lou_fine

And sometimes they don't reward them and seemingly almost punish them instead. For example, take the non-pressed, original state, verified Stan Lee signed VF+ 8.5 graded copy of AF15 that was only able to fetch a price of more than $35K under the Overstreet condition guide price in the big HA Signature Auction just last summer.

Are you sure it was not a Green Qualified label then if it was graded as a 9.6 copy? I always thought that if a book was considered to be Incomplete by CGC and was slabbed with a Blue Universal label, it would only receive a 0.5 Incomplete/Poor grade.

Doesn't CGC do the star or ! for books with eye appeal? I believe that might actually be the company which we are not supposed to be talking about on these boards here.

Unfortunately, this is so very true. With comics though, everything seems to go in cycles. So, these very early historical pre-hero GA DC books might have its day in the sun again one of these years. Although nobody really cared for the pre-hero SA Marvel books for decades, now they sure seem to be fetching a pretty penny when they do show up in the marketplace in decent grade. So, why not for the pre-hero GA DC books which are in fact, 25 years older and very much rarer in comparison.

I really liked it. Is that you there, Zack?

...if I could get 475 a month it would be a no-brainer...wish real estate on long island was cheaper Yes, less than $500 a month for commercial rent for a retail store sounds like an absolute dream. Any idea how much it would cost on Long Island for you to rent a commercial retail store space? I believe the LCS in my city has to pay well over $10K a month and probably much closer to $20K for his monthly store rental. That's an awful lot of comics that has to be sold in order to cover not just the rent, but also the huge staff which he has to hire to run the store itself.

I dont know why more people dont do this. I'm going on 6 years this May. Avoid new comics is my advice as well. Metropolis doesn't do new comics. I think they are doing pretty well for themselves. You can't be serious about comparing Metropolis with opening up a new comic book shop. They are completely different business models as they deal in completely different aspects of the comic book marketplace, with no overlapping similarities at all. In addition, the customer base for Metro is also completely different from the customers for the LCS's. It should also be pointed out that while Bill would be struggling just to gain a foothold in the very competitive new comic book marketplace, Metro is basically a market maker when it comes to the vintage comic book marketplace. A lofty position to hold and one from which they have wielded that power for more than the past couple of decades.

That was good advise a year ago prior to their record breaking year at the box office. I'm doubtful they will be able to repeat this year. (Although they do have a strong lineup of movies.) I would tread cautiously. Yes, but probably more like 3 to 5 years ago, because they have basically been treading water for the past couple of years. Well, at least they've finally got their price/earnings multiple down to a much more reasonable level of less than 20.

Was the cover exceptionally clean? Since you guys were mentioning about Mark Wilson's copy of WW 11, I went back and found a copy of one of his catalogs. No idea when it came out, but it was listed as Giant Catalog Issue #39 on the front. Lo and behold, and to my absolute surprise, it had the picture and listing description for the Wonderworld 11 as part of it's Neat Stuff highlights at the front of the catalog. Even more surprisingly, the listing description for the books was as follows: "A beautiful copy that has very MINOR restoration. It looks like a solid VF but the centerfold was loose. I had the centerfold reattached and a small stain cleaned on the back cover edge. That's it! Origin of THE FLAME. One of the best existing of this very SCARCE issue. $650.00" Looks like Mark DID list some of the restoration details for his listings after all. Probably mainly just the wet cleaning was not listed since he did not consider that to be restoration at the time. It would probably be up to the potential buyer to specifically ask about this if he wanted to know.

How many years has Dan been doing this now? If it's really easy peezy to get a 700% return in just 5 years time by flipping comics, should he not be retired and laying on some nice tropical beach by now, with enough money to last him for the rest of his life.

Unless they were sued, how in the world do you go OB putting stickers on graded comics? Well, that should be a rather simple concept to understand.....if nobody uses your service, would you not go out of business then?

Well, if the presence or lack thereof affects the value of the book only, I assume it's really not up to CGC to downgrade the condition of the book if it is not there. I would assume they should only be denoting whether the book has or does not have the Tattooz. The actual grading of the book itself, however, should in theory remain the same as they would not be able to tell if it is supposed to have or not have the Tattooz.

Well, if this is true, then CGC would NOT be able to downgrade for the missing Tattooz simply because some copies were printed and distributed with them never being attached or inserted into the book in the first place. It should not be up to CGC to try to guess which copies never had the Tattooz in the first place form the copies that had the Tattooz removed on a post production basis.

Have your forgotten so soon - "Disassembly and reassembly of a comic book in and of itself is not considered to be restoration".

Well, since it says "$1,000 or Best Offer" for 350 books, I guess this works out to less than $3 a book or pretty much the going rate for current new books from your LCS. From that point of view, I don't think they are really that expensive at all.

Yup, Wilson's definition of "unrestored" didn't extend to things like cleaning (i.e., a purple label). He put his personal agenda ahead of the market, and the results speak volumes. Well, it turns out that Mark Wilson might have been half right in the end after all. With CGC's last set of changes to their Restoration Grading Scales, it looks like some cover or interior cleaning with either water or solvent is now considered to be Conservation, as opposed to being Restoration. But it looks as though improper cleaning that results in color fading, excessive white, washed out/speckled colors, cockling, puffiness, etc. is then considered to be restoration, based upon what I am reading here: https://www.cgccomics.com/news/viewarticle.aspx?IDArticle=4084 Strange that they would consider cleaning to be Conservation Repairs, and yet, consider the replacement of rusty staples with vintage staples to be Restoration. Or am I not reading their Restoration Grading Scale properly since it seems to fall under both categories.

