CKB

Anyone like Valiant?  I like Valiant.

- No one on probation or HoS members
- Posts in thread to buy stuff at the listed price wins over PMs.  I will post in thread when PM deals are concluded.  Don't edit your posts.
- Take 15% off all listed prices
- If you need to pay me $50 or more you get free US shipping, $12 otherwise.
- Sorry about the photobucket links.  Be warned they are a lowbrow site and browser referrals take you to a safe, but very annoying, page. 
- Any questions, please ask.  I will discount a bit for groups.

Would be nice if someone could add (in Toronto) or something to the thread title.  There are a number of "Paradise Comics" in North America who are not involved here.

On ‎3‎/‎12‎/‎2018 at 3:31 PM, shadroch said:

I am of the opinion CGC and the other companies should mark each book with a serial number, in invisible ink. Most disagree. 

I think if there was a solution that did not hurt the paper in any way, it could work.  Especially in the margin on an interior page.  You have so many grades and types of papers used in comics, though.  Wouldn't be completely straightforward to test and be confident in the safety of a marking procedure.

Just an anecdote... I was selling a model train collection for someone and was worried about fraud on the more expensive engines.  I marked them in invisible blacklight ink and did catch someone returning a different, broken engine to me.  eBay sided with me at the time but I doubt it would go my way today.

9 hours ago, CAMPER49 said:

If they removed part of your colon, are you left with a semi-colon?

I hear this sort of thing is pretty comma these days.

 

This has to be the worst thing I have ever read, period.   You can single or double quote me on that.  

47 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

I thought of a better example,,which would be the inside front covers of Batman: The Dark Knight #1-4. If the "finish" (for lack of a better term) looks like a cover of Spawn, it's a counterfeit. If it looks like the inside front covers of DK, it's real.

Who would counterfeit DK 1-4??

On ‎2‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 4:45 PM, the blob said:

press those babies!

That won't usually work.  It's like the pages were held improperly when the book was stapled.  Like it was twisted somehow.  I have over 100 unread overstock copies and none of them are 9.8.  Obviously flat ones do exist, it's just not as easy as you would think.  Couple that will sloshing in cheap boxes for years and it's even worse.  Paper stock stinks too. 

There are so few in the census that I would not hesitate to send candidates to CGC for 9.8 pre-screening.  The Unity storyline will always hold some nostalgia for a certain age group.  I can't envision not being able to sell a 9.8 well into the black all this year, regardless of the doings in the Valiant world. 

2 hours ago, Ottobord said:

Ebay gives sellers a penalty for unfulfilled orders, I am not familiar with the site you mentioned they may do the same, you may need to research that.

Alas, I think the non-performing seller strikes have gone the way of the Dodo.   Once a seller refunds your money there is no longer a web-mechanism to complain about anything, except to call eBay.

I don't have my OGG in front of me, and OGG is not CGC, but I would be surprised if small pieces out of the margin affected grades at 8.0 and below.  The notation was put on the label because the defect is hidden by the encapsulation, IMHO.

If you head over to ValiantFans.com, you can find the release order for all the new VEI books, which is what I assume you are currently reading.  I doubt there is anything better than release order!

For VH1, you can not only find "release order" but a number of suggested "reading orders" for the first universe.

It is 100% not required to read VH1 to get into VEI.  But you are missing out if you don't at least get the background of the pre-unity books from the early 90s.  Missing out just because they are very good.

2 hours ago, Key Collector Comics said:

Those are all great suggestions.  To narrow down the scope of the question, how about classic storylines that are approachable for kids interested in collecting due to exposure from movies, TV, etc.  Hope that helps a little.

There is a collected edition of Spidey Super Stories that introduces a ton of marvel characters.  I'd recommend the whole run to pre-teens.

But really what I think you might want right now is the Infinity Gauntlet mini, given your new guidance.

54 minutes ago, rjpb said:

That's the real rub when it comes to trades. it's hard enough to agree on value, and then straight up trades rely on both parties being generally more or at least as satisfied with the book or books they are getting.  One reason why I've found it hard to agree on trades.

Hulk 181s are easy to sell,and their value range established. Which means they are good trade bait for a dealer, as they know they know they can flip them easily for an known amount, and they seem to go up in value fairly consistently. The value of a 6.5 Exciting #30 is more of a guess, and isn't tested until one comes up in the market place. How much value in trade (rather than cash) you should take for it, should reflect how much you want the trade offered, how hard it would be to acquire otherwise, and how attached you are to the book you are trading away.

Yeah, with something like this I would want enough in my favor to replace the traded "scarce" book with a lower grade copy.  Really a book you hate to see go.

Hulk 181s are readily available in every grade and every variation within each grade.  But liquidity can be king nowadays, so I can definitely see it making sense.  I hesitate to mention what I sold a 9.0 and 9.2 Hulk 181 for about 10 years ago.   It was a very good price at the time, but it sure makes me ill now. 

The collection is a dream and a nightmare at the same time.  So much stuff that is rarely traded and even rarely seen.  How do you know what to pay for it?  How do you price it once it's purchased?  It's maddening enough to think the right move is to walk away at anything but the most comfortable pricing.  And then there is the time already invested just trying to go through it.  Uggh!

