factory sealed

Here is mine. Still have it. The toploader, far away angle and lighting make the condition look allot nicer but I have always been OCD with my comics, toys, LPs and video games as far back as I can remember. I could have a two hour podcast on the significance of this comic. Regardless of what your particular collecting goals are, I really think us older folks are truly lucky. When you experienced something in real-time say 60s, 70s or 80s as a kid and now you have the means and ability to chase these collectible artifacts down again in the present day; this is truly next level emotional experience. There is also nothing better than walking through a vintage comic/toy show and finding something that you weren't even looking for because you completely forgot it about back in the day and a flood of forgotten memories comes rushing back. The power of nostalgia is really incredible because you can relive those lost moments in time once again.

You don't say?! Uncanny as this is how I usually start my mornings. (Just scored two more bottles of Blantons )

I believe this is an all-time high. Seems as if it was yesterday when I bought this same slabbed grade for $1300

Agreed. I do find tremendous value in 9.6 slabs specifically from 80s and 90s genre as they can be had for a pittance especially if you can get them in bulk. I have a ton of Supes 9.6 slabs that I got on the cheap purchasing in a couple of large lots. Anything I have in BA is mostly NM raw; anything SA or older mid grade raw.

That looks absolutely splendid. I had to cut myself off as it's only Tuesday I actually just recommended Woodford in a Water Cooler thread last week. Really really great. I have this vanilla bean that I"ll add a smidge of along with a pinch of cinnamon and hands down will beat any Old Fashioned. I'll have to PM you as I recall you have a super stacked bar

Big market for concerts and movie stubs. Not long ago I sold a pair of Zeppelin and Beatles stubs for $1000. I still have KISS, an entire case of other concerts and pretty much any movie you can think of from the late 70s and 80s. I was offered stupid money for my original SW IV, V and VI stubs but keeping those for sure.

That's a great point. I think I got on eBay in 2003. I was loaded to the gills with non-sports trading cards. I had pallets of sealed boxes of Marvel series 1,2,3 and X-Men, tins and more. I just didn't have the space or the patience. So I basically sold all of this within a span of a few years. And now two decades later, the multiples of which these are selling is just mind boggling. You're talking 50X returns on some of these sealed boxes. I think 10 years ago I dumped a bunch of sealed 70s SW wax pack boxes and these were recently fetching four figures. It's just absolutely flabbergasting. Pivoting to sports cards; think it was 2005ish I sold a rookie Wayne Gretzky rookie solid C9, perfect centering for $800. That card now will fetch $20K all day long. I don't even think IH 181 has anywhere near that kind of multiple.

Shoes is a different galaxy all together. I think ultimately the genesis of what drives all of this is nostalgia. I didn't really think about it until your comment but I vividly remember in very late 80s going to store and seeing Air Jordans. That red and black combo was killer. You could argue this is no different than one of my core memories of having a great pizza dinner and hitting a department store only to miraculously find a battle armor He-Man still left on the peg that was put out in the afternoon. I kept that sealed for weeks. It was awesome. I think we are all connected in this matter. When I lived in Battery Park and trade prop, we had this one guy who just printed money. It was insane. His shoe collection was just ridiculous. He had practically an entire room dedicated to his pure obsession. I can relate to this.

When I realized you posted that in 48 threads, I thought your account was cracked. Hope you are OK.

Good stuff!

How did your summer wind down? I finally cracked open a bottle of Blanton's gold. Very tasty. Having some dark golden rum right now as I type

Indeed. What I find really interesting is that current prices today are not correlating to the recent down trend we've seen in comics vs. mani peak say last two years. For instance an ASM 300 CGC 9.8 was fetching $6500 at the peak but now a bunch recently have been getting $3900. These T-shirts are completely on a different planet and from what I'm hearing from some folks is the market for mint new tagged is completely next level.

If memory serves, even in real-time those concert t-shirts were not cheap. For a reference point, I think for the price of one t-shirt, you could get four MOTU 8 backs or a G1 Optimus Prime.

Move over VHS slabs. Anyone following this latest craze? Imagine what this merch would sell for new mint with tags. (FYI the Wolverine etc. and Venom etc. shirts sold for at least $1900 each as those best offers accepted were still populating well over the vintage IM BIN shirt in the sold search results)

His first appearance is now 84 years old. Incredible. Arguably the GOAT.

Might have been 2009ish on CL but in the span of two auctions/2 months, there were two ASM 300 9.9s that sold between $3K-3.5K. I was a sissy on my bids and knew one day I would regret it.

Exactly. Put this in some mylar as it presents very well from the front. No need to dump a fortune into these keys. Allocate those funds into other book pursuits.

That perfect page alignment is very significant especially with thicker books from SA/BA eras. And the 5.5 has white pages. There is a legit pool of bidders who will pass on anything less than this. Lastly in this price range on CL, I believe the bid increments are now $50 for a single bid.

2nd pic is commemorative.

For MOTU collectors, would you concur that the commemorative series now 20ish years old is the closest retro we will get to the original 80 eight backs? I finally was able to get to a WaMart the other day to check out the retro $18 figures but seem to recall the commemorative were the closest we will get as I don't have a small fortune laying around to dump into a NM slabbed 8 back Skeletor

I really appreciate how your interests go way beyond comics. I have a massive amount of calendars from the 70s and 80s. This is probably my prize single possession sealed new in shrink wrap in addition tpothe one I had in real-time as a kid that is absolutely hammered. Do you collect any of the sealed LP/record storybooks from this era? Good times.

That is epic. I actually did a similar tactic a couple times as well in a grocery store and department store but completely forgot until you mentioned this

I vividly remember in elementary school the painful countdown to 3PM dismissal. We would just stare and watch that clock. Time seemed to stand still. Waiting and waiting as we could not wait to get home and get our hands on toys or ride our bikes to 7-11 and see if the newest comics had been pushed out to the rack. It seemed this would take forever and never ever end. Or maybe it was a song on the radio you absolutely adored that was on heavy rotation played on an hourly basis that you thought would never go away. I remember distinctly my daily adventures with Atari 2600 and the hot sunny day when I ended Yars Revenge and the screen went totally blank with a message that I can't recall. I ran to tell everyone upstairs. But as fun as that was or playing with our Star Wars, Transformers, MOTU or other toy collections etc. and reading comics that eventually at some point, somehow everything ended and wound up in boxes and sold by our moms or who knows what. And now these moments are lost in time forever and are long gone. Yes I have been drinking bourbon heavily this afternoon and in yet another worm hole reflective space. If you remember that last time you experienced something collectively cool, please share. Ironically not much has changed because for most of us; I just bought some slabs online. The package arrived and I inspected them and placed the slabs in a box that go into a closet which who knows when I'll actually look at them again; we have come full circle and just hope that the wife doesn't find them

Those medallions rule. I have a box of those Supes Bday ones buried somewhere.