TL;DR summary: BUY ALL YOUR COMICS HERE!
Had a stellar…read moreexperience selling here. Owners & staff are super friendly, super knowledgeable, and LOVE comics.
Backstory: When my dad died a couple years ago, I inherited his not inconsiderable collection of original Marvel Comics from the early '60s. We're talking key early run issues of some key series: Avengers, X-Men, among others. All in fairly good shape, though not mint. Single owner collection, since my dad was a bit of a hoarder, and kept them all from the moment he bought them off a newsstand by Wrigley Field, and then in the '80s once he heard that they might be valuable, moved them to Ziplocs in a safety deposit box where they sat until 2016.
The process to get them officially graded & "slabbed" by CGC is expensive and time consuming (and apparently not really worth it for mid-grade comics, which I could tell these were from CGC criteria online--solid 4-6s on the 10 point scale), so after a family friend helped me get them properly stored in mylar with acid free backboards, I visited Excalibur with a few samples from the collection.
From the moment I walked in, I had good vibes. I could tell that the staff (especially Shawn, who was my main contact point there) was excited to see these books, not principally for their monetary value, but because they just LOVE comics, the history of comics, and the pleasure of looking at a good book. They were up front with me: they have to buy for less than market value, because that's what makes business sense. For low value comics, that's about 25%, but for higher value, rare comics that they can move in a day, they are willing to negotiate.
My husband and I came back the next day with the whole collection, and Shawn went through each book carefully with me, with an open price guide on the table between us, noting down an estimated value. Again, I could tell he was just excited to get to handle books like these, and he made great conversation with me about printing & subscription practices in the day, common faults like "Marvel chipping" that affects these books in particular, and he was also happy to listen to my stories about how my dad probably bought these right off a newsstand by Wrigley Field in Chicago when he was 14 years old.
Then the owner (Debbie, I believe) came in, and we negotiated a price that I was happy with for the whole collection, and she told me how her family opened this place years ago because of her mom's love of comics. Financial concerns aside, I felt good just knowing that these treasures, which were an important part of my dad's childhood, are going to folks who will make sure they wind up with collectors who truly appreciate them.
As an extra classy bonus, when we were done negotiating, Shawn came out and gifted me the six mint condition original issues of Star Wars: Dark Empire, which he'd heard me mention as a favorite comic from my childhood.
POSTSCRIPT: More class act service--so after depositing the check, I got a notice from my bank that it bounced. My husband went down to ask what had happened, and Debbie was there--apparently they had a bank/computer hack and crisis over the weekend, and she was trying to contact us, but like idiots we didn't leave any information. Even though they had a much bigger problem to deal with, she immediately went to the bank and got him cash, with an extra 2.5% tacked on that he did not ask for just for our trouble. This is a 100% class act family business. BUY ALL YOUR COMICS HERE!
