spreads

Keeps the speculators honest.

Are you kidding? If the local economy dips, everyone and their grandmother will be looking for things to scalp on eBay. We will see, but last downturn there was a drop in people hitting stores for back issues due to less disposable income. I expect to see more collections surface, though, so I hope that the US economy stays strong if we have a prolonged downturn here as it will provide a viable market to sell books into and, most importantly, a weaker $CDN = nice exchange rate bonus. I would expect there could be lots of buying opportunity in Alberta; that province has a staggering debt/income ratio at a time when Canada has the highest record amount. There will be less buyers to sell to though (locally), so you might be sitting on some stuff for longer periods of time... To say that Canada's economy is 'rosy' is like comparing a bunch of world economies to pigs at that barn, and picking the one with the least amount of mess on it. Small population, huge land mass and resources, pretty well educated, relatively low crime, government that functions without a lot of corruption, pretty good "productive citizen" to "leech" ratio... I think Canada will be just fine. I'm not talking about generic statements you can find on wikipedia, I'm using socio-economic data pointing to the vulnerability in the housing market. There are several statistics that the Canadian landscape is perilously close to a market housing correction. It may never materialize, but the disparity between the rents/mortgages which are currently at an all-time high since the index's been tracked, coupled with the fact housing cost as a percentage of net income is the highest it's ever been - leads to a very precarious situation. When 1/3rd of all mortgage owners would be experiencing severe distress on just a 100 basis point increase, we are anything but 'fine'.

Are you kidding? If the local economy dips, everyone and their grandmother will be looking for things to scalp on eBay. We will see, but last downturn there was a drop in people hitting stores for back issues due to less disposable income. I expect to see more collections surface, though, so I hope that the US economy stays strong if we have a prolonged downturn here as it will provide a viable market to sell books into and, most importantly, a weaker $CDN = nice exchange rate bonus. I would expect there could be lots of buying opportunity in Alberta; that province has a staggering debt/income ratio at a time when Canada has the highest record amount. There will be less buyers to sell to though (locally), so you might be sitting on some stuff for longer periods of time... To say that Canada's economy is 'rosy' is like comparing a bunch of world economies to pigs at that barn, and picking the one with the least amount of mess on it.

Are you sure? I've scanned images of perfect cases and books in slabs that look like a spine ding/case crack but it's just the angle of the reflection of the image. I'd look again but I've been into the single malt....

It looks that way; but how can the split go past the edge of a comic? That's a nice book BTW; I see so many Canadian price variants - always hold onto the 95 centers!

Definitely get there early! There was a local ad for a guy selling about 3k books also a number of weeks back, but it was posted on very short notice and I was busy that morning and couldn't make it. He re-posted it again and had contacted me when I asked him if he would hold it again; I was writing a 6 hour exam that day so it was no chance. I did manage to go to his house and grabbed a couple books cheap, suicide squad, mid-grade death of reverse flash for $2. I asked him if he sold many and he said the first day of the sale someone bought hundreds of comics, and although some of his stuff was marked I doubt he would have been current on a number of coppers that have gone up and I'm sure that guy scooped up a ton of cheap books.

Very little meaning about 100 books? It's probably 2999 copies of Spawn 1 and a Superman: Man of Steel 3. I would definitely grab every Spawn 1 he had if they were only a buck a piece!

And maybe the seller bought his from this guy here: 1 2 3 That is hellova foresight! Yeah but really, advertising entire LOTS as 9.8/9.9 is just ridiculous. That's OK, if the customer doesn't like the quality he receives, Gary probably has 2,000 more to pick thru. He'll have more listed in the morning at a premium price. The seller is a board member here, I guess...

You're lucky to be finding quality books. Around here, I have to deflate about one guy a week on kijiji (craigslist) who thinks they can sell 2000 issues of drek for $5000. Ahaha, but it's down to 3k!

30 Centers too, nice haul Chip! Dang you guys know how to sniff out the deals!

Lugging CRTs are heavy as hell, and nobody wants 'em. Why wouldn't you check beforehand to see if they'd take it instead of bringing it there and getting pissed-off. Also, in my city there are many individuals/companies that haul tvs away for free. You don't even have to leave your house. I checked their website ahead of time and it said they took the items. Then the lady said no. When I went to the Salvation Army trailer, they thanked me for the donation. I know people don't want these things in general. But if you had NO TV and could not afford a flat screen-- would you rather have no TV or a tube TV? Also-- I never said anything about CRTs. I recycle those at Best Buy. Anything not digital is CRT to me; technology-generation, haha....I think I would still take no tv over a whopping hearniator!

Lugging CRTs are heavy as hell, and nobody wants 'em. Why wouldn't you check beforehand to see if they'd take it instead of bringing it there and getting pissed-off. Also, in my city there are many individuals/companies that haul tvs away for free. You don't even have to leave your house.

, I sold a beater for $50. Go look at the other complete auctions, you could have gotten more.

What do you mean?

Right here, chief: Shortboxes

The best part about valiant/acclaim books is because of such negative stigma by most dealers (and LCS to some extent) I've found so many $50-100 books in the $5-10 range over the years. And I'm know many others have done the same.

