kimik

A bit over a week late now on this group for grading from January. When it was received the stated TAT was 47 days. Excluding weekends and holidays, it is at 60 business days since receipt, and with the current stated TAT of 74 days I would have expected it to at least be in Scheduled for Grading status by now. 25 book Value submission Received - 1/20/21 Scheduled for Grading - Not yet Graded/Quality Control - Finalized/Imaged/Shipped -

My file store ordered large for Joker 2 and still sold out by mid afternoon yesterday. I guess it depends on your market. They do well with all publishers across the board.

I like the stores that order heavy. They usually do not pay attention to what is on the shelf when a book here or there blows up a month or two later.

The first link is to Wonder Harbor, where you can order the books online straight away. I believe they ship to the USA, but am not certain. The second link is to Variant Edition (my file store), which has copies of Tankers 1 and Eniac 2 available for readers/collectors that want to sign up for the first full arc of each title. They ship to the USA and internationally, and should also have copies of Joker 2 available today as well.

It looks like he will. My guess is friend now, foe later for Batman. Cover A and B are both nice for 102 as they feature GM. I guess the only question longer term is whether Batman #100 is considered the first app by the market. The book to have so far is the 1:25 for #102 based on online sales, just like the 1:25 for #96.

The Ghost Maker arc from Batman 102-105 was quite good in the end and built nicely from the Joker war. I like what Tynion has been doing with the book. I found that King lost his way after a short bit (and jumped the shark with the wedding storyline), but I have enjoyed the book since Tynion took over.

There is a local store that still has Tankers 1 and Eniac 2 for cover price. I snagged a few copies on the weekend. Looks like they ordered big on it, just like they have been doing lately with new Image titles. Here is the link to order Tankers 1 from their site. http://www.happyharborcomics.com/product_search/search_productsA.asp?PrevStr=&KEYWORD1=tankers&submit=QUICK+SEARCH And, if you want to sign up for full first arc, you can set up a pull list and get Eniac 2 and Tankers 1, as well as sign up for all of the Bad Idea titles, from the best store in town. You may also still be able to get a copy (or more) of Joker 2 if you set up an online account. They also have a store exclusive DoT TPB that has been selling well if any of you are interested in that kind of thing: https://variantedmonton.com/

Just got a couple of freshly slabbed copies back from Sarasota. This book is my favorite early X-Men since it was the first HG back issue I bought when I was starting to collect seriously as a teenager in the early 1990s. It graded out at 8.5 years later, and was promptly sold for an "obscene" return in 2004-2005.

It is funny to see the board reactions to these threads when they pop up every year or so. We have seen numerous price gap ups since the start of these boards, and the pattern has always been the same for the established keys/hot covers - run up, plateau/small correction for a while, then run up again as cycle repeats itself. And, there is a pattern as to which books move first and which follow later (as well as publishers) - the top books in any age move first, then the rest follow typically in order of importance. Movies/TV have distorted this a bit, but titles like the X-Men and FF were no brainer spec plays a couple of years ago when the Fox deal went through (I just wish I had not started selling when it was only a 2-3x return last year ). For the hot flavor of the month books, it is run up, short peak, then large pull back to a much lower level, but one that is higher than where it started (e.g. Marvel Super-Heroes 13). Get in, get out, and deploy the $$$ elsewhere.

Shadecraft #1 is hitting $20 now. I am surprised - I did a bulk order, but was not expecting it to do anything until a trailer for the show since I figured it would be heavily ordered.

How much is it costing you by not bagging and boarding as 9.8s turn to 9.2-9.6 instead. As for the LCS, drop me a PM, but you should know.

I posted this in another thread recently, but my money is on a Valiant book based on the number of store stock longs I have seen of Rai 0, Turok 1 and Bloodshot 1.

Joey is the best in the biz. And I told you so.

You should have taken a picture of how you had those stored. On a serious note, look at the stock that one LCS owner in town is pulling out from his 80s/early 90s spec buys that are in storage. A couple of years ago he hit 93/100 9.8s on his Infinity Gauntlet 1 submissions (and the 5 copies I bought from his other case graded 9.8). Prior to that, the NM 98s that I bought when he broke that case graded 9.8 for the most part with just a couple of 9.6s. It is possible if the cases/boxes are stored properly.

If you stored books better in your hoard you would have more 9.8s.

Although, right now X94 > Hulk 180 from a value perspective. Hopefully that keeps up.

It was only a 6.5. The grades were hit and miss across the collection. Off the top of my head, the early issues graded out as #1 CGC 4.5, #2 CGC 4.0, #3 CGC 5.0, #4 CGC 3.5, #5 CGC 4.5.

It is fun to see how high prices have come in two years. In August 2019 I paid $8K CDN for a run of X-Men #1-300 that yielded my CGC 4.5 #1.

It likely will, similar to Hulk 180 and 181.

I wonder if it is not even higher than that. I know of two raw copies that are still here in town as of last year to the best of people's knowledge, along with potentially another 1 or 2 low grade copies that surfaced in the late 90s that no one has seen since (I do not know if the LCS owners are talking about the same copy or not). If Mitch's print run estimate of 250,000 is accurate, then having just 0.08% of the print run survive seems low to me.

I don't think that is a risk with the first gen holders. There is a reason those books were prone to shaken slab syndrome.

I picked up 20 of the Rai 0s, but back then they were everywhere. At the time stores were dumping their 90s overstock - the same intermediary had moved a long of ASM 300s at $5 apiece from the same source a year prior to that (along with longs of ASM 252 and each of the McSpidey 1 covers). Again, I foolishly only bought 20 instead of taking them all.

I passed on 6 longs of it in the early 00s from unsold old store stock, along with 4 longs each of Rai 0, Bloodshot 1 and Turok 1. In hindsight, at $50/long it made sense, but those books were unsellable at the time and other than Rai 0 would have sat in storage for 15+ years before being somewhat moveable.

Spawn has been a great back issue seller at shows the past decade or so. My file LCS owner commented recently that he never worries about taking Spawn in trade for store credit since they sell so fast. He also made an interesting observation that the number of Spawn collectors has increased significantly the past couple of years, and unlike his Turtles collectors, they buy everything when he gets them in (while Turtles collectors chase specific issues).

It is X-Men 1 for me in this trade. The FF has basically sucked since I started reading/collecting comics as a kid in the mid 80s, so the vote is easy. I have owned multiples of every Marvel SA key over the years except for FF 1 for that single reason. Now, if I came across one for a good price I would be happy to buy it to flip right now, but not to hold.