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Midtown Comics and Spider Gwen I'm somewhat intrigued by the Spider Gwen story, even though fundamentally I don't like the idea of turning Gwen Stacy into a superhero. I was in NYC last week so decided to stop by Midtown comics in Broadway, as they released some of the Spider Gwen variants. Midtown had piles and piles of the variants. I looked through all they had on the shelves, but only found a few that were 9.8 possible. The experience hit home that it's not easy getting 9.8s even when buying fresh off the stands. I wanted to buy a stack of the Spider Gwen blanks to get sketch covers down the road. But Midtown was limiting to 1 copy per customer per visit. I went once by myself and then again with my wife and managed to get 3 copies (I only show 2 of them below -- unfortuantely the 3rd got dinged on the trip home). They were at cover (around $4) so I wanted to stop by again to get more, but eventually figured there were better things to do in NYC with the wife than get more Spider Gwen blanks. (I also picked up a few copies of the current Comic Shop News with the J. Scott Campbell cover. I'm thinking about submitting the best copy, to see how it'll look in a slab.)

Russ Cochran's Complete EC Library I like EC books, but I decided early on NOT to add them to my want list. They're too expensive, and I already had too many collecting goals. So when Russ Cochran published the Complete EC Library it really appealed to me. I could get every EC comic in nice looking, slipcased volumes. Here's a description of the Library from Wikipedia: The Complete EC Library From 1978 to 1996, this project reprinted almost every EC comic in 66 hardbound volumes contained in 17 slipcases. Unlike the original comics, these were done in black and white, except for Mad, which had both black-and-white edition and a color edition. The complete issue was reprinted, including house ads, letters pages, text stories, and editorial content. Covers for each issue were printed in full color on glossy paper. These volumes included annotations and commentary by various comics historians, including John Benson, Max Allan Collins, Martin Jukovsky, Bill Mason, Bill Spicer and Bhob Stewart. In the mid 1980s, I subscribed to the Complete EC Library from Russ Cochran's publishing house. But being just out of college, I couldn't afford the subscription, so I canceled after receiving 3 of the slipcased collections. My goal now is to finish the rest of the library via eBay. I picked this one up about a month ago (for only $35!). This collection has volumes of Impact, MD and Valor.

Some Miscellaneous Stuff * Hi cupny, thanks for your note. I haven't yet sold the comics I've purged from my collection. Those number about 20,000 comics. I'm tempted to just sell them all to one of the big national comic companies like Mile High. Or I might first try to sell some comics here or eBay. Not sure yet. * I've mentioned before how Franchesco is one of my favorite modern GGA cover artists. Unlike J. Scott Campbell, Franchesco has done a reasonable number of comics. Thus, it's possible to put together a complete CGC collection of comics he's done. I'm working on that, picking up (or submitting to CGC) a comic here and there. My goal is 9.8 only and while I'm not looking for SS, I don't mind getting them because (1) his signature doesn't really push up the price much, and (2) Franchesco always picks a good place for his sig so it never hurts the art. So here's one I got recently. The transaction was kind of sweet. The seller originally had BIN/Best Offer. I offered about $65 and the seller turned it down. A couple months later, the comic came up for auction (by the same seller). I ended up winning it for $50. How often does that happen? * Jen Broomall is another GGA cover artist I collect (she's done even less comics than Franchesco). I bought this comic raw at the BDI table at last years SDCC, and got it back with my latest CGC modern submission. I recently commissioned Jen for a Gwen Stacy double cover sketch. Can't wait to see what she does with that. * Speaking of Gwen, I picked this up cheap off eBay for my Gwen Stacy collection.

Shadow Preliminary Art by Michael Kaluta Back in the early 2000s I bought this original art from Mike Carbonaro at a Pittsburgh Comicon. The art is the preliminary cover for Shadow #12 by Michael Kaluta. (The annual Pittsburgh con was always a great place to buy comics. We'll see how things change now that is being run by Wizard World.) I spoke to Michael Kaluta at a con a few years later. He confirmed that, yes, this was the original preliminary cover art for Shadow #12. He drew the piece and then passed it by Denny O'Neil for approval. There's a note in the upper left corner from Michael to Denny to that effect. It's cool to own a little piece of comic history like this. I wanted a graded copy of Shadow #12 for my collection, to pair with the art. It took a few years to find a high grade copy, and I've still got my eye out for a CGC 9.8. This CBCS 9.4 came up for auction on eBay a few weeks ago, and I won it. It's the first CBCS comic in my collection. This comic is important enough to me that I'll likely take it out of the slab and re-submit to CGC (CBCS holds no cachet with me, just how I feel). Thanks for reading.

