kimik

That's because you were smart and locked in nice copies of both at way lower prices. I agree with you that Hulk 1 has traditionally been harder to find than X-Men 1, but a quick look at eBay shows the same number of copies, 13, of each for sale. The supply of X-Men 1s has dried up a bit as speculators hold their positions and collectors are not selling while prices ramp up, but there should be a flood on the market when the movies are announced.

That is IF he lists them on eBay. And, even then, how long will it take to find a buyer? Right now it looks like the books are coming up for auction at a local auction house, which is where prices will be low. That is why his returns will be muted (and why other dealers passed on the collection) - there is way more supply than demand in Alberta for those books. In the end, I expect him to be having to auction off boxes of the books for a one to two hundred per box unless he changes his selling approach. He should have talked to mycomicshop.com instead IMHO. Or gone with Heritage and put the bulk stuff in their Sunday auctions. Basically, let the auction house do the work on everything. Now he is left with a collection devoid of most of its value and having to do the work. Time is money.

It is not that far off. The bulk of the stuff is not being consigned via CC since there is little to no demand for low grade Westerns for them. That means it either 1) sits in his store or 2) is being sold off slowly via a location auction house in a market where there are plenty of low grade Dell and Fawcett westerns sitting in dollar and two-dollar bins that sell extremely slowly. He will make a profit on it, but it will take a long time to sell the rest of the stuff. Case in point, I have been selling at shows here locally since university in 1997 and I see dealers with the same low grade Dell and Fawcett books at old OSPG stickers sitting in their bins. They are everywhere. CC cherry picked the worthwhile stuff and now he has to unload the rest. Cool collection, definitely. Easy for him to move, definitely not. Now, the GA collection that Antonio, another local dealer, found in Calgary earlier this year is definitely easy to move. It was GA super-hero, GGA and horror. I know where the Brenda Starr 14 and some of the Schomburg Thrilling and Exciting covers ended up locally, and I believe the best stuff was graded and sold via auction. There were some nice pre-Robin Tecs in the mix.

Agreed, but there are more raw copies out there in collections or up for sale that are not counted by the census. That applies to all of the SA keys. The point I was trying to make is that speculators drove the prices up higher than the true demand for the book, and like any SA key it is your ability to pay for it that makes it scarce. There are plenty of copies of Hulk 1 on the market now looking for buyers.

Hulk 1 was "considered" scarce by the market at that point and was run up by speculators, but it really is not that hard to find a copy if you want one in mid to low grade. High grade is a totally different issue due to the dark cover, similar to AF 15's dark brown. However, like most SA keys, scarcity is only determined by how deep your pockets are.

Hulk 181 = AF 15 as far as bronze age is concerned. The way to play that is to own a Hulk 181 or two, and when 9.4 Hulk 181s jump, load up on lower grade copies and 9.4s of the other Marvel BA keys as they will follow a year later.

If he wants to net $75K, he needs to hold them for another 50 years.

It's ridiculous imo that it isn't in the same territory as Hulk 1, Amazing 1, etc. It for sure should be a top 5 silver age super-hero book. I think it might finally be on the way now. It is only a matter of time for it to get there value-wise due to the stable of characters in the franchise. It is a vast library of IP that I am sure Disney will mine. That will keep propelling prices further. The run on the book is only starting, as well as GSX 1. This Nov - Feb season will likely be the last "affordable" time to lock in additional copies of both.

Typical of the buy and flip crowd. I did a one day round trip flight to Winnipeg last year to pick up an XMen 1-300something run (can’t remember how high it went now) that I noticed on kijiji. The owner had it listed for six months at $8000-$10000 CDN asking price, and had only received lowball offers from local buyers. I finally saw the ad in August, worked out a deal in his asking range in a couple of weeks after having a friend in Winnipeg check it out, and scooped it up. The first four issues graded out: #1 4.5, #2 5.0, #3 5.5, #4 3.5, and there were a number of later SA issues in the 8.0-9.0 range. Nothing 9.4, though, despite what the grades on the old 1980s bags said. Most of the NM stickered books were FN/VF at best. 😂

Ah, color markers, that's another thing Dylan (the person who started this thread that we are all commenting on) said should not affect a book being labeled as restored or not: This guy keeps getting better and better with his views on restoration. Like I stated in the locked Strict Grading thread, pressing/restoration services should really think twice about whether their posts will deter people from ever using them or buying from them.......

Because he claims trimming isn't restoration due to something being 'taken away,' not considering the fact that the straight edge and sharper corners have been restored. Is he the guy that ruined his AF 15s then tried to blame CGC? If yes, I can see how he takes this stance on trimming as well. People like this will turn off a number of newbie collectors by taking advantage of them. There are way too many dealers and "pressing and restoration professionals" now doing amateur jobs and ruining books. That is bad for the hobby long term.

Thanks and this thread is now closed.

If you press and resub, expect the grade to likely drop.

And, due to some things that popped up with work yesterday, that is it for this thread. I will send out invoices later today and have to wait for a couple of weeks until I have some time off on the raw books. Thanks for looking.

The Avengers 4 is yours. Thanks.

The large 25 slab Boxes that CGC ships the books back to you in are the best bet. My wife hates that I keep them as they take up space, but they are the best solution if you can find one.

And that's all for this thread. Thanks for looking.

Sub-Mariner #1 CGC 8.5 OW - $750

Avengers #4 CGC 3.5 OW - $1000 SOLD to mattn792

Here are the last couple of slabs for this thread. I am going to close it after this and start up a thread for raw books in a week or so after I have a chance to grade them.

Personally, what I find obnoxious and unfortunate is all of the people starting up "CGC grades too strict" threads when their/their clients' recent CPR or modern submissions fail. While there is some deviation from time to time, CGCs grading has been relatively consistent since inception. The fact that there are a more and more sellers and amateur pressing/restoration services doing bad pressing jobs on books is BAD for the hobby long term.

Exactly. And amateur pressing and professional pressing are separate skills. There are a ton of sellers doing hack jobs on books now, as well as pressing/restoration services that are learning on paying customers' books.

A collector needs to ask themselves this - do the people who said it was a good candidate for cpr know more about grading than I do? If not, then pass.