Delzy

I'm working on Elric and Man-thing. My Man-Thing appearance list is up to 166 (including magazines). It seems I find more every time I look. Elric covers several publishers, so it is a learning experience.I'm recently back from a 30 year hiatus from the hobby, so I'm having fun hunting all this old paper in a digital age. I made this printed tile a couple of decades ago with my bro and he gave it back to me recently. Now it's a trivet on my table!

Got my Flashes in the mail from your first post. Very nice and better than I hoped. Thanks.

Take them

Wow.. I was expecting sub 4.0. Thanks for the photo tips. Maybe I'll add a few more. Thanks for the comment.

A better picture of the rumpling:

I was at a garage sale a few months ago and there was a guy with a box full of water-damaged comics he was selling for a dime each. I had been checked out of comic collecting for about 30 years and bought these for readers on a whim. To make a long story short, these readers got me back into the hobby and I'm just learning how much the hobby has changed since I last dabbled. Back to the subject at hand, there is some staining on the back cover and the moisture rumples translate through the entire book causing it to be slightly concave. No pages are stuck together and there has been no ink transferred from one page to another. Complete book with 100% legibility. Sorry for not being able to fully capture the rumpling, but imagine if you sat on it on a soft chair and the wrinkling translated entirely through the book.

No, I don't have specific examples, but it's a general sense in looking at completed eBay auctions. Maybe 5 times was a bit of an exaggeration, but these are 2 examples (at the top and bottom grade) found barely looking. I'm seeing that there are a lot of people willing to pay quite a premium for graded books. Are you suggesting this isn't the case? I'm just learning here, so my ask is sincere. I do appreciate the feedback. https://www.ebay.com/itm/133771794504?hash=item1f256b9848 https://www.ebay.com/itm/284404040929 https://www.ebay.com/itm/124795041251?hash=item1d0e5d35e3:g:PEoAAOSwP2Bg10Ux https://www.ebay.com/itm/313684277003?hash=item49090a370b:g:IG0AAOSw7PxhS8jV

I didn't mean to imply the collection value would increase 5-fold. I was referring to some of the key issues that seem to be available for less than 1/5th the price of graded copies in the same condition. I would never consider slabbing the entire collection, but I can see a scenario where slabbing several select books at the cost of sacrificing a few other books could dramatically increase the liquidation value of the collection as a whole. One need only look at the price difference between CGC-graded copies and their ungraded counterparts for some higher-grade books to see how I could think this. Like I said, I'm just learning how this hobby currently works and thank you for your input and comments. Are you suggesting that you can sell ungraded issues at any price near their graded counter-parts? I'm not seeing that at all for books that are going for anything more than $100 or so.

No hurry at all, but this is the kind of idea I was looking for when posting. I wouldn't mind giving up a few books to have some graded books to display. At this point, after watching quite a few "unboxing" videos, I'm envious of having sealed and professionally graded books since I'm probably not going to be thumbing through these old books maybe ever again. I have been buying some 'reader' lots of ebay lately to slake that thirst.

I like this advice.. I have much study to do before I pull the trigger on anything!

I just observed that CGC graded books seem to bring about 5 times as much as their ungraded counterparts. That suggests to me they are more valuable once graded. Am I missing something?

I guess I would like to have graded books mainly for the slabs for long term storage and to increase the overall value of the collection, of course.

So I packed away my entire collection in the early 90's and hardly looked at it since bagging and boarding them so long ago. Last month I decided to dig them out and finally make a list of what I had. I knew I had a few keys, but mostly random accumulation. I really only chased after Amazing Spiderman and Flash from BITD. My collection is roughly 450 mostly bronze and silver books of varying condition. While looking up a few random ebay results, I realized how much the hobby has turned toward slabbed books. I was also disappointed to learn how long the grading process has become. At any rate, I'm looking to submit some books for grading and I'm struggling to develop a strategy. I'm not in a hurry by any means and would only sell a few issues to finance more grading. What is a reasonable strategy to improve the quality of my collection? My primary concern is the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) for spending the cash. How can I get a quick flip to finance a major submission? How deep into the pile should I be looking to submit? Should I pay extra to hurry through the books to sell? I'm really just trying figure out the best way to let the collection cashflow its own improvement. I don't have any special love for any particular issues. Thanks in advance

I think it's more like 30 years, but last month was the first time I made a list. I have about 450 books total, but these are probably the highlights:

A dirty smudge of some sort. I can't tell if it's a stain or dirt.

.. double post

OK, Thanks for the motivation. Here are some more photos of the flaws that were hard to see on the initial scans: I think the score is dropping a little.

Can you buy a low grade or coverless donor copy and re-restaple it with the right pages replaced?

See #100 and #101 previously posted!

I guess I'm going to put up a series. Thanks.

Please be gentle on me for being a noob to this. I've just looked into my collection for the first time in about 25 years and am trying to decide if it's worth the time and effort to send it in. Thanks in advance.

Congrats. Jelly, jelly.

There were 100 4th place prizes for each of 3 age groups. I wonder how many are still out there.. I imagine most of them.

I'm coming back into the hobby after almost 4 decades away. Back in the day I won 4th prize in the contest mentioned and thought I'd share it. I have only about 3-400 comics boarded and bagged from back in the day and I've been spending some spare time building a spreadsheet. It is really fun thumbing through my ASM and Flash comics I focused on as a kid. Finding interesting issues like She-Hulk #1 and Captain America #100 has really blown some cobwebs out of the old thinker. I don't have ANY graded comics and can't believe the price enhancement grading provides from a cursory look on eBay. I'm planning on cherry-picking a few copies to get graded and slabbed for fun, but I'm not really excited at the prospect of waiting months after my long absence. Anyway, check out my prize from the early 80's. What do you think this is worth considering there were only 300 issued 40 years ago?