kimik

A 500% return on a book purchased in February that you cracked, pressed and resubbed is a fantastic return and fun I also have books that I bought in Feb and early March that are up basically the same amount without having to do anything to them. While it is fun and generates a nice return, the ease of trading equities makes it much more lucrative in real and perceived terms. The older I get, the more I value my free time. The easiest way to make money over the past year was to invest in the equities markets late March through mid April of 2020, sit back, relax, and watch the profits pile up without having to do anything. Flipping comics is limited in scale as well. It is much easier to generate $10Ks/$100Ks of return on equities than it is on comics at a certain point. As far as generating 500% profits in equities, last fall through mid February was a great time to do that with SPACs and tech/mining penny stocks (mining pennies still have potential now). There are a number of recommendations in the Gold at $500/oz thread that did a 10X last year. Bob has been awesome for nailing biotech 5 - 10x juniors over the past few years.

Did anyone mention the tease in Tynion's latest blog on the boards yet re: Wynd?

tth2 nailed his market bottom call in the Gold at 500/oz thread almost to the date.

Stock market is absolutely killing it - more so than comics - SP500 in 2003 was less than 1,000. It pays dividedens and you don’t have to pay taxes on your gains (ROTH IRA, Reverse ROTH etc.). Nasdaq has done even better. Agreed with this point. Trading comics, which is what the press and sub game is, requires the same level of expertise and experience as trading equities markets. There is plenty of $$$ to be made, but my experience has been that trading equities where you can buy and then sell 100s/1,000s/10,000s of shares at once has a much higher ROI (especially if you include your time in the ROI equation) than comics over time.

Show off. Post some pics of the other books you bought from that collection.

I can see them continuing to fight it until 1) the plaintiff settles for a lesser amount or 2) their legal costs hit a certain threshold where it makes sense for them/their insurance company to pay out.

Sorry, I read that as first Mandarin. No clue re: Mandalorian or Din Djarin. I thought the spec was some issue of the 1977 SW series at one point.

TOS #50

Depends on who you are. I know people with big GA and high grade SA keys that have them sitting at home, and others that use a safety deposit box. The funniest picture I have seen on the boards is one that was posted a while back (I believe it was GAtor?) where the boardie was using some big books as coasters.

The 9.8 GSX 1 only hit $47k in the Clink auction this week. Granted, it was only a OW-W copy, not W, but it was a nice drop nonetheless from the $60K+ range. That is the problem at the high end of the market - remove one bidder and the prices can swing significantly.

Put it on eBay with a $10,000 BIN or Best Offer and see what happens.

Here are scans of a few of them. Now, fixing the encapsulation QC so there are not a ton of scratches and scuffs on brand new slabs would be nice..............

No, but maybe I should? To be honest, I would rather put them up at an auction house as books with strong eye appeal due to tight grading tend to be chased up by the CPR crowd. No need to sell for less here. I was just impressed with the strict/accurate grading on the latest submission I have received and thought it would be good to give positive feedback here. Normally, we just post complaints. We should also let CGC know when they are doing well so they keep it up.

Oh, I have plenty more of those to submit. I focused on buying early X-Men issues and GSX 1s in 2019 and 2020 due to the Disney acquisition of Fox. Too bad I sold off all my GSX 1 and X-Men 1 multiples from late 2018 through 2019 last year as I thought a 2-3x profit was as good as they would get. That being said, I was pleased to see nice and tight grading on this group. I will post some scans later, but from my PC perspective I hope that CGC keeps this up going forward. It may also slow down the volume of books as the CPR crowd gets lower grades on books that were from looser grading periods.

