Books Comics & Things — Local services in Fort Wayne

The best book store in Ft. Wayne for back issues. A reasonable selection but plan on paying exact retail or more. And no, they do not negotiate pricing at all. Seldomly, you can find an incorrectly priced book and get a great deal. Back issues are slightly overgraded which makes silver era books very expensive. You can get the same book online for substantially less in most cases. They do not bag and board new books which can be a little frustrating when expecting your new books to be NM+. The staff is courteous and are pretty good at knowing if they've got a book you're looking for. Back issues are well organized and labeled where theyre easy to flip through them. They do not buy books year round, unless its a key book they do not have. Toy selection is plentiful and competitively priced. All around a solid store and the best in back issues Ft. Wayne has to offer. Although, i would myself buy alot more if they would knock 10%-15% off back issue prices or find a real grasp on the current market. When they buy them, I'm certain they're buying at least 50% off actual worth so they can afford to price break for thier customers. They arent paying guide prices so why should you have to? All too often you see retailers overgrading and overpricing books and using the grade book as an excuse. This retailer certainly has that problem. Books are worth what someone will pay for them. Not what the guide book tells you they're worth. Guide book prices are estimates of "value". Not exactly what the market will actually pay for them. I suspect they've been sitting on a ton of key books because of unfair pricing. For example, a decent graded Silver age spiderman can typically be guide booked for $40 but realistically there is no demand for the book at all in the marketplace. You see it alot more with later bronze age books. Time adds to value but nobody really wants them so people wont pay a guides prices for them. A books demand plays into pricing. Theres no way a guide book can guage that. Its the responsibilty of the retailer to know the marketplace. Valuing books from a price guide shows little familiarity with the current market. Even key books are "valued" well over what someone will actually pay and thats exactly what guide prices are....Value....not actual prices. A used car can be "valued" at $20,000 but if there isnt a market for it then the price needs to drop to supplement for that. Same on the other end, if theres a huge demand for it the pricing can shoot well over its actual value. This recently benefited me and exposed the "guide books" flaw in valuing prices. They had a high grade book (i wont say what it is) value at around $20 probably due to the guide price but they failed to understand that particular book has risen substantially within the marketplace and demand is currently very high fot it...right now, the books marketplace value sits at around $200. I plan to sell it for around $150. Its a very simple business practice that nearly all retailers fail to understand because somewhere along the lines they figured the Overstreet guide was the comic book bible. No, those overstreet guide prices only benefit the retailer and they know that. Guide prices do not have a value for supply and demand. Its annoying that most retailers base guide values as the books market price. That tells me they do have have a good understanding of the current marketplace. So if you're looking for a great or even reasonable price on a back issue, get it online. There, the marketplace understands a books actual price. Guide valued prices are ripping off the customer and retailers are abusing it just to claim books for cheap and stack thier collections while using it as an excuse to not negotiate. Dont mind paying "guide book values", then they're plentiful. If you understand prices the way the current market does, you'll see while flipping through thier lot that the prices...

I visited this shop for the first time today, the staff seemed fun and friendly enough and I do enjoy the shop, it's a great place, quite a selection of miniatures, tabletop role playing items, back issues, currents, Omnibus, and various other geeky offerings and it's great. The only point of criticism I would have is with the back issues; while I wouldn't faultshops for not having their current issues bagged and boarded but, as a collector I get very leary to see almost every back issue in the long boxes are without backing boards to be rifled through and bent with little to no support. My visit went lovely and I did get my hands on a couple of back issues I need however, as it is a 45 minute drive and one of the major things I consider very important is the use of bags and boards for back issues so, I wouldn't necessarily consider Books Comics & Things one of my main stops for...

Lots of back issues, but poorly organized. I had to look in three different "M" boxes that were all internally alphabetical, but not alphabetical between the boxes. Found one issue I wanted, but no cash on me and they had a $5 minimum for credit cards. The "dollar" bin comics had price tags on them higher than $1, so not sure how to tell what's $1 and what's not if you bring them all to the register. Common 80s and 90s books were priced higher than I usually see at other stores around the Midwest. I'd go back here to check it out while passing near, but wouldn't go out of my...