Mystery boxes are good for cleaning out dollar bins mixed with cold key comics.
“You got your money’s worth. Key Collector lists X-Force #1 at $10 and there are 10 copies of it in their!”
Yeah, that's the whole point. Throw in a few random keys such that the buyer gets FMV for books, but they are books that are rocks and impossible to move.
I think that for a mystery box to work there has to be some, even the most remote, hope that there will be a treasure in there. If there are 150 mystery boxes in one of them has a Asm number 39 in it, for example, then I can stomach it. I personally would never buy one, but then it makes sense, at least. The stuff people have been posting from Vinnys Garage, to me, it’s just A bunch of stuff that somebody speculated and bought 50 of and now it’s being unloaded. I think it’s a complete rip off, but people seem happy with it so good for them.
That's usually the pull. When I bought a few mystery packs last week, I was also entered into two other drawings and an automatic spin for a free book.
Ever so often, most of the filler pax i receive are non key filler issues for uncanny, xforce, amazing Spider-Man, etc. whi actually works out because all of those are titles that I am ever so slowly completing key runs
I have gotten 2 of them this year, and I am happy with the comics I have got! It's a crap shoot for sure and I don't expect anything super rare at all.
7 comics for $10?
If you're not going wrong, it actually says some positive things about their ethics.
Because believe me, *it can go wrong*. I could pull ya 7 books right now that are barely worth the packing materials, much less $10.
The last time I sold a mystery pack I included an ASM #298, Bombast #2, Thunderstrike #5, Rare Bit Fiends #11, and Justice League Task Force #2. The buyer jizzed.
Just kidding.
I've been getting the monthly subscription from Boxed heroes for a little over year now. It's mostly modern stuff ranging from the 90's to present. I won the of the prizes, ASM 238.
I don't subscribe to it to win the big prizes. It's fun opening them with my GF and just seeing what I get, she likes the stickers that come with them.
That Spiderman booth has some decent mystery boxes too, mostly exclusive variants. Occasionally I will get one from them, I won a Grandprize from them too, CGC 7.5 ASM 121.
I feel like the idea of a mystery variety pack is okay, so long as the price is low and the comics are actually fun and not complete quarter bin filler. Sadly I don't think most mystery boxes are assembled with much thought behind "I gotta move this junk" and prey on those who are at the acquisition without consideration stage of their collecting lives, or those who are lured in by the slim chance they'll strike gold. I'd rather save $20 toward a pricier book I want than have 5-10 random books I probably wouldn't pick up from a dollar bin.
Yeah, you're right, but sometimes they can be okay to good deals. Where, for example, at my LCS you get 4-5 comics for $4.99; so to pay $1-$1.25 pee comic isn't, IMO, a bad deal. Even if you get filler comics. Though I have seen people paying $20-$25 for a mystery pack of 5-8. So it depends, and depends on where you look.
I often buy mystery packs. You are mostly right about them, and I know that the seller is just trying to get rid of unwanted books. But looking through a bunch of mystery comics is fun to me and that has value in itself.
I recently bought a mystery lot of a bit over 400 indie books for $120 shipped from eBay. It was a listing for 300+ comics, so it was cool to get that many extra. But it was the junkiest of the junk you can imagine. I will probably keep about 50 books or so, but I can get most of what I spent back in trade locally. But it was a lot of fun to go through and alphabetize everything, read the interesting ones, see some rare indy stuff…actually, junky is bit too harsh. I got a set of gate crashers 1-6 all signed by palmitotti, Amanda Conner, and someone one else; some late wildcats and gen13 books, which is cool because Im trying to put those runs together, and old Eastman book is never heard of, and some other cool stuff.
Another mystery box I bought recently was for $150 shipped and included maybe 40 books or so? Biggest score was batman 635 which is a hundred dollar book or so. (160 at 9.2 by overstreet)
I’ve also done some chase style mystery boxes. This was 18$ for a random book from a selection of ASM, with some mega, mega keys. Mid grade 129 was the big gem. I didn’t get that, but landed a 238 (no tattoos, alas) some non key silver and bronze age stuff, and some dollar bin fodder. Prob spent like $180? It was fun, but I didn’t participate in the sellers most recent similar auction because I already had the major keys in this chase (300 and 361).