I was casually following the bidding for Weird 20. With only 3 bidders in the game it had already hit ~$1900 (with BP); then a 4th bidder steps in later... and the final hammer at $4000+ for a book at GD- 1.8!! Looks like I can probably forget about completing that run. Yes, my bad as I should stop stop trying to Google auction results on a small cell phone screen which is harder to read. That VG+ auction result was from back in 2013. Yes, now it's most definitely a crazy strong price at $2,868 for a RAW G- copy: https://comics.ha.com/itm/weird-comics-20-fox-features-syndicate-1942-condition-gd-/a/121704-14679.s?ic3=ViewItem-Inventory-BuyNowFromOwner-SearchResults-120115&lotPosition=1 Pretty much as crazy as the VG copy of U.S. Jones #2 that sold last summer for almost $5K. But at least that one was a graded and slabbed copy. But still......

Even though it's a scarce Hitler and Churchill war cover, still looks like a relatively strong price at over $4K for a VG+ copy.

Yes, it was said that no matter how nice a book was to start with, Mark simply could not resist giving it a good old bath anyways. His rationale was that this type of work was not considered to be restoration at the time from his point of view. Since your copies were only in the VG/F condition range, he probably did not bothered with them. The ones you had to be extra vigilant with were always the HG copies, especially if they worth a decent amount of money. I believe one of the telltale signs might be ascertained through a sniff of the books, but I am not entirely sure.

Ask and you shall receive: http://www.ebay.com/itm/142078525483?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&autorefresh=true&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&rmvSB=true Definitely a very strong price at $2,725 for a raw VG+ copy, especially when compared to a condition guide price of less than $500. Interesting to note that after 16 years of grading, the highest graded copy of this book is still only a single VF 8.0 copy. Looks like a raw VG copy of Wonderworld 12 sold on the same night for $2,624.99 which once again is a very strong price when compared to a listed condition guide price of only $348. Current highest graded copy on this issue is a bit better at a single VF/NM 9.0 copy. Looks like the Fox books are definitely very hot right now, especially with very few copies entering into the marketplace. Inquiring minds are curious as to why you would be asking about the sale of the WW 11 after such an extended period of time. Any possibility that you might have a nice copy available for sale to a rather hungry marketplace? I'd sell my 11 if someone wants to offer stupid money for it. I guess it depends on the grade of the book as the front cover looks pretty nice here. Also depends on what you definition of "stupid money" is. After all, one person's definition of stupid money cold possibly be another person's definition of a bargain price. From my point of view, this issue appears to be quite underappreciated and undervalued right now, especially considering that it is the origin issue for The Flame. Overstreet no longer even seems to attach any type of premium to this particular issue for the origin factor which kind of runs against his MO when it comes to pricing valuations. A definite change from way back when and certainly interesting to note that this used to be the second most valuable issue in the entire Wonderworld run and beaten out only by WW 3. Certainly not the case anymore.

Ask and you shall receive: http://www.ebay.com/itm/142078525483?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&autorefresh=true&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&rmvSB=true Definitely a very strong price at $2,725 for a raw VG+ copy, especially when compared to a condition guide price of less than $500. Interesting to note that after 16 years of grading, the highest graded copy of this book is still only a single VF 8.0 copy. Looks like a raw VG copy of Wonderworld 12 sold on the same night for $2,624.99 which once again is a very strong price when compared to a listed condition guide price of only $348. Current highest graded copy on this issue is a bit better at a single VF/NM 9.0 copy. Looks like the Fox books are definitely very hot right now, especially with very few copies entering into the marketplace. Inquiring minds are curious as to why you would be asking about the sale of the WW 11 after such an extended period of time. Any possibility that you might have a nice copy available for sale to a rather hungry marketplace?

Why, you are nothing but a hoarder and hogging all the books for yourself here. When will you post the 9.4 copy that you picked up last week or you will once you receive it in the mail? Seriously though, congrats on your fantastic set and I think the 3.5 copy is really nice for the grade with just that 1 major defect on the back. Fishler and Metro has been around ever since the 80's as far as I am aware of. It's probably just that Steve had not yet brought Vinnie into the fold by then.

Now, that's certainly a nice looking and sharp copy of what is supposedly a tough book to track down. When did you pick up this copy here?

..Bolt the doors GAtor... He's gonna make us sweat this one out hahaha!! Dang well better not have 5 of 'em, Ricky boy. Tomorrow. For the life of me, I just can't figure out what book you guys are referring to here. Can you just give me a bit of a hint?

Definitely not the case since I believe this book was part of the big Mile High 2 warehouse find and is out there in high grade. For example, I just checked the census and there are over 100 more copies of this book in CGC 9.8 graded condition as compared to X-Men 94. Similarly, there are also over 200 more copies of this book in both CGC 9.6 and CGC 9.4 graded condition as compared to X-Men 94. Hence, there are over 500 more copies of this book in relative HG condition as compared to X-Men 94. And that's just for the graded copies only, just imagine if we added in the raw ungraded copies to this total here.