Results of My Latest CGC Modern Submission #3 - Mining My Collection Most of my collection (thankfully down to under 25k comics now) is raw. Sometimes when I get a new CGC submission ready I mine my raw collection for books to submit (rather than submitting books I bought off eBay or other sources -- like keys -- specifically for the purpose of submitting to CGC). Here are a couple of books I pulled from my collection for my most recent modern submission. I hoped the Ms. Marvel #1 would rate 9.0, but I'm not surprised it didn't (it was stored for over 30 years in a long box, without a bag or board). Mainly I submitted the comic because copies of Ms. Marvel #1 are going for crazy money lately. (CGC on a CGC 8.5 is $120; pretty cool since I bought it off the stands in 1976 for 30 cents.). I submitted #17 only because I thought it might get a high grade. I bought this one off the stands too, and GPA pegs it at $50. So I guess it was worth the $18 to submit. In my next submission I plan to submit #18 -- a key, with the 1st appearance of Mystique. I also submitted Amazing Heroes 37 for my Dave Stevens cover set. Fanzines like this are so hard to get in high grade (being meant to be read, not collected), so I'm happy with the 9.6. In terms of my competitive set, there's not much different between 9.6 (20 points) and 9.8 (32 points).

Results of My Latest CGC Modern Submission #2 - Gwen Stacy I've written before how Spider-man is my favorite character, and how the death of Gwen affected me. I literally fell off my bike when I was glancing through #121 on my paper route (I used to deliver newspapers on my bike to earn money for comics). To this day, I still cannot believe they killed Gwen. I think it was Hibou who in his journal recently wondered why some characters were more popular than others. To me it's clear why Gwen Stacy has recently had an uptick in interest and popularity. The foundation was always there -- the love interest of a major character with a dramatic ending. The subject of a number of "after death" stories that -- whether good or bad -- kept her in the limelight (i.e., Gwen clone, Ultimate Spider-man, Blue, etc.). And (probably most importantly) a recent movie with her character played by a young, popular actress. I have a small collection of Gwen Stacy commissions, that I did in the early 2000s. Here's probably my favorite, by Bo Hampton. Here's another by Neil Vokes: So anyway, I provide this story to give you some background on why I'm interested in Gwen Stacy. As a young teenager I identified with the awkwardly shy Peter Parker, and I still feel his pain when his girlfriend so tragically died. In my most recent CGC modern submission, I included 2 Gwen books. The first was AVX. This is a really tough book because for most copies the spine has a number of white stress marks. After looking at a number of copies I finally decided to submit my best copy, hoping CGC would consider the flaws as publishing defects (and thus not ding the grade too much). No such luck! It came back only 9.2. Oh well. I haven't decided if I'm going to try submitting again, or just be content with the copy I have (with one eye on what might come up on eBay). The 2nd book came back better. In fact at 9.6 it came back better than I expected. This cover shows Gwen's tragic fall. I have to admit I went to the movie hoping it would have a different ending. Speaking of the movie, I can't imagine a better actress to portray Gwen than Emma Stone. Maybe Spider Gwen will catch fire and we'll see a reprise of Emma's character in a future movie.