Hey that would go nice with my Little Lulu 16.  Hmmm...

But to your question...yes, they were printed in huge numbers, widely distributed, bought mainly by kids and the *spoon* was read out of them.  So something along the lines of a 7.0 is going to be tough.   Maybe lower your standards a bit and go with more presentation than overall grade.

A discussion about knowing there should be more or less 9.9s or 10s seems futile.  How can anyone comment meaningfully unless the standard that is used for each grade is known?  I don't think they can.  We can speculate about the standard these books are held to all day long (indeed, I do it all the time) but until then we really have no clue.  Or has CGC published a grading standard that I am unaware of?

Oh and...

Wow.  It never goes this way.  Great to see the police interested and the community helping out and such a meaningful result.

7 minutes ago, JcomicJ said:

We are practically any island at this point Miami looks like Italy right now

I believe Florida is both the flattest and lowest state in the country.  The average height above sea level is something absurdly low.

Looking better for the east coast, worse for the west coast.

Looks bad for Miami period.

On the good side the winds are down from the peak.

34 minutes ago, Pontoon said:

One of the nice things about a comic con is seeing the budding young fans attracted to funnybooks, as well as the older ones. I wonder what Golden Age treasure this golden ager found!

 

Just brutal!  (Well done!)  Wish I had seen Jimmy at the show, would have loved to catch up.

The analogy you guys are looking for is ticket sales/prices.

If you have a show that doesn't sell out, or more importantly isn't EXPECTED to sell out, they stay at face value or below.

If you have a show that is expected to sell out, outfits who are resellers will compete for the supply of tickets, raising the aftermarket prices, and possibly causing the sellout in the first place.  They expect to sell the supply they get at a higher price then they buy.

Dealers play this game with mega keys, in the roll of the ticket reseller, expecting that they will be able to get more than they paid.  This is why they always have copies available.  They didn't get them for free, they had a price of entry as well, and are confident that if they hold their supply they will get their price.

Keep it coming Rich!

I just have a paragraph or two to add about Saturday so instead of my own report I will hijack yours! 

I spent Saturday at the show working the Toon Tumbler booth with my 14-year old son.  Always fun to people-watch and sell glasses and magnets.

The venue, aside from the bathroom situation, is utterly fantastic.  It may be too big.  While the aisles did get crowded, I thought it was a layout problem and not a space problem.  A more efficient use of the massive amount of space might make it all better.  They either didn't have enough staff or they weren't active enough trying to make the floor work smoothly.  At the end of the day Saturday there was no concerted effort to get customers to leave, which is very annoying, and many vendors concerned about their stuff were forced to hang around for an hour after "close".  Overall, though, there was a lot more good than bad.

The big problem with this show to me, and this may be consistent among all the large shows these days, was the number of vendors selling unlicensed merchandise.  I'm not talking a booth full of licensed stuff where there were some Chinese knock-offs.  I'm talking full booths dedicated to selling self-made merchandise with copyrighted images at a scale that goes far beyond fair use.   In my view, it is up to the show promoters to vet the vendors, and replies of "how can we tell?" will fall on deaf ears to me.  It is very easy to tell if they care to look into it. 

There was no shortage of adult material on display either, mixed right in with everything else, bringing the whole show down a bit.

One thing that has apparently disappeared entirely from the picture is the sale of pirated and bootlegged CD's/DVDs.  Enforcement goes a long way to changing behavior.

Nice seeing everyone again on this once-a-year visit I have with a crowd I used to be far more active in.  Thanks to you all.

19 hours ago, roach04 said:

Awesome!  I spent about 3hrs at Guardian a few months back - need to hit it up again.  Would have been cool to see a guy like Greg there.

(Did he have a dozen copies of Solar #10 CGC 9.8s on him?)

Wouldn't leave home without them!

And anyone with a Captain N #1 on their wall is friend of mine, bottom row be damned!  Well done, GuardianComics!

I was a big fan of his work in "Tucker".  I believe he got an Oscar nomination for that one.  He also was memorable as Matt Damon's professor in "Rounders".    He even classed up a movie like BAPS.  He was working right up until his death.  I believe we will still see a few films with him in it being released.

5 hours ago, mosconi said:

Saw the episode again, and I have a feeling that AF 15 has some type of trimming going on   Any opinions?

If you buy the guy's story he has had it for 30 years, it looked good.   The trimming being done in the 80's was pretty obvious today.  Of course, in hand it's a whole another perspective and anything is possible. 

20 hours ago, nepatkm said:

Most likely. 

I agree, this is the classic SCS that can happen with that style inner holder.   It's easy to tell - forget about the overhang, look at the staples.  The staples should have the cover tearing around them.

Book should be returned to seller, and then to CGC.  It's a total loss.

56 minutes ago, F For Fake said:

My recollection (strictly anecdotal) was that while Superman 75 was obviously a huge event, retailers were still not entirely prepared for just HOW big it ended up being, so when #500 came up, they overcompensated, big time. So my assumption would be that the 500's would outnumber the 75's considerably. But again, that's just my conjecture.

Having lived through it as well, I agree with your recollection.  In my experience, though, I see more platinum 75s than 500s.  I have no explanation for it, just my observations.  It could very well be that the plat 75 catches a -sellers- attention more than the 500.