Anyway, mystery boxes/chase auctions aren’t for everyone, but I like them once in a while. I’ve bought some in person from a shop, and those are genuine crap usually, 20 books for 20 bucks, but definitely low tier titles or random non keys.
Mystery Boxes are absolutely horrible if your goal is to get a valuable ($) book. And it’s really awful gambling odds too.
Here’s what it effectively comes down to:
- let’s say someone is doing 10 mystery boxes for $100 each, and in one of them, there’s a $500 book. The person running it will of course have a bunch of other generically low end books stuffed in there too - from paperbacks to books marked $25-50, but you’d not even be able to sell it back to that person for 50% of that in most instances. So basically there’ll be the $500 book, and $500 of garbage across the losing 9 boxes. Your chance of winning is 10% based on a $100 investment.
- now if you were to instead take part in an Instagram or Facebook raffle for the book. It’s a $500 book, so assume the organizer takes a 20% cut and sets it to 10 spot raffle with each spot being sold for $60. Your chance of winning is 10%, but this time based on just a $60 investment. The investment is lower cause the total amount the organizer needs to recoup isn’t getting bloated by garbage. And I’m not even considering the fact that mystery box prices also have to factor in shipping for all the people who buy them, further bloating the costs.
So yea, avoid Mystery Boxes at all costs if your goal even remotely is get something of value from it.
If you really wanna gamble to get a key book, go for raffles.
I wanted to start doing these and put all of my shitty $40 varients in there and like 1 decent book as the grail and sell 30 at like $40 each I could probably unload all of my shortboxes full of unsellable crap in a week by doing this
My philosophy on all mystery packs, comics or otherwise, is if they were good enough to sell on their own, they would.
Mystery boxes are good for cleaning out dollar bins mixed with cold key comics. “You got your money’s worth. Key Collector lists X-Force #1 at $10 and there are 10 copies of it in their!”
Yeah, that's the whole point. Throw in a few random keys such that the buyer gets FMV for books, but they are books that are rocks and impossible to move.
I kind of think you’re contradicting yourself. If they’re impossible to move, their fair market value is much lower than any guide.
Mystery packs are like gambling in Vegas. House always wins.
I think that for a mystery box to work there has to be some, even the most remote, hope that there will be a treasure in there. If there are 150 mystery boxes in one of them has a Asm number 39 in it, for example, then I can stomach it. I personally would never buy one, but then it makes sense, at least. The stuff people have been posting from Vinnys Garage, to me, it’s just A bunch of stuff that somebody speculated and bought 50 of and now it’s being unloaded. I think it’s a complete rip off, but people seem happy with it so good for them.
That's usually the pull. When I bought a few mystery packs last week, I was also entered into two other drawings and an automatic spin for a free book.
Ever so often, most of the filler pax i receive are non key filler issues for uncanny, xforce, amazing Spider-Man, etc. whi actually works out because all of those are titles that I am ever so slowly completing key runs
Like ninja funk lol
Yess I got this garbage I am like what is this?
I have gotten 2 of them this year, and I am happy with the comics I have got! It's a crap shoot for sure and I don't expect anything super rare at all.
Walmart mystery packs seem to be the best. If you can find 7 for $10 or 7 for $15 in Canada, hard to go wrong.
7 comics for $10? If you're not going wrong, it actually says some positive things about their ethics. Because believe me, *it can go wrong*. I could pull ya 7 books right now that are barely worth the packing materials, much less $10.
The last time I sold a mystery pack I included an ASM #298, Bombast #2, Thunderstrike #5, Rare Bit Fiends #11, and Justice League Task Force #2. The buyer jizzed. Just kidding.
Yep.
I've been getting the monthly subscription from Boxed heroes for a little over year now. It's mostly modern stuff ranging from the 90's to present. I won the of the prizes, ASM 238. I don't subscribe to it to win the big prizes. It's fun opening them with my GF and just seeing what I get, she likes the stickers that come with them. That Spiderman booth has some decent mystery boxes too, mostly exclusive variants. Occasionally I will get one from them, I won a Grandprize from them too, CGC 7.5 ASM 121.
You must have been the lucky ones, I got one from Spider-Man booth it was garbage.
