kimik

Is the Star Lord Special worth anything? I picked up a few in a collection last year.

Was that a response to my post? If yes, then sorry, I should have used SA examples like Avengers #1, SC #22, B&B #28, etc. that many of us on the boards discussed privately while accumulating copies for cheap, started hyping then kept moving prices up at shows and online. I did well with SC #22 and Avengers #1, but left money on the table by exiting the B&B #28 game way too early to pursue other BA and SA books I felt had better potential.

Great story. It has been a $20 - $30 book for the past year and a bit. I had one LCS that limits 2 copies per customer that I cleaned out last year - every second day I was back for early New 52 Batmans, Nightwings, Tecs, etc. and the Batman Annual 1. It would have been much easier to have just bought them all at once, but c'est la vie.

Sure crazyman, you just let me know when you find any verifiable FACTS 100% linking the CGC Forums to the rapid price jump in a given issue. You're like a whacko wearing an anti-alligator necklace in Alaska, and when you question him about its validity: "I ain't never been bit by an alligator, and I don't reckon I will". It happens all the time, especially in the modern forum. I mentioned Annihilators 3 several months ago as a book to pick up from the back issue bins. I had it listed on eBay for months after for around 10 or so dollars. Bought two 9.8 slabs off Beachbum for something like 60 bucks. Fast forward to last week. A board user creates a thread in the modern section mentioning the book, the thread sees very few replies, seemingly going unnoticed. Meanwhile all 6 copies of the book I have for sale on eBay sell over the next day or so. Every other copy on the bay sells out. All of the copies for sale on the Amazon marketplace sell out. That book now has several sales between 30 and 50 dollars with current auctions appearing to maintain that price point. You have to realize that everything that gets posted here, even if it appears to go overlooked, gets disseminated to every other comic related destination on the internet. And when there is only a small sample size for watchers to look at, and most people only look at eBay as being the entire extent of the market, it is easy for them to see scarcity and demand even when there really isn't any. Exactly. Look at books like NWM #1 (Thought Bubble, CBDLF, etc.), Clone, Todd Ugliest Kid, etc. and how many boardies are stuck with copies they bought at the peaks. There is also market influence/making going on with BA and SA keys as well.

This arrived in the mail today........................

Beautiful book!

Is Killdozer the newest member of Guardians of the Galaxy?

It is massively different from 1989-1993. In 1989, the top selling book (X-Men) was selling around 400,000 copies a month. Each and every month. In 1991, X-Men #1 sold 8.2 million copies, and continued to sell over 1,000,000 copies a month for the rest of that year. In 1992, Superman 75 sold 4 million copies in a couple of days, and could have sold twice that. In 1993, Turok #1 (this is Valiantman's favorite stat) sold 1.75 million copies...and was the SIXTH highest selling book of the year (the other five being Adventures of Supes #500, 501, Supes #78, MOS #22, and Action #687.) Now, the top selling books struggle every month to break 100K (which was for decades the "cancel this garbage" threshold), and the average amount of copies sold for everything is about 25,000. I wish it was 1993 all over again...I'd quite literally be a millionaire with my inventory. But it's not, and the market is still pulling the same old stupid speculator tricks that tanked everything the first time, having never learned its lesson. The one consolation is this: there's not much of a height to fall from this time. But comic books have become little more than a niche, trendy collectible, hopped up because of massive cross-media exposure, but the artform itself is secondary, if not tertiary, to the making of money. It would be nice if people didn't go spend their money stupidly, and the market grew as the result of organic supply and demand, but no one will listen, everyone HAS to have that Batman Adventures NOW NOW NOW NOW for $1,000 (even though they could have bought it two years ago for 1/10th that, and probably will again in a few years, and you can buy it for a whopping 30-40% less ALREADY), so if you can't beat 'em...join 'em. Ca-ching, ca-ching, let that cash register ring! What I meant is that it is a speculative back issue bubble for hot issues now is just like in 1989 - 1993. You could probably go back a bit earlier to 1988 for the start of it with the Death of Robin in Batman #428. Buy it on the rack for 95 cents, sell it to friends and stores for $20 immediately. Pre-Unity Valiants, hot Marvel or DC books, chromium covers, etc. were quick flips for multiples just like now. ASM #300 was another one I can remember doing well with early on also - I just wish I had actually kept more than one or two copies. Sportscards were even better. 1 box of the first set of O-Pee-Chee Premier cost $20 initially (my brother and I bought two), and you would get 2.5 sets in each that were a quick sell at $150 to the local collectors. Any rookie that had a good month would pop and the card that cost $0.10 or less would be a quick $20 flip. Back then my mistake was spending the profits on going out and buying more of the same to flip instead of investing in SA and BA keys that were dirt cheap. What would a decent AF #15 have been, $1000?

