F For Fake

Can't compete with the beautiful books in the thread, but I picked up a couple that I was happy with this weekend. I'd gone to an auction about an hour away, out in the "boonies", which promised a large original owner collection of bronze books, mostly horror. Arrived to find they were all water-damaged. Thought the night was a complete loss, then I saw on Facebook that my LCS had just gotten in a new collection. It was mostly mid-grade Silver with runs of Fantastic Four, Green Lantern, and X-Men taking up most of the space. Nothing mindblowing, but I thought the colors were nice, and I find it hard to resist these covers!

My LCS just got in a small original owner SA collection, mostly FF's, GL's and X-Men. Structurally they're mostly mid grade, right in the VG/F area, but I thought the colors were nice for the most part. So I picked up a few. Can't resist those covers!

Jessica Cruz cameo. Only buy at cover. If you can find the B&W variant, BUY IT CHEAP. Yeah, I think at cover it's a strong buy. There appear to be several BIN's hit above $20. At $8 a pop, I figure it's worth taking the chance if they're really nice copies.

Someone understands humor..... I lol'ed at the first line too. If I wasn't at work I might've tried to find a dried up fish pic or something. And just for the record it sold out at my LCS also. I take it back. I definitely realized what I was typing, and I am a very funny person. Thank you for appreciating my genius!

I wish I could claim that I realized what I was typing, but I'm an insufficiently_thoughtful_person.

Aquaman 50 has dried up locally (first Mera as Aquawoman). Still a few copies on eBay at cover price tho', so it at be a nonstarter. Cover is pretty, so I picked up the one copy I could find. Also picked up two copies each of GL20, JL 30 & 31 at cover price. Could only locate the variant of JL 42, though.

Beautiful! I just love how colorful the DC silver books are. The logos, the backgrounds, they all contrast so nicely.

Beautiful! One of my all time favorite covers. You just can't beat a yellow picture frame, the colors just POP. Great book!

Great story, so glad you had the foresight to hang onto it!

Snyder is a talented visual stylist, but has no idea when it comes to story. I thought "Man of Steel" was abysmal, particularly in its treatment of Superman. I just don't dig his take on the character or universe at all. DC superhero movies seem so joyless. I'll be seeing this on Saturday, but my expectations are even lower now than they were before the reviews hit. And I am a firm believer that "popcorn" movies can be well made. Populist doesn't have to = thoughtless.

You'll have to remove the bag, or give CGC permission to remove it for you. If you decide to go the grading route, I'd definitely remove it first and check the book out before submitting, to be sure it's worth doing. Those bags hide flaws that you might not notice. Didn't think about that, good point. Thanks. Good luck!

1,440 is low for a Marvel or DC comic, but not unheard of for an independent. I bet if you look around on Kickstarter there are plenty of self published comics that are 1,000 or less. Also, just because it's a low print, it doesn't mean there is associated value. There are other factors you have to consider as well. Precisely so. There may only be 1440 copies, but if only 500 people want them, then they're not going to be worth much. The demand part of "supply and demand" is the key.

You'll have to remove the bag, or give CGC permission to remove it for you. If you decide to go the grading route, I'd definitely remove it first and check the book out before submitting, to be sure it's worth doing. Those bags hide flaws that you might not notice.

There's an entire run of Punisher magazines, not to mention the Marvel Previews and the various graphic novels out there. Most were OK. Yeah, but if I remember correctly, those Punisher mags just reprinted comic stories. The 70s/early 80s Hulk and Moon Knight mags contained original stories I'm fairly certain Marvel Preview #2 and Marvel Super Action #1 are original stories...97% sure. But they didn't do Punny like they did Moony, for sure. The Punisher mag they did starting in the late 80's was just reprints. Still, the run was kinda cool. Mags were out of favor by then. Punny...Moony? Had the same reaction.

Gwenom? That's it, I quit.

At 14, that's crazy Agreed, it looks great, and you definitely had great taste for that age as well!

That cerebus 2 though Yeah, I was pretty happy with that one! It's only around Fine, but you don't see it every day, for sure. He also had 3-7 or so, but the 3 was a lot pricier. May swing by and see if he has it next month. I love those oversized early issues!

Some personal favorites from a Saturday morning spent at an auction and flea market.

A friend tipped me off to a personal property auction going down yesterday. Mostly tools, cars and military stuff, but there was a smattering of comics. Highlight was. Sgt Fury 1, around 2.0. I was good up to $150, but dropped out thereafter. It closed at $275 I believe. The rest of the books went in lots. Nothing mind blowing, but I was happy to pick these up at a good price. Also picked up an assortment of mostly westerns, which I really just wanted for the Kirby Kid Colts. Also picked up this Mickey Mouse tea cup and saucer from the 30's, because, hey, why not? After the auction, I headed out to the flea market. Picked up an assortment of things (didn't pay the sticker prices, obviously) And a few random dollar box pickups. And some Muggs! So, nothing mindblowing, but still a fun way to spend a Saturday morning.

