RCheli

Please show me something that says this is happening, that there is a recent underreporting of crimes after the passage of this bill. I'm giving you data and you're giving personal perceptions.

I would stress that a single year-over-year change shouldn't be looked on as gospel. Look at trends over years.

Prop 47, the law that moved low-level property crimes down to a misdemeanor, was passed in 2014, so the expected change would be in 2015, 2016, 2017... It's probably still too early to collect complete statewide data for 2018, but I doubt it has gone up or down that much.

Again, that's not true. Property crime has remained pretty stagnant in California since 2014. https://www.ppic.org/publication/crime-trends-in-california/

Because it's not true.

(This is in-person, not eBay...) At conventions the last two weeks, the #1 book that people were asking to look at wasn't any of my nice Silver or Bronze Age keys, but my Booster Gold #1. I probably pulled it down from the wall 10 times on Sunday. It's a nice VF/NM copy (probably a 9.2 or so) that I had priced at $35, but no takers.

I will stop. I felt I needed to comment because when people post things that are patently false to help them with their own narrative, I feel I have to correct it. You, of all people, should understand a driving need to correct falsehoods or statements that can't be backed up with facts.

The prison system in this country -- the over-incarceration of individuals -- is damaging on levels that go well beyond economic. The US jails more people per capita than any other country in the world, so I don't know how you can think that we are living in a nation without laws. And what is a commensurate consequence for robbing someone of $50? The failure of leadership is in the fact that 75% of people currently in local jails are there before even being convicted (bail is a ridiculous concept that has to be eradicated).

The law does not say that in the least. If you steal something below $950, it's a misdemeanor, not a felony. You can still get arrested and charged and penalized. Because it's not a felony, you cannot be put into state prison, but you can still be jailed for 6 to 12 months. For some, of course, you can get probation and a fine; but a lot of felonies are bargained down so that people don't get prison time. This law also doesn't apply to people with previous convictions for severe or chronic run ins with the law.

To me, it seemed like he was talking about their possible 9.8 status because he has gotten similar results from CGC in the past. The OP has taken a lot of heat and, admittedly, been a little too defensive at times, but I don't think he was criticizing anyone else's ability to grade or even CGC's. This had more to do with the value of the comics. Also, if you pack something well enough, it really doesn't matter if it goes media mail or not. And we need to stop harping on that. The package arrived there. It was insured. It was signed for.

How do you pick just one?

Who cares how he shipped it? Whether it was media mail, priority, or by pigeon, the package arrived at CGC and was signed for. It was also insured; however, he likely cannot collect on that insurance as it was signed for when delivered, so the USPS is not to blame. Arguing about media mail is missing the point. The point is that his comics are not in the system after 2 1/2 weeks, when others usually have them up within days. The point also is that as we have seen in the past, CGC's customer service is somewhat lacking.

If it's just a store selling his stuff, I'm not sure if there's a reason to go there very often. And while I like his art a lot, I would never pay the prices for his signed books/comics. I (and I'm likely the minority) don't see a premium in something just because there's a signature on it.

My favorite was from yesterday. A guy was selling a Werewolf by Night #15 and a Tomb of Dracula #18 -- a fun Bronze Age crossover to be sure -- for.... Not graded; 7.0-7.5 (according to the seller). That's awesome.

I picked up some of those FOOM Marvel posters last weekend. I used to have them hanging on my wall when I was a kid, and I jumped at the chance to get them again. I don't know what I'm going to do them, but I love them so much.

I'll take what's left.

I wouldn't be surprised if McCormack Place gave them a better deal for those earlier dates.

My god... it never ends...

Covers and guts were printed separately, and in the olden times, they had to be put together manually. (When I say manually, I mean that piles of printed covers and printed interiors had to be put into the binding machine by hand, and then they would be stapled together. I don't mean that every comic was stapled one by one.) So as these guts and covers were brought together, there was always a chance that something could have gone wrong. It didn't happen often and there were people who worked at the printers who checked every step, but we're all human. Sometimes you'll see the wrong interior. Or you'll see the insides printed upside down or back to front. You can see a repeat of pages. You can see multiple covers. A few of these misprints lead to a price bump -- multiple covers is the best example -- but most really drop the price and make it a novelty item. (That ridiculous seller with the $1.2 million wrong cover/interior match-up doesn't agree with that, but he's also been trying to sell that book for a long time.) I would say that your book is nothing more than a printing error, and not one that would make it more valuable; I suspect, in fact, that it makes it much less valuable and more difficult to sell.

This Sunday!

If I were buying either RIGHT NOW, the MSH#18 would be a better investment, as I feel it's at its lowest post-movie point, whereas MSH#13 is overpriced (though dropping). So there's more room for improvement leading up the GOTG 3 and the next Avengers...

Yeah, but that hasn't stopped other not-anything-like-the-movie-version first appearances from doing well. The Carol Danvers of MSH #13 or Ms. Marvel #1 looks nothing like the Captain Marvel we see in the movies.

I mean, the peak is past for both of them. I saw a lot of copies of both those books in the last half dozen shows I've set up at, and they haven't sold. I mean, look at MSH #18 -- two very successful movies and a third on the way, and yet that book is forgotten. But if you've had these books for a while, I don't think selling them now is a good idea. She looks to be a big part of the MCU for a while, and that will keep them at a high value -- though not at the peak of late last year.

Matt Smith canceled.

Come on out this weekend!