F For Fake

I definitely wouldn't be buying at market prices these days, but it's fun to buy them locally for 5 to 10 cents a card and then sell them right away. Craigslist has been helpful! Ordinarily I'd say this is a perfect example of a situation where you can make good money on drek and then put that back into something like silver and bronze key books; but, the comic market these days is similarly nuts, so I'm just taking the money from this worthless junk and putting it back into other, different, worthless junk. I never claimed to be a savvy investor. The upside is that I finally got the Wolverine and Spidey/Goblin cards I needed to complete my personal keeper set, on the cheap! And while all comments regarding the insanity/stupidity of investing in these things are no doubt true, the fact is that I still love em. I was 13 when they came out, so this is squarely in the center of my nostalgia zone. Wouldn't want to put real money into them, but I'm glad I have mine.

Prices are still insane, but it looks like the real feeding frenzy was last weekend. We're only a couple of weeks into this explosion, maybe we're over that initial burst? I don't see prices decreasing much so far, but they're not skyrocketing much beyond that first crazy bump, at this point. My two cents is that if you don't have a personal attachment to them, let 'em fly. But if you think you'd miss them, might as well hold on a bit longer and see where it goes. It's interesting, because common sense tells us that there are literally millions of these cards in existence, so population numbers are going to explode, and therefore, prices should be driven down. However, look at the census numbers on comics like ASM 300, Nm98, and other "common" books. More copies are added to an already overstuffed population every single day, and the prices keep going up. Now, it's not really fair to draw a direct comparison between the comics and the cards, when the comics exist in the hundreds of thousands, and the cards in the millions. BUT, it seems to give credence to the idea that there is hungry market for particular characters, books, cards, etc that will keep driving prices up regardless of how many copies show up, just because they love them. "First Deadpool card" or "First Wolverine" card may not seem like a big deal to most of us, but it's the sort of thing that may have some wow factor for folks showing stuff off to their friends, and casual collectors as well.

Since I've been using it (January 1) there have been two instances where the payouts "failed". At first I thought it was a problem on my end, and I called my bank and they made it clear that the problem wasn't on their end. Looked online, and Twitter was blowing up about the failed payments, as they apparently happened to everyone. It's happened twice now. In both cases, they got it cleaned up and the payouts went out later in the day. Not sure if this is related to your issue, but yeah, it's still not a perfectly smooth process. (And nothing is perfect or smooth about having to wait several days for them to get your money to you, the jerks.)

I remember being so excited when Bowen released those Daredevil statues, the yellow and red. I had to save up, because they cost a whopping $150! Can you imagine? That seemed crazy to me 20 years ago, but now statues in that scale are easily $200-$300, and the premium format lines are $600-$1k. I wish I still had the Bowen stuff. As fancy as the statues are these days, it's hard to beat those simple, classic sculpts.

And that makes sense to me. But surely at this point it's just a matter of time, right? If you're already a comic grading company, who owns a card grading company, and you see what this stuff is doing in the market, surely they're at work on hiring/training more staff, right? C'mon CGC! I don't follow gaming cards at all. Does anyone know how CGC graded Pokemo/Magic etc have fared in the secondary market vs the more established card grading companies?

As an Alien collector, I have a couple of loose/complete sets of the Alien series, but it would have never occurred to me to have them graded. I really don't know much about grading for cards, but is there a lot of competition for this series. I've seen a few graded examples on eBay, but wasn't sure what prices should look like.

Back when I started this little trading card odyssey in the fall, I filled up my eBay cart with boxes of stuff I thought I'd get around. It was crazy, sealed boxes of all sorts of DC series, Vertigo, etc for $15-20 a box. Tons of them available. Checking my cart now, nearly all of that stuff is sold, and the few that are remaining are now asking $100+ per box. I reaaaaaaaally should have jumped when I had the idea. The thing about the "rookie card" is that in a lot of instances, the 1990 Marvel set really ISN'T the "rookie card" for the character. I thought it would be a good idea to get some of these "rookies", and the earliest Wolverine card I could find was from a Comic Images set, years before Impel 1990. And most of the classic Marvel characters were released on sticker cards in the 70's. I'm sure there are a few true first appearance/rookies in Marvel 1990, but not nearly as many as people are being lead to believe.

I must have missed that announcement, but it makes sense to me. If you're already in the grading business, why wouldn't you grade everything?

Gave me a scare, thought I'd already missed what if volume 1! Looks like it hits in March. Those will be definite pick-ups for me. Those are two great volumes for a cold winter weekend! Morrison's X-Men was such a breath of fresh air, and did such interesting things with the concept. Hickman's high concept X-Men stands on Morrison's shoulders. And Tomb of Dracula, that sweet bronze horror, nuff said!

Wow, that's a lot of cool stuff across ages and genres. Love to see a good mix like that!

Whoo boy, this is going to end well. Happy Friday, all!

As of right now, CGC is only grading gaming cards like Magic and Pokemon. However, given that they have the comic grading service, and the current explosion in interest in comic trading cards, surely it's only a matter of time before they start grading Marvel cards as well. They're leaving a lot of money on the table, if they don't.

Ha, it is a bit disconcerting in the toy aisles these days, but also cool. I didn't realize that the Headmasters were up next on the reissue block, that's pretty awesome. Hardhead was the first Headmaster I had, always loved that one. We may need that Ghost popper as well.

For real! Back in the late 90's I used to buy dealer overstock lots on ebay. I got a set of Vision and Scarlet Witch, like 5 or 6 copies of each issue, I think I paid about 30 cents each for them. This was the very definition of dreck for a looooong time.

