Ellis Vance
Founder & Principal Grader
Twenty-two years in the hobby, eleven of them grading professionally. Has personally handled more than 40,000 books, including four seven-figure Golden Age keys.
Trading since 2011
We'd rather lose the sale than lose your trust
Rare Comics Collectors is an independent comic dealer and authorised CGC and CBCS submission centre operating from Austin, Texas. We buy, sell, grade, press, appraise and store collectible comics — and we tell clients when the answer is “don't.”
- Books graded & brokered
- 200K+Books graded & brokered
- Years combined expertise
- 42Years combined expertise
- Positive buyer feedback
- 99.4%Positive buyer feedback
- Insured vault coverage
- $60MInsured vault coverage
Why we exist
The collectibles market runs on information asymmetry. The dealer knows what a book is worth; the seller usually doesn't. That gap is where most of the industry makes its margin, and it is why so many people who inherit a collection end up taking a fraction of its value.
We built Rare Comics Collectors on the opposite bet: that if you tell people the truth about what they have — including when it isn't worth much, and including when grading it would cost more than it adds — they come back, and they send their friends. Fifteen years in, that bet has held.
Concretely, it means roughly one in three books we pre-screen for grading goes back to the owner ungraded, with an explanation. It means we publish the comparable sales behind our asking prices. And it means our appraisals carry a written conflict disclosure whenever we might also want to buy.
Our standards
- We publish the comparable sales behind every price. If you disagree, tell us which comp you're using.
- We disclose every defect we can see on raw books, and photograph them, before you buy.
- We tell you when grading isn't worth the fee — even though the fee is our revenue.
- We never condition an appraisal on a sale, and we disclose in writing when we might buy what we're valuing.
- We hold stored and consigned books as bailment, not as company assets.
- We honour the authenticity guarantee with no time limit. Undisclosed restoration is refunded in full, forever.
The people
Who actually handles your books
Four full-time specialists, all in-house. Nothing is brokered out to a third party you never meet.
Noor Haddad
Head of Restoration Detection
Former paper conservator. Built our UV and dimensional analysis protocol, which has caught undisclosed restoration on 312 books submitted to us since 2019.
Theo Barros
Master Presser
Fifteen years pressing, on everything from 2024 variants to 1939 newsprint. Runs a calibrated humidity-controlled system and refuses roughly one book in six as unsafe.
Simone Achebe
Director of Appraisal & Consignment
Appraises for insurers, probate courts and private clients. Has valued estates ranging from a single slab to 43,000 issues.
Come see the vault
We're at 418 Congress Avenue, Suite 210, Austin, TX 78701. Walk in during business hours for a free counter appraisal, or book an appointment to inspect a high-value slab in person.