic runs of my own. In scouring eBay, I've come across some wildy different pricing, and some of the differences are insane.

For instance, it's pretty easy to find auctions featuring the first 25 or 50 issues of X-Men, the 1990s series.
They'll sell for anywhere from 50 cents to a dollarish an issue total. Getting those first 50 issues for $50 or $60 is easy.

So when this guy asks $200, I wonder what kind of crack he's smoking. Four dollars an issue? The vast majoity of that is quarter box rubbish.

But wait, this one is even better. The first 200 issues of that series ... for $700!

I don't know what kind of drugs this person is smoking. They've gotten six offers since October (you can see in the listing) but have declined them all. do they really think they'll $700 for that? You could piece together that same run for a fraction of the price.

I'm in the market for a full run of West Coast Avengers. In the last few weeks such runs have sold for between $55 and $66. One seller has been asking $90 for a few months, but no sales yet. Still, that's not an absurd price. The $200 someone else is asking? ABSURD. I contacted him with an offer, pointing out a half dozen other auctions in which the same run sold for a fraction of the cost, but he wouldn't budge.

These people are nuts.

Ahhh, I just remembered one that blew my mind. Eight issues of Jack Kirby's 2001 series for $100.

These eight issues guide for $20-25 total. Not individually, total.

I actually emailed the guy and said he had a typo in his auction, he accidentally listed it at $100. Asked him what the *actual* asking price was.

Naturally he did not respond.

I did the same for this auction, which asks $1,000 for a single issue of the same series! And no, it's NOT a typo. Look at the guy's other auctions! Hilarious!

That is Anne Heche crazy. That is Insane in the Membrane crazy. That's crackilicious crazy. Good GAWD.

I saw a guy today trying to sell a Ditko Space Adventure repeat (one of the last Charlton
efforts, and one which I see quite often in 3 for $1 bargain boxes), for $450!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Space-Adventures-12 ... 240%3A1318

I guess the seller is just hoping that someone, in a epileptic seizure, accidentally clicks the link.

Or, he thinks it is the original! I might believe that, too.
But I think he's just trying to get a sucker.

Why would someone pay all that money for a Ditco?

He says right in his auction that it was printed in the 1970s, so he certainly doesn't think it's original.

Just hilarious.

I remember a few years back there was some guy trying to sell those reprints of Action Comics #1 for a few hundred dollars. He tried to pass it off as the deal of a lifetime.

I messaged the Ditco guy to tell him about his "typo," too. We'll see if he responds.

EDIT: And he did! He thank me. "Thank You! I put the wrong pictures up for the wrong book. Thanks again."

So there you go. This one may have been a genuine mistake. I was helpful!

Eric, I can sell you a copy of Man of Steel #1 for $100 if you'd like. You know, the ground breaking series from the 1980s by that fan-favorite artist who started his career on Hot Wheels?

I like taking people with absurdly high asking prices and going down to an unreasonably low asking price.

They never take it.

But some day, in an epileptic seizure, they might.

Yep.

That'd be cool.

I had a good Samaritan e-mail me about a misspelling on an item that I was selling. My question to him was, how the hell did you find it in the first place?

A good eBay trick is, in fact, to search for the item you want but slightly misspell it. Such listings often go overlooked by people, allowing you to get insane deals because you're the only one who saw the item.

I use this trick that Taft speaks of frequently.
I have some very complex Boolean searches saved for stuff "I must have!"

The guy asking $1,000 for a slabbed issue of 2001 wrote me back to say:

I have seen some collectors pay big ass money for those price variant issues, Eric.

What Marvel was doing, was printing the comics at 30¢ in most areas,
and trying out the 35¢ price in other areas to see how sales would go.

I don't collect them, but I have a few friends who have.

That price variant books at about $25, according to this price guide entry.

Asking $1k for it is absurd.

I didn't check. The friend in question sold a Star Wars variant issue, which was
slabbed and 9.4 or better. So, he did get $1,000 or so for his when he sold it a
couple of years ago.

Tuna made me laugh.

Out of curiosity I checked out those Star Wars books, and some of the price variants for those do indeed run up into the 4-digit range. The square box 30-cent variants, specifically. I didn't see anything indicating such a leap in price for the 2001 issues, though.

Though slabbing often brings about a big price jump, seems like a big leap to me. Still, maybe there is an aspect of the variant market of which I'm not aware and this guy's price is indeed in line with what people get. I can't claim to be an expert.

You're not allowing for the "Star-Wars-nerd-factor-even-though-Lucas-has-trashed-the-whole-mythology" factor.