Results of My Latest CGC Modern Submission #1 I mentioned before, my most recent modern submission (normal turn-around time) was entered by CGC on December 8. It shipped on February 19, so it took only about 2 1/2 months. I'm very happy with that turn-around time! Last week I mailed another modern submission, we'll see how that goes. As for the grades, I was pleasantly surprised. 8 comics either got the grade I predicted or higher. Only 1 of the 10 got a lower grade (I predicted 9.4-9.8 and it only got 9.2). One didn't get graded at all. Let's start with that one. It's a Jay Company Tomb Raider. I asked Gemma why they couldn't grade it. She told me the cover overhangs the comic too much, so there was too high a risk of damage in the holder. (I just checked eBay, PGX grades this book so clearly isn't concerned about quality control -- wow, that's a surprise). This is the 2nd Jay Company book I've had this issue with. Why does JC make comics this way? I think I'll stop submitting JC books (and probably stop buying them too, at least in high grade). Since I'm on the topic of Tomb Raider, I got this one too. I saw a graded 9.8 on sale on eBay a couple years ago. It had an outrageous price, over $300. I made an offer but it was quickly rejected. Okay, that's cool, sellers can sell for whatever they want. I bought a raw copy on eBay for about $50. It came back only 9.6, but I'm cool with that since I saved over $200. The last book for this post is Optic Nerve 7. Optic Nerve by Adrian Tomine is one of those "slice of life" books. IMHO, Adrian does it better than anyone. These books have low print runs and are well read, so it took me forever to find a 9.8 possible raw book. (Submitting my own copy for grading was the only option; at this moment there are 2 graded copies in the census, a 10.0 and my 9.8.) I wasn't sure this one would get 9.8 but I got impatient so just included it in my submission. Hurray, it got 9.8! Why did I want a 9.8? Because I'm lucky enough to own the original art of this cover. I met Adrian at SDCC in the early 2000s. It was right after I read Summer Blonde (the story in this comic). In his portfolio he had this cover for sale. It was expensive -- and I never feel comfortable negotiating with artists -- but I had to have it. So here it is. And the CGC 9.8 looks cool next to it.

Auction Wins -- Some Buyer's Remorse This week I was watching auctions of 2 comics I really wanted. I won them both and I’m happy to have them. But I have some buyer’s remorse about one of them. So here’s the story. In telling the story, I’m going to tell you what I paid for them as I think it helps understand my thought process. I sometimes do this, telling you how much I paid. Most people here seem to avoid talking about sale prices, I guess for privacy reasons. I get that, but it doesn’t bother me, because I only talk about sale prices that are public information (on eBay, ComicConnect, ComicLink, etc.). I also – usually -- don’t mind talking about sale prices on eBay BINs. Where I don't reveal prices is with negotiated deals with boardies here, unless I have the permission of the seller; otherwise without permission I consider those sales confidential so I won’t say what the seller agreed to (since those sellers might not want people to know). The first comic is Starslayer #2. This comic is important to me because I’m a big Mike Grell fan, from his first Legion of Super-Heroes comic. He’s one of those combo writer/artist talents, and I pretty much like everything he’s ever done. The comic is also important because it has the 1st appearance of the Rocketeer by Dave Stevens. The back cover is by Stevens, so it fits in my Dave Stevens cover set (worth 88 points, which is a lot for this set!). I’ve been looking for a 9.8 of this comic for a while. On eBay, people list them for silly money, like $300. On GPA, the 2014 average is $139. The 12 month average is $128, and the last sale was $108. A couple months ago, from one of those comic sites that seem to be popping up everywhere, the seller offered a 9.8 for $139 (the 2014 average). I offered $120. Only $19 difference, but neither of us was willing to budge. The fact the seller was holding so firm to the GPA 2014 average – even though more recent data indicated the book seemed to be on a downward slope – turned me off, so I decided to move on. Then recently on eBay a 9.8 turned up for auction (instead of BIN). I decided to go for it, and entered a max bid of $135 using bidnapper. Could I have gotten a 9.8 from the other seller? Would he have gone down 4 bucks? I have no idea, but like I said, the seller’s attitude turned me off. Sellers can price their comics for whatever they want, but for most comics it's a buyer's market (because almost nothing's really rare). A couple hours before the end of the auction, the price stood at about $75. With my high bid of $135, I was pretty sure I would win it. But no one wants to have to pay their max bid, right? As you know, all the action happens in the last 10 seconds, and here the price did spike up. But at the end I won it at $108. So I’m happy about it because not only did I get it for less than my $135 max bid, but also less than my $120 offer to the other seller. By the way, I had a backup plan because there’s a 9.8 on sale on eBay right now for $136.25. I planned to buy this book if I didn’t win the eBay auction. The second book I won is Detective Comics 371. I won it in this month’s ComicLink auction for my max bid of $275. This is the comic I have some buyer’s remorse about. I had a 9.0 but I traded it last year for Batman 42, where (in my head) I got about $100 in trade credit. I think I got a fair deal, as GPA has the 2014 average at $87 and the 12 month average at $97 (and last sale at $75). A big reason I was willing to trade was because I wanted to upgrade. There’s not much GPA data, but it has the 2013 average at $366. That data, plus watching the book on eBay for almost a year, made me think that my max bid of $275 was a fair price. So why am I feeling some buyer’s remorse? Well first, because the auction went all the way up to my max bid of $275. No one likes having to pay their max bid. But mostly, because right now Greg Reece has a 9.2 on sale for $175. I knew that when I entered my $275 C-Link max bid, and almost immediately had second thoughts. Is an extra two CGC points worth $100 (and maybe more, since Greg takes offers)? I finally decided it was, so that’s why I entered my $275 C-Link max bid. But I have to admit, as the end of the auction neared I kind of hoped I’d lose the C-Link auction. So anyway, that’s my story. Two comics, kind of mixed feelings. Thanks for reading.

