February 20, 2007

ComicBase Tip of the Day:

Smart Rounding Revealed

When you mark a comic as being in a grade other than NM, you’ll see that ComicBase automatically suggests a selling price for the comic in its new grade. Using the default grade breakdowns, the default value of a VF, for instance, comic is 66% of the value that comic would have if it were in NM. So, if you had a comic that would be worth $1 in NM, it has a value of 66¢ in VF. Interestingly, however, the default price you’d see ComicBase suggest for that comic would actually be 65¢, not 66¢.

Why? Mostly because it would seem awfully strange to charge a price like $1.2415, $0.66, or $59.875 for a comic, regardless of how the raw math works out. You could still set your comics to prices like that if really like a challenge (or like making change), but most folks would rather keep it simple and charge something like $1.25, $0.65, and $60.00 respectively.

Although ComicBase calculates the actual value of your comic to something like 9 decimal places, the default price for your comics is smart-rounded to the nearest “sensible” number as follows:

 

Bear in mind that this only applies to comics that aren’t in NM condition—NM books always default to their guide values.