F For Fake

No pun...it's just terrible.

Duh.

Hey, speak for yourself. I'm only 42, and don't look a day over 73.

Or, at the very least, do an alpha/numerical list by title, then download the Key Collector App, and then look up the individual titles. The app should tell you which issues are worth looking into. You can then check completed eBay auctions on those individual books. At the end of the day, there's no getting around just digging in and doing the research on the bulk of the stuff. In order to get maximum return, you have to put in maximum work. If you don't want to deal with the hassle of researching each book or title, then you have to take a lower price. That's just how it works out. Good luck!

This booked blew my mind when I was a kid. I'd never read anything like it. I haven't re-read it as an adult, but I will soon. I pick up the #1's anytime I find them cheap.

That's funny, I grabbed an ASM 509 myself today. High five @divad Picked up a few newsies in the dollar bin at HPB today. What's interesting to me are the price stickers on the back, which would indicate that they all came from the same collection. Anyone seen these particular price stickers before, or know what retailer they came from? They don't look like B&N or BAM to me, which are the usual suspects when I find newsstands around here. Some may balk at stickered books, but the stickers are on the back covers so they're not so obnoxious, and the books uncommon enough that I figured I couldn't go wrong for a buck.

LCS pick-up this AM. Not a book I was looking for, but I find them hard to turn down when they're priced right. In decent shape, around VF/VF+, newsstand.

You never know what's floating around out there. I figured that all of the 80's stuff had surely dried up by now, but the last couple of months have been a bonanza for me on Craigslist, estate sales, and Facebook. Joes, Transformers, Secret Wars, etc. That stuff is still out there, go get it!

Agreed, there are other fish in the sea. If the stuff is rotting, I'd pass.

Nice stuff as always! And yeah, i wouldn't leave Zartan behind if he has the thigh and chest armor, that stuff is always missing and makes for good trade bait if you don't need it yourself.

I paid $175 for my first one, which was a lot at the time, I was 19 or 20 and working at a comic shop, so I didn't have a lot of cash. Had to put it on layaway. Loved that book. Got it slabbed a few years later and sold it. A few years ago I bought a beater for around $150, but was never happy with it. I also paid up for this copy, but luckily got it before the run up in price of the last year or so.

Picked these up at a Peddler's Mall last summer for less than cover price. Picked up several, but these were the ones I liked best.

FWIW, none of my local shops deal in slabs. If one comes in with a buy, they'll pick it up, but they don't charge a premium for slabs, and they don't slab their own books. Graded books are still a niche within a niche hobby, and the vast majority of comic readers don't care a thing about them. So my experience is biased.

I've subbed a few books over the years (nothing on par with what a lot of boardies sub) and have only gotten a single 9.9, and this was 10 years or so ago. I think that a book is either a 9.9/10 candidate in its natural state, or it isn't. I don't know that you can press a 9.8 into a 9.9. Could be wrong though!

When I got back into Joes, I was surprised by how much a complete, mint Outback sells for compared to the other figures in that wave. But it makes sense, the flashlight is fragile and tiny, and it's also difficult to find his machine gun with an unbroken strap. I've sold the gun itself for $10-$15 before.

Batman and Spidey are blue chip characters, for sure, and there will probably always be someone out there putting a run together. But for the most part, run books (i.e. non-keys) are dead in the water these days, unless they're priced pretty low. Mid-grade commons are tough sales unless priced well below guide. Keys will sell in any condition at any time when priced correctly. The thing about LCS vs ebay or cons is that an actual brick and mortar shop has a lot more overhead to deal with. Rent, utilities, employees, etc. I've always considered an offer of 50% FMV from a LCS to be standard and even fair. They have a lot to contend with, and selling books on a razor thin margin isn't going to keep a shop open. They have to constantly turn stock over. So, if someone needs cash fast, selling to a LCS at 50% will get money in your pocket right away, and seems fair to me, as long as you know the score. You know what you're getting into when you offer a book to a shop. If you want to maximize your profit, you have to sell the book directly, via eBay or what have you. You'll get the largest percentage of the money, but it may take longer to sell for the price you want. You just have to weigh the fast cash and relative ease of selling to a shop vs maximizing your profit but investing much more time and effort if you sell it yourself. I sell my "good" books myself, via eBay, FB, here, and sometimes Comiclink. Common run books that I just don't want to deal with, I drop at my LCS. I sell a lot of books that are "valued" at $5-$10 for next to nothing, but it gets the stuff out of my house and gets me store credit or cash, and that's worth it to me in those instances. Get five boxes of dead stock out of my basement, put a few bucks in my wallet, now selling the books is THEIR problem.

Absolutely. The vast majority of comics printed throughout history aren't worth the paper they were printed on.

+1000 9.9's and 10's are like hitting the lottery. Shoot for 9.8's and if you score higher, congrats, the grader was in a particularly good mood that day!

yeah, I hated to give up my first copy, which I bought when I worked at a comic shop 20+ years ago, and was my prized possession. Graded at a 7.5, but sold it during a stretch where I didn't have much choice. Bought a beater copy later, but sold it as it wasn't as pretty as I liked. Got a pretty good deal on this one a couple of years ago, just got around to slabbing it this summer. I think it's my keeper unless I find a nicer one at a bargain, or I decide there's something else I want more (which is always a possibility with me. I have wandering eyes from time to time.)

In theory, yes, but I have also had the experience of giving an unpaid item strike to a bad buyer, only to have them turn around and win several more auctions with a different account. The truth is, there's not whole lot that can be done to stop bad buyers who are motivated to keep wasting our time.

Man, you gotta love that deep, deep green. Congrats!

Here's mine, before and after slabbing. This is my third copy over the years, maybe I'll hang onto it this time!

Most of the individual era forums (Bronze, Copper, Modern) have a "....heating up" thread, like "Moderns Heating up on ebay", "Coppers Heating up on eBay", etc that can give you an idea of the flavor of the minute.