Miscellaneous Updates On My Collecting Life Brandon - Wow, a 9.0. I'll have to jump onto ComicLink and search for that one, to see what it looks like. Do you remember what the final price was? And now, a few scattered ramblngs ... * Weeding, refocusing and reorganizing my collection continues. I got down to about 24,000 comics, then this weekend I went through the dozens of long and short boxes I'm getting rid of to make sure I didn't want to keep any of them. It was like a comic convention among my own (discarded) comics. I ended up keeping about 750 of them. I spent the rest of the weekend re-organzing my collection. I thought it would be a chore, but I'm having a great time. I'll write more about this reorg later. * Recently I tried to trade my Hawkman #4 (shown below) plus some cash for another boardie's higher grade Hawkman #4. The deal fell through, but I'm okay with that. I think I might send my #4 in for grading -- no matter what CGC gives it, I think it'll be better trading fodder if graded versus raw. * I'm watching auctions for 2 comics today. I'm excited about both, they would fill major holes in my collection. More on these auctions later. * I recently won this Movie Comics 3 on eBay. I almost bought it twice, as after winning it on eBay (and forgetting about that win) I bid on another copy on C-Connect. Luckily I lost the C-Connnect auction (although at the time I was extremely disappointed). I wanted the comic because of the jitterbug cover. For some reason I like the dancing cover, and it makes a nice pair with my All Flash 25.

Non-CGC Blue Goodness Peter, thanks for your post, I'm always fascinated with comics history trivia. Nice to know the history of the Cerebus SS file copies. Here are a few recent additions to my collection. First, a new comic for my Gwen Stacy collection. I became a big fan of Gil Kane through comics like this one (his Sword of the Atom comics are still some of my favorites). And now for Non-CGC Blue Goodness. What's that? It's comics where you can get good deals. Two examples, lightly restored CGC books, and non-CGC graded books. Honestly, I think you can sometimes pick these books up for less than raw. So it becomes an ethical issue for the seller ... should you crack the book out of the case and sell it raw (and maybe "forget" CGC found restoration)? And why keep it in the PGX case when it provides no premium in the sell price? (Why send it to PGX at all?) Anyway, I'm always looking for books like this -- especially lightly restored CGC books -- as they often provide substantial discounts over FMV. As I look at the Kaanga I'm tempted to break it out of the case and submit to CGC. It looks better than 5.5, but of course I'm judging it solely based on the cover. Still, I have my renewal 4 book coupon and I've been trying to decide what to submit ....

Addition to Dave Stevens Covers Set I won this comic on eBay the other day for my Dave Stevens set. It wasn't listed in the set so I emailed Gemma and requested it be added. It took about a day to add it (thanks Gemma!). Unfortunately, it rates only 24 points in 9.8. Gemma explained it's not an expensive book so isn't worth more points. Gemma's right. You can get this book for under $20. But boy is it tough book to get in CGC 9.8! My copy is the only graded book. Raws typically have flaws that keep it from 9.8. But that's how it is with the Dave Stevens Covers set. Print runs were limited, and alot of the books are tough to get in HG. (Try getting 9.8s of Amazing Heroes 37 or Comico Attractions 6.) Still, many get less than 50 registry points in 9.8. Ah well ... the search continues ....