I always buy them when the LCSs put them out at $15 - $20 (or less) in the bins or on the wall. I have a small stack of them now, with just one slabbed copy (9.6). That being said, there is a Carnage vs. Deadpool mini coming out, right? We should probably see a nice spike in interest shortly as a result.

It ebbs and flows. Last spring at the big Calgary show raw 8.0 - 9.2 copies were selling fast at $40 apiece. I upped the price to $45 and $50 on the last couple after I blew through 10 or so, but there were no takers. In the fall it was dead at $40 at all shows I did.

If these are legit, looks like New Mutants #100 has legs as a raw book as well: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Mutants-100-NM-9-2-1st-Appearance-of-X-Force-Must-Have-Key-DEADPOOL-/301099339366?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item461aeb4e66 http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Mutants-100-1st-Appearance-X-Force-1991-Marvel-Nm-Mint-1st-Printing-/301099236088?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item461ae9baf8

The only point I would dispute above is the diminishing returns on modern speculation. I have been playing the spec game with moderns the since late 2012 and am nice returns that I pour into older keys/hot books. I am not the only one doing this. It is basically 1989 - 1993 all over again - I was in junior high and high school and too distracted by girls and sports to play that spec bubble right, but this time is a different story.

You would have done just as well or better with a lot of Valiants with just the "rule of 10" when the first big wave of collectors jumped back in during the early 2000s as well. (thumbs u

While that is a part of it, over the past couple of years I have seen way more early 20s collectors enter the market and for them the Copper Age keys are the big books tied to their youth. They have jobs now with decent disposable incomes to chase the funny books that are key to them, and it is not BA or SA. If they follow the trend, they will eventually migrate to BA, SA and GA books, but right now CA is what they are most familiar with and that is what they are chasing. It happened with SA back in the day, then BA, so it only makes sense that demographics are impacting the CA market now as well. Perhaps there's a Rule that shows what happens to things that came out 25 years previously? Every. Single. Time. Then how come all of the Marvel New Universe titles I have picked up in collections over the past couple of years are dead? Agreed re: the rule, though, on keys. That is the place to park your $$$$ - if it was hot back in the day, buy low, store, then flip for a nice profit.

While that is a part of it, over the past couple of years I have seen way more early 20s collectors enter the market and for them the Copper Age keys are the big books tied to their youth. They have jobs now with decent disposable incomes to chase the funny books that are key to them, and it is not BA or SA. If they follow the trend, they will eventually migrate to BA, SA and GA books, but right now CA is what they are most familiar with and that is what they are chasing. It happened with SA back in the day, then BA, so it only makes sense that demographics are impacting the CA market now as well. I think you mean people in their 30s, but I see your point. No, the new early 20s types I see at shows are buying the CA keys, as the people in their 30s (me included) chase the BA/SA/GA keys. They did not grow up reading the books, but when they started reading comics, characters like Deadpool, Venom, Carnage, Harley, etc. were big deals so this is where they initially gravitate towards regarding keys. As those are checked off the list they will follow the same progression that the rest of us did in either going BA to SA to GA or SA to GA as they can afford bigger books.

Congrats, Dan. That is a great sale!

While that is a part of it, over the past couple of years I have seen way more early 20s collectors enter the market and for them the Copper Age keys are the big books tied to their youth. They have jobs now with decent disposable incomes to chase the funny books that are key to them, and it is not BA or SA. If they follow the trend, they will eventually migrate to BA, SA and GA books, but right now CA is what they are most familiar with and that is what they are chasing. It happened with SA back in the day, then BA, so it only makes sense that demographics are impacting the CA market now as well.

I prefer making more than $5 per modern book, but will take that if I have to. The key is to be selective with your buying. Too many people are speculating on every single Image #1 and as a result they end up stuck with them.

I prefer the Sabrina cover.......

Canadian newsstand price variants tend to sell for a premium.

Has anyone read it? Is it good? Started out nicely, but after they stepped through the teleportation device the artwork and story both dropped IMHO.

Well, to be fair, it used to be the reverse (sort of). 227 was reprinted in Limited Collectors Edition C-59 and DC excluded the cover from the book entirely. Which LCE issue has the Batman #232 cover take on it? I have not owned a copy for a bit. That is a cool wraparound cover and reprints the great early Ra's stories.

What are the grades and prices?

Interesting. Are #6 2nd prints hard to find?

It will be interesting. Even at 5% of the print run, you are looking at 2400+ 9.8 copies. The question is how many will ever be submitted. There are very few Copper/Modern collectors that buy slabs from me at shows. The vast majority prefer being able to hold the book in their hands, even if you gouge them on the raw copies. FWIW, CGC is way easier now on books across the board. That is another big part of why I see Harby #1 9.8 numbers creeping up. The amount of printing defects that they allow in 9.8s is scary.