Gatsby77

Love this thread - and that you've been updating it for years now.

But I especially applaud the X-Men # 248 in the first photo - that was the first X-Men issue I ever bought! It was 1989, I was 12 years old and the book was only a few months old, as the current issue was # 251.

I found it at a yard sale a few blocks away for $.25 (5 for a $1). Bought it alongside some '89 Nick Fury: Agent of Shield books. And started collecting X-Men in earnest with issue # 252 -- and Classic X-Men # 39 (mid-way through the reprints of the Dark Phoenix Saga). 

Years later I'd pick up a raw 7.0 X-Men # 94 and a CGC 3.0 X-Men # 1, but it all started with that issue of # 248 from that yard sale.

I've shared this before.

Magnus # 0 is my favorite "modern" book. I think I've got ~30 copies raw & 15 slabbed (9.2-9.8).

What's awesome about that is I remember going from store to store to stockpile the Cable card, especially with the "negative" Captain America.

Nobody cared about the Deadpool card then - although (of course) we had to get all 5. 

Good insights.

Here's the thing, though. Everybody I knew bought New Mutants 98 (and 99, and 100) off the shelf -- with most of us buying more than one.

Cable was the hottest thing going and that was coming right after his two-parter with Wolverine (my first issue off the rack), then X-Tinction Agenda (which was a must for anyone collecting Uncanny at the time).

And by then we were hooked. New Mutants 98-100 were orders of magnitude more common than say...86-89, and we all loved them.

Then again, nobody cared about Deadpool -- he was fun, but NM 98 was important because it was the first appearance of Domino.

Same thing -- I hate myself because I bought five copies of NM 100 at a show this month for $4 apiece.

I'd previously bought three off the rack -- _everybody_ bought in to that book since it was known as the first appearance of X-Force.

Just strikes me as funny -- nobody speculated on X-Men 266, but in my area folks speculated on New Mutants 93-100 and Amazing Spider-man 361-363.

Yeah - I hadn't looked up prices for Faust in about a decade and was shocked that raw 9.0s now go for less than $20 on eBay.

I just assumed that # 1 first prints would have kept pace with increases of what I consider similar books -- like Crow 1 and Cry for Dawn 1.

Also, wondering how much earlier your Chuck newsletters go.

Asking because I'd be curious to see what he recommends for Nov. 1988 (Wolverine # 1 and Punisher War Journal # 1) and how much he hyped PWJ # 6 prior to release (as I remember his in-comic ads offering it it for $.99 (limit 5).

My first issue of Comic Buyer's Guide came in spring 1989, and it noted that, after months, neither PWJ # 1 nor Wolverine # 1 were available for re-orders; and that PWJ # 1 had the highest print run of any modern book (before it was de-throned by Legends of the Dark Knight # 1 a year later).

Just curious to read contemporaneous confirmation of those facts.

I started collecting the summer of 1989, so this resonates with me.

Kills me how much the market's changed since.

I went to a convention in DC last weekend and passed on Nick Fury vs. Shield # 1 and # 2 at $1 apiece, as well as copies of the Excalibur Trade (1st appearance) for $2.

One book I did buy was Faust # 1 (first printing) signed by Tim Vigil -- for a whopping $8.

Good times...

The "Don't buy Batman" post is particularly funny to because I started buying Batman in 1989 -- mid-way through Year 3 with # 437.

Granted, he was right about Death in the Family -- by the time the Batman movie hit prices peaked at:

Batman 426 - $45

Batman 427 - $35

Batman 428 - $35

Batman 429 - $12

But, if you weren't buying Batman off the rack in 1989-1990, you missed out on A Lonely Place of Dying (increases in Batman 442 and New Teen Titans 60-61) and (in 1990) Robin # 1, which quickly went from $1 to $12.

As everyone knows, Tim Burton's movie was a monster hit that also lifted _all_ Batman back issues (but esp. Joker covers going back to the Golden Age) and buoyed comic collecting as a whole.