Very Happy With Modern Submission Turn-Around Time In December, for the 1st time, I submitted comics to CGC using normal turn-around time (all my prior submissions were either the CGC coupon, fast track or on-site). This was a 10 comic Modern submission, and I decided to submit this way because I was tired of paying the extra for fast track. Also, I wasn't in a hurry, so I submitted them and then forgot about it. Okay, I didn't really forget about them, but I only checked about every couple of weeks, and I wasn't disappointed when the status didn't move. But to my pleasant surprise, the status did move. My invoice was entered on December 8, and today on February 19 it was shipped. So it only took about 2 1/2 months. Fast track can take up to 6 weeks. So normal was only about a month slower, and I saved $100. As for the grades, I was pleasantly surprised. My routine is to predict the grades beforehand. Then when the books get shipped, I open the invoice on my computer and carefully go through the list one by one (using a piece of paper so I only see one line at a time). This time, 8 comics either got the grade I predicted or higher. Only 1 of the 10 got a lower grade (I predicted 9.4-9.8 and it only got 9.2). Interestingly, 1 of the 10 didn't get graded at all. I'm looking forward to getting the books back so I can see what happened with that one. I'll post pictures once I have the books. Thanks for reading.

Hibou - Great minds think alike! This weekend I was curious about the Spider-Gwen thing, and I had time (I was at my kid's swim meet all weekend long), so I bought the e-comic of Edge of Spider-Verse #2 and read it on my iPad mini. The comic was good enough to make me look for more issues on the Marvel website (I didn't find any). I still don't get why graded copies are so expensive. Is it a lingering effect of the movie? Maybe, as there are more Gwen comics getting graded and being offered on eBay (which is good for us Gwen collectors). Would be fun to see Emma Stone as Spider-Gwen! mediajunkie - I wish all those comics were CGC'd! But no, most of my collection is raw, including 99% of the comics in those runs.

Update on Right Sizing My Collection After a lot of work I've managed to get my collection down from over 45,000 books to around 25,000. I'm still going through long boxes, and I hope to get it down by another 1000 or so. I'd love to get it to under 20k, but I'm trying to avoid heartache as I weed through my collection. My basement is a nightmare, with long and short boxes all over the place. My plan is to go through the boxes I'm getting rid of very carefully, box by box, to cherry pick comics I either want to keep or sell. I plan to take my time with that, maybe finish by the end of the summer. Then I'll sell the remaining comics in bulk (around 20,000 comics) to one of the big dealers like Lone Star or Mile High. (I plan to ask my LCS first, but I doubt they'll be interested even though I'd give them a hometown discount.) Before selling in bulk I might sell a few here or eBay, mostly complete or near complete series like New Mutants, X-Factor, X-Men (the 2nd series), X-Force, Batman Legends of Dark Knight, etc. So if you want a deal, PM me or watch for my sale threads (of course I'll be pulling out the keys). This has also been an opportunity to focus my future buying. I'm more interested now in keys and golden age GGA. I'm still a completist, but I need to get real on what I can practically complete in my lifetime and limited resources. So here's where I am on the "big" titles I collect, what issue I plan to start with, and how many comics I need to complete the titles. I need 280 comics to complete these sets, and my goal is to finish in 5 years (i.e., the end of 2019). I'll let you know how it goes! Thanks for reading.

More on the CGC Signature Series and 1 Comic Connect Win I found this article from 2008 about the CGC Signature Series. http://www.cgccomics.com/news/enews/2008/December/article1.asp It says the Signature Series started in 2001. So my Cerebus books were not part of that original pilot program. Still, I'm intrigued by the history of Dave Sim's file copies, and how they ended up with Paradise comics. It's probably no more complicated than Sim having a relationship with PC. I'm happy to own a few (all of them Jaka covers; more on Jaka in a future post). If you're interested in Cerebus you should check out the Paradise site. Their prices on these Cerebus SS 9.8s are lower (by half in some cases) than what you see on eBay or the hammer prices on CLink/CConnect auctions. One win this month on the Comic Connect auction, a Golden Age Wings comic. The note says "Man burning alive panel." I assume CGC enters notes based on what people collect, like "infinity cover," "bondage cover," "Nazi cover." But do people really collect comics that have people burning alive?