The existence of the five below books disproves your notion of how Marvel accounts for and prints incentive variants. Your numbers mean absolutely nothing. Your estimates mean absolutely nothing. You have no idea how Marvel determines its final print numbers, nobody here does. Finding a VALUED incentive variant in the packs being an exception is not the point. The fact that they contained high ratio incentive variants AT ALL is the point. Today that ignored incentive variant could be 10 bucks, tomorrow it could 200 bucks. Even if all of the packs being sold by five below only contain dozens of copies of 1:50 and 1:75 variants then that isn't an infinitesimal amount of copies. Dozens of copies of a "rare" incentive variant is not insignificant. How would those Venom variants be doing on eBay right now if there were dozens of listings instead of only a handful? You don't need palettes of these books sitting in warehouse somewhere waiting to be discovered to devalue these books. This is absolutely true, and the Five Below/ASM Silk books were a good example of this effect. Before those stashes were found at Five Below, I think the book was an easy $50 sale (or close to it, right?) After the find, I know my first couple sold for about $40, but the last one just barely cleared $20. There was a flood. Not sure if it has rebounded since then. I kept one really sharp copy for my PC.

I want know where all the convergence covers went to die. Sooooo sooooo many extras everywhere. are they sent to poor African kids like Super Bowl loser gear? Convergence early issues were returnable, and everyone loved the Hughes #0, so that's only one issue that sold well (because of the variant). I only see Marvel variants. I did good last year. I know the Ramos ASM 4 was talked about the most but I did fnd two Elektra 1:75 variants. Some Captain Marvel 1:50 2014 Same here, bought a ton of the Five Below packs and they were stuffed with Marvel Now variants. Sold a ton of them. Yeah. Guess you're the lucky one. 99.99% of what comes out of those is the worthless, man-handled you would expect to get in a five below pack And yeah, the overprinted Ramos ASM 4 (first Silk) is the one semi-notable variant that everyone talks about coming out of those that goes for about $30 raw that is definitely a "win" if you just spent $5 for the pack. As a percentage of what's printed in just one year even, the junk that you might occasionally find in one five below pack is, once again, infinitesimal. -J. Well, I'm definitely not the only one, but I'll let the other boardies speak for themselves if they like. While it's true that most Five Below packs are garbage, there was a short window where they had tons of these really nice, sharp, Marvel Now packs. Some of them were almost completely worthless, but once you determined the pattern it was pretty easy to pick out the best packs. I made about $300-$400 off of an investment of about $60-$70. Not much money to the big dogs, but it was worth it to me. I think I ended up with five total of the Ramos ASM Silk variants that Hector mentioned, along with a couple of the Cassaday Captain Marvels, and a lot more. Of course there were a lot of books in the packs that weren't worth much, like Land of Oz Skottie Young variants (ended up with a boatload of those), Disney Legends of the Seekers (or whatever it was called), and some Original Sin books that wouldn't sell, but all in all the books were in terrific shape and the packs were almost entirely made up of variants. It was fun while it lasted (about two weeks before my local stores apparently ran through their stock.) I've stopped by since, but it's only been the usual drek since then. It was a fun little treasure hunt, and it made me wonder where the surplus of "rare" variants had materialized from.

Gratz! nice starter book. Only one problem with buyng these books on the cheap like that is they are such classics its likely to start an itch to upgrade! You're absolutely right! My AF15 is just a 1.5, but I can already feel the urge to go ahead and try to put together a low grade Ditko run. My wallet is telling me to resist, but since when do I listen to my wallet? (My wife on the other hand...)

Picked up this coverless ASM 2 this weekend. Otherwise complete. The price was right. Love that Ditko splash, probably more than the actual cover! Sorry for the wavy bag pic, haven't had a chance to dig out a Mylite yet.

I want know where all the convergence covers went to die. Sooooo sooooo many extras everywhere. are they sent to poor African kids like Super Bowl loser gear? Convergence early issues were returnable, and everyone loved the Hughes #0, so that's only one issue that sold well (because of the variant). I only see Marvel variants. I did good last year. I know the Ramos ASM 4 was talked about the most but I did fnd two Elektra 1:75 variants. Some Captain Marvel 1:50 2014 Same here, bought a ton of the Five Below packs and they were stuffed with Marvel Now variants. Sold a ton of them.