oakenfelder

I received a comic in the mail and most of the left side seal and part of the bottom left is completely open. I can open it enough that I can see the comic and sleeve inside. THe inner sleeve also appears to be unsealed. Is this just basically a raw book or would CGC be able to seal it up again?

I recently got a big group of Flash with the whole Trial except 342, there were dupes of some 347, 348, 348, 349 and 350. The dupes are all newsstand and the rest are all Direct. 

I remember my friend signed us up for the official fan club back in the early 90's We got an official implement of menace, a pin, a picture and I believe a secret decoder.

If #3 has broken the color, to me it looks like it has, then that is not fixable by pressing. If that whitish bit is just a reflection, it may be.

On 9/28/2021 at 5:40 AM, lostboys said:

So most of these I understand, people are clumsy... but moisture and mold?...warping and rippling?

What in the Sam Hill are those about? I always thought the slab was to protect the book from such damage.

Should books be re-slabbed every so many years like bags and boards?

 

If the seal on the slab gets cracked or it's just not fully sealed, I can imagine moisture getting in. I have heard of some books losing their "flatness" from pressing after some amount of time. I don't know if it's the type of pressing done, or if it had too much or too little moisture.

On 9/27/2021 at 6:35 AM, Stronguy said:

The easiest way to tell reprints from this era is by looking at the issue/price box and the barcode box.  On 1st print Direct editions you will have a Marvel logo of some sort in the barcode box (Spidey head or something other than a barcode) and the issue/price box will be an "M" shape (as opposed to rectangular on Newsstand editions).  Reprints have a rectangular issue price box (like Newsstand) but the barcode does not have a bar code.  This applies to most (if not all) mid-80s reprints... Secret Wars, GI Joe, Transformers, etc.

Were these reprints part of multi packs? I know that they had 3 or 4 packs of some comics that they would sell in grocery stores or book stores. I am pretty sure that's how I got my original Micronauts, Shogun Warriors, Star Wars 1-6, Return of the Jedi and Raiders of the Lost Ark

On 9/22/2021 at 2:32 PM, Mmehdy said:

unlike a gold brick, or a share of stock or cypto...there are a lot of GA/SA collectors who enjoy and have a childhood connection to comic books and some who enjoy owning a historical item from the past.  Both in great story telling and art, we collect comic books because they were and are great, like a fine painting, a collectable  50's car etc. Given that, vs the pure investor, who just wants to make a profit, a true collector has a different purpose, yes if the book goes up...great but the true collector  is buying the comic book for the comic book itself, whether it is a EC comic book, Cap #1 etc.

 So for any TCBC I hope there is some difference between buying Cap#1 and share of stock, at least on some emotional level and I for one am glad we still care.

I deal with a lot of set collectors for sports cards. Buying a complete set from a dealer or auction is in all instances cheaper than putting together a set piece by piece. However Most set collectors that I speak to tell me that it's not as much fun or as satisfying to purchase a complete set. Yes, there are a lot of people out there hunting the Gem Mint 10 on modern sports cards the way some people send in handfuls of every new book to get the 9.8 CGC, but there is a big enough selection of collectors that have a childhood connection to the cards of their youth that I would hesitate to classify all sports card collectors as widget buyers based upon your definition. 

On 9/21/2021 at 1:03 PM, Mmehdy said:

 Comic books are not cards, these are not just widgets, but there is a certain comic collector buyer who is not just a widget buyer

 

Could you clarify? I don't understand the widget buyer vs. non widget buyer and I'm not sure if you are saying that most comic collectors are or are not this widget buyer.

On 9/20/2021 at 9:28 AM, szav said:

Fair enough, long term it is the average stuff that needs to do well for the company to be financially successful, and for them to gain the average consignor’s trust, but the big books will be what cause most people to even take a first or second look at the site to begin with.  I think it’s still important that they bring in a noticeable number of six figure books and that they continue to do well with them.  It will be interesting to see how they go about it with their next auction anyway.
 

I don't have a long history of comics purchases, but I have purchased sports cards from Goldin. I have found their internal grading of raw lots and their auction descriptions to be problematic. It's a mixed bag for the buyer. In the positive column for buyers (Negative for sellers) they don't really tell what is in a large lot. I bought lots with short prints that were not listed, which if listed would have likely driven the price up. On the negative for buyers side is that they do not describe major flaws, even for a key card in the lot and just group the items as X grade to Y grade with some better and some worse. The some worse can include the key card in the listing, that they fail to disclose what may not be obvious in a picture. The graded items that are simple to describe don't really suffer from this as what more can you say about a single item that has a 3rd party grade that isn't obvious. The record sales draw eyes to their auctions and their history of record prices realized draw sellers, but I feel like they have a lack of interest in improving the listings on the meat and potatoes. If they can brag about record setting prices on a handful of listings, then the higher ups are probably satisfied. It has not been my favorite auction experiences though and I rarely utilize their platform. I imagine the first submissions of bulk comic lots or raw copies will get higher attention, but with low experience and that any raw lots will be a similarly unsatisfying experience where nothing raw is graded properly or described sufficiently. 

I am used to the model of having one end time for the auction and then extending on either a lot by lot or whole auction basis. The auction houses that extend the entire auction if a single item gets a bid can be incredibly frustrating. The other ones where each item gets its own timer once a bid is made tend to allow me to make decisions on lesser tiered items if one of my main interests goes out of my price range. The item by item live bidding on Heritage just takes too long to get to books if I am interested in Justice League or X-Men.

Just my 2 pennies based on purchases from Goldin.

On 9/17/2021 at 1:37 PM, AJLewandoski said:

It's a first print. 2nd and 3rd prints have a 75 cent price on them

thank you

I didn’t know there were multiple printings, and now I wonder which I have. 

Thanks everyone. I'll just keep it as is. I never had a first Mar-Vell before, so this is cool.

I got this copy in an auction and when I received it, I realized it had a lot of dark spots and the edge looks very wavy. Is this something that can be cleaned off and maybe pressed flat?

Hi, I used to collect back in the 90s and I bought some in the early 00's. I sold everything when the first kid came along. On FCBD I went back to my old comic shop and wound up picking up some silver/bronze age books, and since then have been picking up more stuff. My favorite characters are Captain America, Daredevil, Green Lantern, Flash and Batman. I love the old Neal Adams stuff and the Norm Breyfogle Batman stuff.

I've been out of collecting for a while and recently picked up a big handful of Daredevils because I always loved his covers. There's a shop near me that has a 7, but it's hard to pull the trigger on $400.

Honestly, Sebastian Stan in Winter Soldier was one of my favorites.