Yeah, good idea to not be left holding the hot potato, so I wouldn't be buying right now. But I'm assuming a lot of us already have these cards in our possession, so seeing as how we're essentially playing with house money, it may be worth hanging on for a few more days. I may just keep my set because I like them, and while this market definitely can't sustain itself, I also doubt I'll ever be able to get a complete set for $25 again.

Great looking set up! Not sure if it's complete, but this checklist at Transformerland may give you a head start. I've used them a lot in the past for IDing parts for Transformers. As for value, nothing here, but I'd recommend using this list to find the ones you're interested in, and do a search on ebay for completed listings. That's usually the best way to gauge general value these days. Good luck! https://www.transformerland.com/wiki/battle-beasts/battle-beasts/

I saw this coming a while back, and wish I'd followed my conviction with my cash, and bought in. Last summer I found a box of Marvel Universe series 1-4 sets in my basement. I'd had them since I was a kid. They were taking up space, so I sold them to the local comic shop for pennies on the dollar. Then, in the fall, I went to a garage sale, and bought a sealed box of X-Men 1991 Impel trading cards for $10, along with a couple of chase cards. I was stoked about the X-Men box, because they were selling for about $75-$80 at the time, so it was a good buy. I even toyed with the idea of opening it up, just because opening boxes of cards is fun! But I decided to hold off, and let it sit on a shelf. I wasn't sure if I wanted to sell, or keep it for my X-Men collection. All of this rekindled a spark of interest in Marvel card collecting, all of those hours spend opening packs and sorting sets. I'd really loved it as a kid. Suddenly I found myself researching prices on Marvel cards. And I realized that at some point, given the current market for sports cards and comics, it was inevitable that Marvel cards were going to take off. I set up eBay searches for PSA 10 Wolverine, etc. I tracked prices. I decided that yeah, I was going to get into this while the getting was good, because there was a future here! And...I just never got around to it. It seemed like a good idea, and the prices hadn't started moving, but there was other stuff that I liked better, like comics and toys. Cards were cool, but they were pretty far down the list in comparison, so I just never got around to following up on my BRILLIANT IDEA! Fast forward to last Sunday, I'm browsing Twitter, and a guy I follow posts pics of completed auctions for Marvel Universe Series 1 sets, selling for $250-$300! I jumped up and drove to my local shop, because I realized that just the week previous, I'd seen that very same set of Marvel Universe series 1 trading cards I'd sold them, sitting in a box, unsold, unloved. So I ran to the shop, and bought my childhood set back for $25! And now that i have them, while I'm tempted to toss them back on eBay and grab $300 for them, I'm remembering how much I loved them, and realizing it's pretty good luck that I was able to get my personal set back. So, I haven't sold them...yet. But that night I DID sell that sealed box of X-Men cards for about $440 The current prices are insanity. A year or so ago you could get a sealed box of Marvel Universe 1990 for about $150. Now asking price is $2k+. Cards that sold for pennies are now $20-$50 "rookie". It seems crazy, but I think it may just be the beginning. I wouldn't buy at the current prices, but I'm not sure I'd sell yet either. May be able to squeeze a few more weeks (or more) of growth out of it before it crashes. Regardless, the cat is out of the bag. This market most likely can't last, but i doubt it'll completely bottom out. Tl,dr: if you have a gut feeling about something getting ready to explode, follow through. Don't be a dummy like me!

"Gamera is really neat He is filled with turtle meat"

Sure, most of this stuff ages poorly. I'm 44, so I grew up with the copper age, and revisiting that stuff as an adult is a similarly eye-opening. For instance, as a kid I thought Claremont's X-Men was the be all end all. Looking at it now, it's very much over-written, melodramatic soap opera. Still love the stories, the characters, but the act of sitting and reading it, it can sometimes be tough to get through. So, yes, absolutely there's the bias of age. But even as a kid in the 80's, the Silver Age Marvel stuff was pretty hokey to me. That being said, I still love it, for the imagination, for the raw impact of the visuals ,and for the sake of history. But I'm not hanging on Reed Richards' every last word like I would have as a kid.

Perhaps at the time Lee's scripting dazzled in comparison to the dull stuff at DC, but reading them today, they're just as stilted and comical as anything else from the period. I think Silver Surfer still holds up well from a scripting standpoint, as well as Thor, which was seemingly tailor-made for Stan's overwrought, florid speech. But for the most part, Silver Age Marvel stands out, to me, due to the big ideas, the imagination, and visceral impact. And to that end, I give Kirby, Ditko and co the lion's share of the credit. But this really is just personal preference we're talking about at this point. To be serious for a moment, I really DO think Lee played a big part in all if it, and it really was a collaborative effort that made it all work. But my personal distaste for Stan's glory-hogging leads me to button-push in threads like these, hence the

We've been through this many times. Lee and Kirby = FF, Hulk, X-Men, etc Kirby without Lee = Fourth World, Demon, Kamandi, etc. Lee without Kirby = Uh....Ravage 2099? Stripperella? :cough:

Hey, you do what you gotta do!

This is the reason why I ultimately sold my copy of the Taschen DC comics book, it was so enormous, in came in a box with a handle! I couldn't find a spot for it, and it was literally sitting on the floor leaning up against the wall. Just didn't seem right, so I sold it. The Artist Editions from IDW (and similar books from other publishers) are similarly problematic. I have them laying flat on a table. But I don't mind the space usage, as I actually do pick them up and leaf through them from time to time.

Kirby.

We have a couple around here that are worth hitting up every once in a while. Stuff tends to either be wildly overpriced or wildly underpriced. But always worth a look.