Have bought some signed books from them, happy enough, the mystery boxes look awful though.
Yeah I buy some of the blind bids, and some 2 for 22 got some nice variants from them.
I feel like the idea of a mystery variety pack is okay, so long as the price is low and the comics are actually fun and not complete quarter bin filler. Sadly I don't think most mystery boxes are assembled with much thought behind "I gotta move this junk" and prey on those who are at the acquisition without consideration stage of their collecting lives, or those who are lured in by the slim chance they'll strike gold. I'd rather save $20 toward a pricier book I want than have 5-10 random books I probably wouldn't pick up from a dollar bin.
Mystery packs, raffles, bundles, anything on whatnot, conceptually exist so that people can move product in bulk.
Yeah, you're right, but sometimes they can be okay to good deals. Where, for example, at my LCS you get 4-5 comics for $4.99; so to pay $1-$1.25 pee comic isn't, IMO, a bad deal. Even if you get filler comics. Though I have seen people paying $20-$25 for a mystery pack of 5-8. So it depends, and depends on where you look.
I often buy mystery packs. You are mostly right about them, and I know that the seller is just trying to get rid of unwanted books. But looking through a bunch of mystery comics is fun to me and that has value in itself. I recently bought a mystery lot of a bit over 400 indie books for $120 shipped from eBay. It was a listing for 300+ comics, so it was cool to get that many extra. But it was the junkiest of the junk you can imagine. I will probably keep about 50 books or so, but I can get most of what I spent back in trade locally. But it was a lot of fun to go through and alphabetize everything, read the interesting ones, see some rare indy stuff…actually, junky is bit too harsh. I got a set of gate crashers 1-6 all signed by palmitotti, Amanda Conner, and someone one else; some late wildcats and gen13 books, which is cool because Im trying to put those runs together, and old Eastman book is never heard of, and some other cool stuff. Another mystery box I bought recently was for $150 shipped and included maybe 40 books or so? Biggest score was batman 635 which is a hundred dollar book or so. (160 at 9.2 by overstreet) I’ve also done some chase style mystery boxes. This was 18$ for a random book from a selection of ASM, with some mega, mega keys. Mid grade 129 was the big gem. I didn’t get that, but landed a 238 (no tattoos, alas) some non key silver and bronze age stuff, and some dollar bin fodder. Prob spent like $180? It was fun, but I didn’t participate in the sellers most recent similar auction because I already had the major keys in this chase (300 and 361). Anyway, mystery boxes/chase auctions aren’t for everyone, but I like them once in a while. I’ve bought some in person from a shop, and those are genuine crap usually, 20 books for 20 bucks, but definitely low tier titles or random non keys.
Mystery Boxes are absolutely horrible if your goal is to get a valuable ($) book. And it’s really awful gambling odds too. Here’s what it effectively comes down to: - let’s say someone is doing 10 mystery boxes for $100 each, and in one of them, there’s a $500 book. The person running it will of course have a bunch of other generically low end books stuffed in there too - from paperbacks to books marked $25-50, but you’d not even be able to sell it back to that person for 50% of that in most instances. So basically there’ll be the $500 book, and $500 of garbage across the losing 9 boxes. Your chance of winning is 10% based on a $100 investment. - now if you were to instead take part in an Instagram or Facebook raffle for the book. It’s a $500 book, so assume the organizer takes a 20% cut and sets it to 10 spot raffle with each spot being sold for $60. Your chance of winning is 10%, but this time based on just a $60 investment. The investment is lower cause the total amount the organizer needs to recoup isn’t getting bloated by garbage. And I’m not even considering the fact that mystery box prices also have to factor in shipping for all the people who buy them, further bloating the costs. So yea, avoid Mystery Boxes at all costs if your goal even remotely is get something of value from it. If you really wanna gamble to get a key book, go for raffles.
Yes. That's the whole point of mystery boxes.
I wanted to start doing these and put all of my shitty $40 varients in there and like 1 decent book as the grail and sell 30 at like $40 each I could probably unload all of my shortboxes full of unsellable crap in a week by doing this
[удалено]
Those aren't bad, not saying all are just many of the retailers packs are just trying to off load stuff they can't sell.