I have continued to devote my entire monthly comic budget to Captain Marvel Adventures and the progress has been significant. Since January I've added just one new issue but it was a biggie and almost single handedly satisfied my required number of registry points to achieve my goal of taking the top spot within a decade. At this point I have 7.5 years but I'm well ahead of pace.

Three years ago at this point I had purchased 11 CGC comics and bought 27 total throughout the year. Two years ago I had purchased 7 CGC comics by this date and ended the year at 13. Last year I purchased just 6 CGC comics throughout the year and this year I have bought just 1 and will likely buy just 1 or 2 for the remainder of the year. The reduction in volume is offset by an increase in quality and I've added some comics that previously I might have blanched at because of price. Having a budget has really helped me keep my expenses in line but I confess that it's a challenge to go 6 months between purchases. My ultimate goal remains to have the top golden age set. I already have my next two purchases planned out (in fact I have them planned out until 2020 believe it or not). My additions may be slow in coming but they're big ones.

I've countered my lack of purchasing by focusing on presentation. Thanks to comicbookplus.com I've been able to read the Golden Age Captain Marvel Adventure stories and I've been working on writing up descriptions for every comic I own. It is a long and laborious process but I've become quite an expert on the stories and if anyone wants to know more about individual issues there are few places better than my set. On the other hand it's probably not the most thrilling thing reading through the summaries. At some point I will probably rewrite them and make them briefer.

I now have 31% of the set with every single comic having an image and description. That's up 3% from this time last year. My collection has 26 highest grades with 14 being alone at the top. Compare that to the top collection which has only 9 highest grade issues and just 1 that sits alone at the top spot. Almost all the rest of my collection are second highest grade. My lowest grade is a 7.5 and I have eight 9.4's and two 9.6's. The top collection has 23 issues graded BELOW 7.5, only three 9.4's and nothing above 9.4. Starman221 has an impressive 37 pedigree issues which beats my 27 although my percentage of pedigrees is much higher. Despite being well behind the top Captain Marvel Adventure set in volume and registry points I have a much higher average grade, a higher registry point average per issue and far more top grades.

There are a few more areas my set lags behind. Starman221 has issues 1 through 26 while I have nothing earlier than issue 30. Starman221 is tied for the highest grade of issue 1 which although only a 5.0 is still the best CGC grade in existence. He also has a 7.5 grade of the hard to get issue 150. These are the alpha and omega of the set and I confess that I wish I owned them. However if I were collector with unlimited funds and I wanted to create the greatest Captain Marvel Adventure set ever I'd be looking at my set not the top registry point set because I doubt there is another CMA set in the world with this many highest grade issues.

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