F For Fake

Ok, ok, there is ONE wrong way to collect.

Ditko Spideys are cool in any condition. And it's very true, there are collectors at every level. I love low grade silver Marvels. I'd rather have a box full of beaters instead of one or two crazy expensive books. I know a lot of people feel the opposite. There's no wrong way to collect.

Now THAT's a cover!

Hoping to make it up to Gem City in a couple of weeks. Had a great buying time a couple of years ago. Very fun show.

I am right there with you. The process of grading should be the same regardless of the age of the age and value of the book. Just seems like a way to gouge people who have money to buy and submit nicer stuff. (I am not one of those people, at least not very often.)

SWEEEEEEEET.

For me, Barks is the most egregious omission. I would also argue for Walt Kelly.

Wow. 1. So glad they are recovered 2. Thieves suck 3. These thieves must be insufficiently_thoughtful_persons to think that such high profile books wouldn't be easily identified. Can the FB post be shared here? Would love to hear the story.

Thanks bud, I dig it!

Not sure if there are any other Duck fans out there, but if there are, get ye to Target right now! I'm a huge fan of the Barks and Rosa Duck books. I haven't kept up with the new Ducktales series, but I'd seen the figures. Not a huge fan of the character designs for Huey, Dewey and Louie, but I always thought the Scrooge was nice (they gave him back his red coat!) So, I stopped in Target last night to pick up a printer cartridge, and decided to swing by the toy aisle, where I found the Ducktales toys on clearance. For $4.50, I had to have the Scrooge! And that's when I saw it: Uncle Scrooge's money bin! I had no idea this existed. I've been wanting a money bin toy my entire life! For $12.50, I couldn't get it in my cart quickly enough! I love it. The outside has the exaggerated forced perspective look from the comics. The vault dial turns and opens up the doors. There's even a display for his #1 dime! Man, I can't get over how awesome this is, and cheap! Scrooge even comes with the idol! Too cool.

Thanks! It's true, this is the sort of collection I enjoy; low stakes but nice books, enough to make it worthwhile, but not overwhelming. I finally got everything inside tonight and had a chance to go through them. I'm happy. The copper stuff is mostly VF or better, and the newer stuff is uniformly NM or better. The little stack pictured here should pay for the lot, and that still leaves me 1100+ books to work with, including those nice runs of Wolvie and Punisher, plus random stuff like a complete set of the Spider-Man Back in Black story, some sharp Spider-Man Essentials, not to mention to unopened packs of bags and boards. The unstamped FCBD Umbrella Academy was a very nice bonus!

Certainly no disrespect intended on my end, just letting you know that while some of the most knowledgeable collectors in the world have frequented these boards, they/we aren't always the most helpful bunch, especially if there's an opportunity to make a dumb joke. Good luck with your grading!

I will always upvote a Zippy reference.

Have to agree. I watched the Ultimate Cut, thought it was a terrible slog. Snyder's vision for the characters was just wrongheaded from the jump. Hated Man of Steel too. WW was the lone bright spot in Dawn of Justice because she was the only thing that was actually FUN about the movie.

Scorsese and DeNiro's involvement is probably biasing my perception, but definitely getting a King of Comedy vibe with a little Taxi Driver thrown in. I see no reason for this movie to exist, but since it does, I'm glad it at least looks different. I'm looking forward to it.

And I can imagine that it's only a matter of time until FB starts charging to use Marketplace as well.

Whoooo boy. Run away, friend, while you still can!

I never would have thought I'd be a local pick-up kind of person, but I'm now totally used to meeting strange men in parking lots. Waitaminnit, that didn't come out right...

None of them are especially rare, but I'd say that the 500 2nd is definitely uncommon. I've got multiples of all of the 2nd and 3rd printings from that run, but I think I only have one or two copies of the 500 2nd.

This is absolutely my recollection. Spider-Man was hot because of McFarlane, and everyone wanted a 298. I picked up a 298 at a country grocery store, ended up trading it to a buddy for his 300, because that seemed like the more interesting book to me. I was in middle school, so that would have been around 89 or 90?

The JSC were the first widescreen home media release of the films, and are taken from the original prints with the original color timing. The version on the DVD is the digital transfer made in the 90's, which was struck from an interpositive and is rife with edge enhancement and DNR. Can we now get back to the antics of this sock puppet account?

Absolutely. BIN w/ Best Offer is the only way to make sure you don't lose your shirt. There are exceptions. If I'm listing a large lot of items that are all related, auctions can do well. Like I recently listed about 90 or so G1 Transformers toys as auctions. Started them at $4.99 each and let them roll, and was very happy with the results. A large collection coming out can create some excitement and activity on its own. But random 99 cent auctions here and there are a recipe for losing money. I know I've mentioned it in the FB thread a couple of times, but I seem to be doing most of my buying and selling locally through FB marketplace these days. I never would have thought that would be the case, but here we are.

If we could have the Star Wars movies without the Star Wars fans, life would be a lot more fun.

She's great in LiT and Ghost World. I also thought she was terrific in Woody Allen's Match Point, and Under the Skin. I think she's a solid actress and a charming screen presence. They just haven't really given her much of anything to do in the MCU. If she's one-note, it's because that's how she's written. If you'd removed the character from Infinity War entirely, would anyone have noticed? Looking forward to the BW solo film. Lucy and Ghost in the Shell have proven she can anchor sci-fi action flicks. I'm 100% onboard.

Ran out on my lunch break to pick up a collection from a FB deal. Nothing fancy, 7 short boxes of mostly modern stuff. But I was into it because: 1. Everything is bagged and boarded and sorted 2. Nice big runs of titles. I just got back to the office so I haven't been able to do a deep dive yet, but everything appears to be in terrific shape. Everything I've seen so far looks like it was bought new and bagged right away. Of course, who knows what is hiding in the bags, but first glance is promising. In fact, the newer books (runs of the first 20 issues of all of the Batman 52 titles) still have the TFAW mailorder stickers on the bag flap, and don't appear to have ever been opened at all. He said he'd been getting mail-order for a while and hadn't even looked at the books. Like I said, nothing to really blow your skirt up, but I'll do well with what I paid. Includes unbroken runs of Uncanny 229-300 and change (including a nice copies of 266 and 244 all of the Jim Lee stuff), X-Factor 1-90 something (including 5, 6, 24, etc), X-Men 1-200+ (including the entire Lee/Claremont and Morrison runs), the aforementioned Batman runs (super nice Court of Owls run, which is itself a $100 or so chunk these days), Wolverine (1st ongoing) 1-50+, Punisher (1st ongoing) 1-50+, etc. About 1200 books in all. Lots of random stuff, including a box of about 300 unbagged Image books he threw in. The boxes look brand new, and he even threw in the remains of a flat box of unassembled brand new short boxes, and a big stack of bags and boards. I'll throw up some scans of the nicer books once I'm in for the night. Fun!