TempusFugitivus

I don't know if anyone remembers this: But a year or so ago, there was a 9.2 JIM 18 for sale on e-bay. Pretty sure it was white pages, just a beautiful copy. It was a 10 day auction but the book was quickly delisted. I sent an e-mail to the seller to see if it was still available. He told me that someone had called him and bought it for: $2500. Said the guy kept telling him that he should jump on this great offer. That it would never sell for that much on ebay. Guy just kept at the it until the Seller agreed. Seller said that as soon as he agreed to sell it... He got another guy calling him and offering $3500. I told him I thought it would have gone for way north of 5K.... if he just let it ride. Pretty sure he thought I was nuts.

I don't think there was a reserve. The book sold for sure at 4K. I have noticed that recycled pressers [books that come back to auction immediately after being pressed up] often do not do well. But considering the grade bump (it had been a 9.2 or 9.4, I think), the seller/presser still did very well.

The biggest I recall is a 9.0 TOS #1 that sold for a little over $10k. The highest graded ST 97 sold for $8k or so and there's been one 9.8 copy of a different issue that sold for over $5k but I don't recall the exact price. The result on the ST 68 exceeded my expectations. The ST 97 was 7200 the 9.8 was TTA30 IIRC. I think that went around 10k? It was the TTA #30, but I seem to remember more like $4K and being quite surprised. Maybe I misremembered. It was exactly 4K and not a penny more. It had a date stamp on the front cover and had been in a previous auction a year earlier at a much lower grade.

Tom, I get the same impression. There seems to be a steady trickle of new HG copies. Be interesting to see that update. Never even realized that there were no high grade copies of Strange Tales 73 or 83. I've got nice copies that I figured someday I would improve upon. Didn't even realize that both were just one good press from the top.

Hi James, I'm always lurking in the Pre-Hero Marvel section. I've never understood why the Marvel Chipping gets such a pass. If I get time, I'll post two Pre-Heroes with extensive chipping..... but decent grades anyway. John PS: Happy Easter to you too.

Quick look at the back cover of the ST 68 shows basically no flaws at all. Evidently, the book has no stains as CGC will hammer even a virtually invisible one. There is "Marvel Chipping" all along the top and right edge, some bottom too. [Marvel books were supposedly cut with dull blades at the end of the day.] But CGC is very lax on this type of defect, evidently as a production flaw. There is spine wear with 4 large color breaking creases and some smaller ones. These should have knocked it down to a 7.5 by themselves. If this is your undercopy, I'd like to see your overcopy.

PGX books: Send them to Matt Nelson. Have them cracked out and checked for restoration. If restored, curse the seller and PGX, if not..... Have Matt tell you if they can be pressed up. If you don't like pressing, get them back unpressed. If pressing is your thing, have it squashed. But at least you will know the book's potential profit. One thing to note about PGX: The company has evidently gotten more crooked as time goes by. So check the date it was graded. [The MMC above is June 2007 which is early enough.]

mjacobs8 (added 1/24/09) Mike Jacobs has squared himself with me. If no one else has an issue with him, he could be removed from the list. It was 3 years but it speaks well of him that he made it good when he could. Most people would have simply walked away from it. Renews your faith in humanity a little.

Kind of an ugly book IMHO. Somebody's definitely buying the label. Buy the label...not the book! Seeing this made my night. Thank God, I bought my JIMs way back in the day. The day, of course, being before they brought Thor back from being canceled and decided to make a movie about old Goldilocks. When I bought my 83 years ago off Comiclink, I wasn't even a member of the Boards but remember later, after I joined, reading posts about whether it was a crazy price or not [The consensus was definitely yes]. Looking at these prices, it turns out that it was an awesome purchase. Doesn't make up for some truly retardo purchases that I've made but certainly lessens the pain.

Sold this one to John Russell earlier this year... And I give you many many thanks. Even though, it didn't get much love in Korvac's fantastic pre-hero showdowns, I flat-out love this cover.

Every transaction I've done with Tom, both as buyer and seller, has been nothing short of excellent. Of course, the proof of the pudding is when things go bad. Although I've never had any problems with him over numerous transactions (which speaks well all by itself), Tom is exactly the type of person you would want to deal with if there is a problem. He's considerate, easy to communicate with, concerned that everything goes well and both people are satisfied, and an all-around good person. I wouldn't give a higher recommendation for anyone on the Board.

Despite your protestations that you had nothing to do with it the Dispute was a direct result of YOUR previous actions. The Probation thread allows for less than 30 day scenarios, having someone file an "Items Not Received" claim against me when that wasn't accurate is grounds enough to potentially expedite the process. I don't need an apology, but take ownership of your responsibility and quit trying to lame blame on others. I didn't send you money back, it was taken via YOUR account. Why should I have wait any time to get it back? As I already said, I did not do the chargeback. I'm not going to take responsibility or apologize for anything that I am not responsible for. You don't believe me? I don't care. I think the fact that you didn't even bother to tell me you tried to put me on the probation list is quite rude. You don't want to give me any credit for immediately telling you that I would make sure that you got paid? Fine. You couldn't even wait to discuss anything with me? No problem. If you were not in such a yank, I would have sent you the money and you could have pocketed the paypal fees. As for this, we can simply agree to disagree and its over.

Skypinkblu- Lord, you must think I walk around so angry all the time that I'm just one maniacal rage from stroking out. But I am not an angry person at all. I don't walk around pissed off all the time. I'm actually quite happy and have a warped sense of humor. I try very hard to be considerate of others because I personally have been very blessed. And simply 'winning' is nowhere near the top of my agenda list (my kids and wife are at the top with nothing else near them). I admit that I have a temper. As I tried to work this out, I did lose my temper at various points (the lengths paypal and ebay go to make it hard to contact them is nothing short of remarkable). But I am able to be quite reasonable and I tried my hardest to do just that for one solid month. But no one from ebay/paypal ever had any interest in working anything out. In retrospect, the entire experience was like some Kafka nightmare. Everything I did seemed to simply make the situation worse. I always thought that, if I could simply talk to someone in charge, it could be worked out easily. But it became apparent that that was never going to happen. So I walked away from all this weeks ago with the assumption that it was over. It simply wasn't worth my time. All this came as a surprise. And I don't feel the need to apologize to anyone for the simple reason that I did nothing worth apologizing for. I personally did not inconvenience anyone. Two other things: 1. Making the feedback private was not some childish thing. My ebay accounts are limited (I can actually still bid, I just cannot pay by paypal). At that point (early September), I was simply testing what was still possible. I made the feedback private while seeing what I still could do. As the accounts are now basically dead and I have no interest in doing any business with ebay, I just did not bother to un-private them again. It's as simple as that. 2. In some ways, the whole ebay/paypal thing was a blessing. It's something I did with my son. But he's in love (will wonders never cease) and barely interested now. And my own collecting has moved to things not well served at all by ebay (Golden Age). So I thank you for your concern, but I'm good.

GA Collectibles: My point is simply this: 1) Before you ever got in contact [not just attempted to contact], you nominated me for the probation list (is there not a 30 day requirement?). 2) After you did contact me, you did not even bother to tell me that you had nominated me for the probation list. 3) I assured you that I had not caused the problem and I would make sure that you got paid. I immediately offered to pay you straight up. 4) While I communicated with you, you kept updating stuff in the probation thread without giving me any credit or telling me about the probation list. 5) At all times, your only concern was that you instantly got the money (once again, is there not a 30 day requirement?) because you needed it right now. And everyone accuses me of being rash? Excuse me if I took this personally but I've got no use for you.