RCheli

They're from the early 70s. I think there were 6 or seven total. I think you can pick them up -- depending on condition, obviously -- for $10-$20 each.

Two weeks ago at a con a guy comes up to me and sells me a copy of Star Wars #1. I bought it for around 75% of what I priced it at because I knew it would sell. I had it on my wall for 2 hours before somebody bought it. In that 2 hours, about 10 people asked to look at it. It may be common, but it's still a very desirable book.

What are the grade ranges? There is certainly a diminishing return on a book like that at middle-of-the-road grades.

Terrific thread. As a dealer 1/20th as cool/significant as GAtor, this seems overwhelming to me. For me, the loading/unloading is the worst. When I'm done loading the van, I think to myself, "One down, three to go." Then unloading at the venue, it's "Two down, two to go." Actually doing the set-up and selling is fun. The heavy lifting is what gets to me. I try to do 8 times my expenses, but mostly because I think I'm getting a higher margin on my books. I sell a lot of priced stuff in the long-box and $1 books, which has a significantly greater profit than the wall books. (For those, I'll have to pay $100 to make $20 profit, whereas with the stuff in the long boxes, I'm buying them for 10-30 cents each, and sell for between $2-$10. Still, I'd love to get to this level, although I know I never will.

....this is a tough question, as slight variations can occur. For the most part I would think you've made the right assumption. This particular book is a World Color job. The production quality from their plant was quite a bit better than Marvel's previous printer, Eastern. They switched not too long before Avengers 57 went to press..... but it seems that certain titles went to World sooner than others. The printer is usually listed in the indicia..... and books from Eastern, basically anything from 1966 and earlier, can exhibit significant flaws and dimensional anomalies from book to book. The further back you go the worse it can be..... so bad that you really can't place different copies of the same book next to each other as a 100% comparison. Books from the 50's to early 60's are the absolute worst..... some issues can be very difficult to find nicely centered and "square".GOD BLESS... -jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u And the printing registers were always off. Some Marvel books from the '64-'65 era are ridiculously bad. Almost Charlton-esque in their badness.

I was explaining to someone last week about how huge The Phantom is in Australia and, slightly less, in Europe. They couldn't grasp it. "You mean the guy in purple?" "Yeah." "No powers or anything." "Yeah." "Popular?" "Incredibly." [pause] "The guy in purple?"

Roy Thomas was the writer when the Vision was introduced in the Avengers. I don't think that Stan had (or has claimed) anything about creating him.

That's all I ever want in life. I've told my wife to say that instead of "I love you."

I have an ethical question: I'm putting together a sales thread where my prices will be less than what others have been listing (but not selling) some books of late. For example, I have a run of Super-Duper Strong Guy (names changed to protect the innocent) that guide for around $15 each, but I'm going to sell them for $5. Several threads have been up recently with Super-Duper Strong Guy issues that I'm going to sell that the buyers want $15 (or more) for. Is this a move on my part? I'm not going to point out the other sales threads -- "See, you can buy it cheaper from me!" -- but I also don't want people to get angry when I'm selling stuff for less. (And, I think, I'll actually sell the stuff and not have it sit in a sales thread.) My feeling with selling is I'd rather get $10 now than sit on something trying to milk out $15 or $20 for months and months. Thoughts?

I think that the majority of the movie-going public doesn't care about whether Spider-Man's part of the Marvel movie universe. If he is, it's great. If he's not, that's okay too (as long as the movies are good). ASM #1 is probably the fourth or fifth most important Silver Age Marvel book. I don't know how much more something could hype it.

I look at the list often. Last year, somebody needed a few issues of the 80s series The Realm. I was out at a shop rummaging through their 50-cent bins and found most of them. He was really happy.

I'm going to be rich! Make it rain, baby!

My local shop has rearranged their wall of silver age books to have 90% Flash now. I'm not sure how well they're moving, but the shop is definitely trying. If I had 20 Amazing Spider-Mans and 20 Flashes of same era/price, I'd like sell the Spideys faster. But it used to be that I would sell all 20 Spider-Mans and 0 Flashes, and now it's 20 to 8 or 9. I don't know how long it's going to last, but it's nice to see. Now if only we can get a Jimmy Olsen Netflix show...

I've found that any Flash book -- not just keys -- are doing very well for me. It's always nice to see DCs selling well (other than Batman), as they're a distant second to Marvel in the Silver Age.

Take it.

Take it.

Take it.

Take it.

Take it.

Take it.

Take it.

I agree with you completely, but I think we're too far gone to reverse course. It may have been different if the company who shall not be named had come out with a different grading system for trimmed books, but they stayed the course. Trimming is the absolute worst. At a recent show, a guy was trying to sell a Tales to Astonish #35 that was trimmed. He wanted $250 for it. (The same book, I presume, was listed on GPA as being sold for $175 in 2013.) He talked himself down to $150 cash/trade, and I just couldn't pull the trigger, because I loathe trimmed books that much.

I am glad you like them,.. but to call them a niche market would be like calling those in the numismatic field who collect seated dimes "niche series coin collectors" , there are many reasons why some coins AND comics have limited number of collectors, and one of the main reasons is because they are not instantly available, the instant gratification cannot be satisfied no matter how much money you have,..unlike ANY marvel comic series in which every issue is readily available every single day, what you would call niche series collectors (of both coins and comics) are what I consider to be the most knowledgeable and most intellectual of all the comic collectors , I applaud Millie the Model , Sugar and Spike and any and most all golden age completionist collectors. I would gladly start collecting Sugar and Spike but I know I may never find an issue #1, that is why I have yet to start a collection of them, if I knew I could get a G/VG blue label copy of issue #1 for guide I would start the entire run, but I know that may take a decade or more. I'm not sure I agree with much of what you say. (I know nothing of coin collecting, so I can't comment on your analogy.) To me, you should collect what you like, and I suspect that the majority of comic collectors today have no interest in Sugar and Spike or Millie the Model or a lot of things. I don't think I've ever not started buying a series because I knew it was going to be difficult to complete. And I definitely don't think that people who collect more esoteric comics are in any way more knowledgable. They probably know more about Sheldon Mayer, but I don't know if they know more about everything.

They may be quick movers, but there are still a limited number of people collecting them. I collect them -- I love Mayer -- but they it's still a niche market.

They at least say that it's trimmed. So they have that going for them. Right?