Patently false. The week before the announcement 4-5 copies CGC 9.8 copies sat unsold at ~$325 Buy-It-Nows on eBay & at least one retailer site, while the CGC 9.6s sat unsold at $100 Buy-It-Nows but sold for about $78 at true auction (with the occasional $100 true auction for 9.6). There's a world of difference between "sold for $300-$400 in 9.8" and "sat for months unsold at $325 BIN asking price in 9.8" Before the announcement the book had steadily trended downward over a period of several years from the 2500 high. There's a 65 page thread on the discussion and analysis of Harbinger 1 in CGC 9.8, and for Kevin to say the book was 'expensive' in the $300-400 range is taking this book at severely depressed levels. There is extensive buyer history support at this book at the 1k level and 500$. Only the absolute weakest hands were shaken out in the $300-350 range. Trust me, I was very, very critical on the price action on this book for a number of years and only until it got to the mid 300s and below you'll see I started to change my tune. You guys over analyze everything, I'm sure some of you have spread sheets of prices and charts of "Data" on what books have been sold for, what hasn't been sold ect... I saw the book selling "ie : Nice green letters with the numbers ranging from $300-$400 for 9.8's on ebay. I was being general, like I usually am but people on here like to correct everyone and pull up spreadsheets to prove to everyone that they're right and the guy being "in the ballpark" is wrong. People wonder why I say the stuff I do. This is Why!! I was defending your point, you person_too_unaware_of_social_graces.

If that does happen, and I believe it's very possible, don't you think these book settle in at a value higher than they were pre-hype? Its possible if they bring in a new fan base to support the books longer. Its currently not a dead universe so they are gather some new fans with the new books too. Early high grade keys have always held a decent value as some boardies on here will tell you as well. Don't forget that this book is a FRACTION in print-run size compared to other Marvel/DC keys.

Patently false. The week before the announcement 4-5 copies CGC 9.8 copies sat unsold at ~$325 Buy-It-Nows on eBay & at least one retailer site, while the CGC 9.6s sat unsold at $100 Buy-It-Nows but sold for about $78 at true auction (with the occasional $100 true auction for 9.6). There's a world of difference between "sold for $300-$400 in 9.8" and "sat for months unsold at $325 BIN asking price in 9.8" Before the announcement the book had steadily trended downward over a period of several years from the 2500 high. There's a 65 page thread on the discussion and analysis of Harbinger 1 in CGC 9.8, and for Kevin to say the book was 'expensive' in the $300-400 range is taking this book at severely depressed levels. There is extensive buyer history support at this book at the 1k level and 500$. Only the absolute weakest hands were shaken out in the $300-350 range. Trust me, I was very, very critical on the price action on this book for a number of years and only until it got to the mid 300s and below you'll see I started to change my tune.

How should this one be labeled? It's not a Canadian edition. Just the regular newsstand version. US newsstand is 60 cents Just a mislabelled Canadian Price Variant. Wow, with those color breaking spine ticks ( at least 3 )I have more faith that I've submitted a lot more 9.8 candidates then I thought with all my books at CGC. Seriously. I didn't even take a look at that book until I pulled it up up close through photobucket. Wow, have CGC's 9.8 standards fallen that far? It seems in the old days that would be a 9.4 at best.

How many marvel 95 centers? I think I'm around 100 or so, but would have to check... There are plenty to go from there for 95 cent variants. Drop me a line with a want list for any titles you are chasing. I picked up a couple or so long boxes recently. Well I can find them locally in the 50cents-$1 range, so I don't know if you're willing to sell in that area, haha.

How many marvel 95 centers? I think I'm around 100 or so, but would have to check...

I dunno...it's pretty weak evidence, and there are many significant factors that would have affected the numbers, not least of which was the Direct market itself. I wouldn't be comfortable pulling 1/10th out of seeming thin air, starting point or no. There seems to be no reasonable foundation to start there. I'll have to do some research on this. For record purposes, Direct versions did NOT include the Canadian price for DC or Marvel until Dec, 1983 (DC) and Oct, 1982 (Marvel.), quite some time after the Direct versions themselves went company-wide. Did Archie have Direct market copies in the early 80's? I think the 10% number for the beginning is probably right, with it falling off towards the end - just anecdotally from several years of buying Canadian newstand variants, 75 centers are MUCH easier to find than 95 centers, both Marvel and DC. Some of the 95 cent Marvels are very tough - Thor 370, for example, is really hard. I don't have any hard numbers, but its just from the ten long boxes of Canadians I've bought over the past 10 years. Are you interested in buying Can. Price Variants? I have an absolute mess ton of them...

As GeekareMyPeeps said, no. Only the ones he listed are hard to find and carry a premium. There are some newsstand editions that carries a small premium. Magnus #64 comes to mind. I remembered I came across a small batch of them and they sold for higher than the direct editions. I think a lot of them have some premium, in other words a common book that might only sell for 50 cents to a buck would now sell for 3-5. Same could be same for Image newsstand books. I wouldn't say either are really that rare, or valuable, but carry a slight premium because they are actually rarer.

You don't want to know how many copies of Shadowman #8 I have. I hope that book takes off. It'll make up for me giving away my New Mutants #98s for so little. A few months back I helped a friend go over his purchased of 19k independents (huge waste of my time, but I had some fun in doing it). Anyway, there had to be at least 30 Shadowman 8s in there. I told him these books are 'worthless', but they have value to Valiant collectors. He told me to take a bunch, I told him I already have some but convinced me to grab 5 or 7 copies, .