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Excited About My Latest CGC Shipment I received a CGC shipment today and I'm very happy with the grades. Also, I've been experimenting with the photo box, and by adding a front light to the box it seems to cut down on the glare, while producing pics that reflect the true colors of the comics. Here's what I got:

I would've loved this book but this week I'm spending all my money at Il Mulino.

Do You Remember Tiffany? Next month I'm going to the Steel City con in Pittsburgh. I haven't gone for a few years so it'll be interested to see how the con has changed. When I last went, it was mostly a toy con. Now it seems to be more of a pop culture con, like Wizard World. Tiffany will be there. Do you remember her? Back when I was in college she had the hit "I Think We're Alone Now." I think she was mostly a one hit wonder, but maybe she had a few other songs. Anyway, I got this album on eBay and I plan to get her to sign it. A few years back, Tiffany tried to make a come back. As part of that, she posed in Playboy. I plan to have her sign this too. This Playboy came out in 2002, 15 years ago. I'm curious to see what Tiffany looks like now. That is, with her clothes on.

I need to get this comic to read the story.

GGA Romance Photo Covers Something else I've been collecting lately are romance photo covers. Hard to find in high grade, but they're cheap.

No argument from me on this point. But I'm the kind of collector who would rather get a stack of comics rather than just a couple. Baker is getting so expensive he's not as much fun to collect anymore. So I guess I'll live vicariously through others as to Bakers, and turn my collecting attention to other things.

I also think FLI 12 is a classic. And the covers are certainly intriguing enough that they make you want to read the story. Here's another example.

Some of them were advertised as file copies. But when I received them they came with no authentication. So I'm not sure how I can prove they are file copies.

Bakers Are Too Expensive So Now What? With Matt Baker being so expensive, I've turned my attention to other comics. Here are a few higher grade GA romance comics I've picked up lately. I think some of these approach Baker, especially First Love 34 and Love Problems 28. I got these 5 all for way less than even a single Baker.

I'll take #2 via our PMs. Thanks for breaking this up to allow me to complete my set!

Don't leave us hanging -- what's your columns on?

Incredible books. Thanks for sharing!

take

take

Where I live they close off roads too, but because the President is out for a ride or some foreign VIP is in town. Would rather have flea markets!

I guess you're right. There's no doubt it is a nice looking comic. It will be interesting to look back 5, 10 years from now, to see if Bakers are holding their value. In all my years of collecting, what's hot today never stays hot, except for a very few exceptions, and usually it involves big guys with capes. I was just having this conversation the other day, about some artists who were super hot a few years ago, and now their books languish on dealer walls. At this moment, none of us can see that happening, but that's how it always is, until things change.

@BakerFanOne - To your point, you probably saw this one last night on eBay, closing at $1313. My max bid was $550. I didn't expect to win it. The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was look at the closing price. I was shocked. I suppose that's FMV now for a nice looking Baker, but personally I will not pay that much for a romance comic that really has no historical significant, except for a few classic comics. I know others disagree and that's fine; that's what makes collecting fun, that we all have our own priorities. But $1313? Whew, that's a lot of money.

Emerald City Comic Con Report Here's my ECCC report. It'll be short, because I didn't go. I bought tickets, but then because of work I was not able to go. So what to do with the tickets? Rather than try to sell them, I decided to give them away to a boardie here. I was hoping to pay back someone who did a favor for me in the past, either because they've given me discounts on sales or otherwise done me a solid. I was happy to give the tickets to @modelmaker. A few years ago he went to ECCC and got me this Gwen Stacy sketch cover from Joe Benitez. So I mailed the tickets to modelmaker. And once again, he did major favors for me. Through him, I bought this sketch cover from Terry Moore. And MM did the legwork to submit it to CGC. On top of that, he was able to convince Terry to do a commission for me. I think this is the only commission Terry did at ECCC. Here it is, on Terry's Instagam. The commission is the Gwen on the right. The sketch cover is on the left. So I want to publicly thank modelmaker for the big favors. It really shows how great this community is!

I haven't -- now you've got me interested.

Rick, I agree with both you and @Sqeggs GCE 12 seems more common than CL 25 -- you rarely see CL 25 offered for sale. But, I think if they went head to head, say both 5.0s, I tend to think GCE 12 would go higher because it's more risque. Also it's a giant and the square bound is harder to get in a nicer grade. Personally I like GCE 12 better than CL 25, and I would not go all in for a CL 25. Just saying, that's my personal preference. There are a couple Bakers that I'd break the bank to get in 5.0 or higher grades. I'm not saying which ones, but it doesn't matter anyway as you never see them.

Interesting, I started collecting Baker at about the same time as you, and I've acquired about as many comics. I'm sure we've competed on many auctions. I bet if we compared our collections, we'd have mostly the same issues. Some Bakers are definitely more common than others and they pop up pretty frequently. Then sometimes I see one I've never seen before, and it's practically jolting.

I’m not really thinking about selling my Bakers but, like you, the high prices are pushing me to other areas of collecting. Like, right now I need to upgrade my Spider-Man 129. Even though mostly I talk about on these boards is GGA, really I’m a superhero collector (Spidey in particular) and I need a nicer copy of the 1st app of the Punisher. So I’m finding it hard to pull the trigger on recent Bakers where for just a little more I could get a ASM 129 in pretty nice shape.

I also think the past year on the market has played a factor. If you’re feeling rich it’s easier to pay more on comics.

Will Matt Baker Comics Maintain Their High Prices? The prices on comics with Bakers covers are, IMHO, getting into silly land. I remember last year, when BakerFan was offering higher grade Bakers on eBay. There was a spike in prices then. After, things seemed to cool down for a few months. Now though, prices are higher than ever. My question is, is this a short term bubble that will eventually burst, or will Bakers maintain their prices long term? Let's keep in mind that there is no historical significance with Matt Baker, other than he was a black artist with a talent for drawing pretty girls in risque situations. His comics don't have the advantage of the first appearance of a major character or a significant character/story turning point to help prop up his prices. It's always useful to look at history. So I've been trying to identify comparable GGA artists. LB Cole, Decarlo, Biro, Montana ... etc. But while some of their comics go for high prices, they are not hot like Baker. The example of these artists would argue that Baker is hot now but he'll eventually cool off. Consider Frazetta. I'd argue that Frazetta has and continues to be highly desirable. But Frazetta only has a few GGA covers. So I don't think he's a good comparable. Also, there's not the frenzy around Frazetta as it is for Baker, so again his case would argue that Baker is hot now but he'll eventually cool off. I think a good comparison to Baker is Schomburg. Both have GGA covers in high quantity. Both have classic covers. Schomburg's prices are high for some comics, but reasonable (and even cheap) for others. Is this where Baker will eventually end up? High for his classics, reasonable for his others? Sometimes I wonder what the contribution of this board is to Baker's popularity. In the recent past, we've had 3 Baker threads on the 1st page of GA, and the Baker Romance thread is always on the 1st page and extremely active. With comics like Baker, with such low quantity, how many active collectors does it take to drive up prices? 5? 10? On the other hand, I suspect many of the people on the Baker Romance thread already have many Bakers. So they are not driving up the price of many of the comics being sold -- that's due to other collectors. If new collectors continue to get on the Baker band wagon, will prices stay high? The good thing about the high prices is more (and different) Bakers are being offered now than in the last 2-3 years. But my high bids are being exceeded regularly by 50% -- and that's with me bidding more now than ever before. So anyway, thanks for reading. This is not a rant. It's more like, a "are you seeing what I'm seeing" post.

My GGA collection doesn't bother her. She knows it's just comics. It's a lot better than me playing golf or gambling.