Since we typically just voice complaints, I want to give kudos to CGC on the last submission of Silver and Bronze books I received. Some of the books are for building a couple of extra early X-Men runs, and the grading was nice and strict. All of the books in the submission have great eye appeal for the grade. Thanks and keep it up! Avengers 21 10/65 Marvel Comics 6.5 CREAM TO OFF-WHITE Avengers 80 9/70 Marvel Comics 8.0 OFF-WHITE TO WHITE Avengers 80 9/70 Marvel Comics 9.2 OFF-WHITE TO WHITE Batman 232 6/71 D.C. Comics 5.0 WHITE Batman 244 9/72 D.C. Comics 7.5 WHITE Doctor Strange 169 6/68 Marvel Comics 6.5 WHITE Journey Into Mystery 112 1/65 Marvel Comics 3.0 OFF-WHITE TO WHITE Tales of Suspense 97 1/68 Marvel Comics 8.5 WHITE Thor 165 6/69 Marvel Comics 6.5 WHITE X-Men 5 5/64 Marvel Comics 6.5 OFF-WHITE X-Men 7 9/64 Marvel Comics 6.5 OFF-WHITE TO WHITE X-Men 7 9/64 Marvel Comics 7.5 WHITE X-Men 8 11/64 Marvel Comics 5.5 OFF-WHITE X-Men 8 11/64 Marvel Comics 7.5 OFF-WHITE X-Men 10 3/65 Marvel Comics 6.0 OFF-WHITE TO WHITE X-Men 11 5/65 Marvel Comics 7.5 OFF-WHITE TO WHITE X-Men 12 7/65 Marvel Comics 2.5 OFF-WHITE X-Men 13 9/65 Marvel Comics 8.5 OFF-WHITE TO WHITE X-Men 14 11/65 Marvel Comics 8.0 OFF-WHITE TO WHITE X-Men 14 11/65 Marvel Comics 4.5 OFF-WHITE TO WHITE X-Men 15 12/65 Marvel Comics 3.5 OFF-WHITE X-Men 16 1/66 Marvel Comics 5.5 CREAM TO OFF-WHITE X-Men 17 2/66 Marvel Comics 5.5 OFF-WHITE TO WHITE X-Men 45 6/68 Marvel Comics 8.5 OFF-WHITE TO WHITE X-Men 64 1/70 Marvel Comics 7.5 OFF-WHITE

Show off.

I don't mind if someone jacks up the grades on books I sell them. I grade strictly, so I have regular customers (some for over 20 years now) and other dealers buy from me. I am fine with them adjusting the grades and reselling at the next show. It is the nature of the game. Just grade strictly, price fairly, and keep turning stock over.

They press the books themselves and send them in FT so it is only 6 weeks or so turnaround time. Or, they do straight subs without a pre-screen and then complain about the LCS or local seller when the books do not come back 9.8.

No. We are just a tiny portion of it. Right now there are so many speculators that jumped into the hobby the past year buying hot moderns and cover variants to slab and flip. Go to any LCS on a Wednesday when there is a hot book out and you will see the new speculators waiting in line at the open. Or they sit there and beg the store owners to lower their prices on back issues since they have to pay for eBay and pressing and slabbing fees. It is hilarious and pathetic. Here is an example. Two weeks ago a local speculator contacted me about an Alien 1 1:500 variant on ebay that I had listed raw at NM-. He placed a stupidly high bid then wanted to know if it was 9.6 worthy because he wants a 9.6/9.8. I said the grade is as stated. Then he asked me to cancel his bid. I told him no, I would not since the grade is stated and the scans clearly show that. He got all pissy and said he would tell his other friends not to buy from me. I said fine, I would not cancel the bid, and reported him. I know that he and his friends will be gone from the hobby within a year or so when this run up stops, and I will still be here.

Agreed, and that is why collectors and speculators buy from MCS, Bob/High Grade, and other dealers with the best reputations. It is not a difficult process to grade strict and accurate. I have found that many collectors and dealers have two different grading standards - one for buying and a much looser one for selling......................

I am fine with the price changes, and would suggest to CGC that they raise the pre-screen price to 75% of the cost of grading. The reason is simple - less pre-screen submissions = more time spent on grading books by the graders. Doing that will cut down on the number of books being submitted by speculators that are not willing to take the time to learn how to grade on their own.

Or, if they are going to collect, rather than speculate for the year or two that prices are running up, they can learn how to grade properly and not waste the $$$

I am curious to see how new collectors' and/or speculators' significant others view their comic buying now when the current run up stalls or pulls back.

My wife used to have issues with the amount of books years ago when we first got married. I had always bought and sold books when I was in university, and realized after a a short while of married bliss that if I sold meaningful amounts of books, and used a small portion of the profits on household related spending rather than buying more books, she was happy. Now when I talk about selling a large group of books she cautions me not to sell everything as they will go up further in value.

Looks like a 6.0 or slightly better to me, so a nice $1,000+ book at current values.