Cerebus Graded Books and the origin of CGC SS One of my favorite titles is Cerebus, and I have a complete raw, well read collection of 1-300. I also have a few graded copies, including 1-10 in various grades. There are a few Cerebus comics I'd like in 9.8, but high grade copies of Cerebus are somewhat rare. Not because they are truly rare necessarily. Dealers rarely bring Cerebus to cons, so what you've left with are well picked though long boxes (typically the boxes on the floor, the ones hard on middle-age knees). And people who bought Cerebus off the stands probaby read them and stored them away, never to be offered for sale (like me). Bottom line, it's hard to find high grade raw copies of Cerebus for grading. When you see graded copies at auction, they usually go for high prices (not outrageously high, but more than I want to spend). So on New Year's day I was surfing the Internet when I came across the Paradise comics website. I was shocked to see all the graded Cerebus on their site. Not just 9.8, but SS signed by Sim and Gerhard. On top of that, they were Sim's file copies. Even more, they were reasonably priced and Paradise was willing to take a little off for people who bought a few. So I bought a few. Here are a few of them: You'll notice these comics were graded back in 2004. When I saw that I thought it was a bit unusual, to have so many SS comics from 2004. Then today I read the CGC newsletter that said: Based on collector feedback, we realized that how we were treating signatures wasn't ideal — by giving them Qualified grades. We wanted a way that we could distinguish the signature on the CGC label without there being any question of its authenticity. We were all discussing the problem, and we went back and forth with different ideas (one was having artists sign our wells and selling those as an add-on). By the next day, an outline for Signature Series was born. Shortly thereafter, we chose Peter Dixon of Paradise Comics, Toronto, to test out the new program. Over the years we have modified Signature Series to strengthen the integrity of the program. Now it is unsurpassed in signature authentication and market acceptance. I haven't checked .... when did CGC introduce their SS program? Could these Cerebus books be from the beginning of SS?

Walking Dead Returns Tonight! Now that we've got that Super Bowl thing out of the way, the Walking Dead returns tonight! To commemorate the event, I wanted to provide this homage, the main keys in my collection (yes I know, I don't have #1 yet). Enjoy the show tonight folks!

Daryl Dixon In The Walking Dead Comic So everyone knows Daryl is only in the Walking Dead TV show. His character does not exist (as far as we know) in the comic. I like to get Walking Dead comics signed by the cast. But it has to be on a comic that has meaning for that character, like the first appearance of the character in the comic, or a comic with the character on the cover. Here are 2 of my favorites from my collection, the first signed by the actors of Maggie and Hershel - Lauren Cohan and Scott Wilson (their 1st appearances), and the second signed by the actress of the character on the cover, Andrea - Laurie Holden. But what comic do I use for Norman Reedus's signature? Here's a comic I just bought from a boardie (for a fair price too, about the cost of Norman's signature and grading). This boardie cleverly got Norman to sign a comic with a crossbow, so it looks like Daryl even though it isn't. If I ever get a chance at getting Norman to sign something -- his lines right now are incredibly long, like half a day long -- I have a sketch cover of Daryl to use.

Hi SW3D, Great question. Dave Stevens comics are not expensive, although they can be hard to find in grade. Probaby the most expensive is 3-D Zone #16, which in the just ended C-Link auction I won for $200. As for my favorite Dave Stevens covers, it's hard to pick just one. So here are a few of my favorites.

January 2015 ComicLink Auction - Wins #3-5 (Dave Stevens registry books) My big wins from the recently finished monthly ComicLink auction were all for my Dave Stevens Covers registry set. The first book is the holy grail of this set, 3-D Zone 16. I already have a 9.4, but to compete in this set you have to have a 9.8. The book isn't rare but it's expensive. There's a 9.8 on sale on eBay right now for $400 (it's been there forever). I own 4 raw copies. Two are at best 9.6s. They weren't cheap, so I decided to buy a graded copy. So I won this copy. Expensive, but way less than eBay prices. Here's the good thing. My 9.4 gets 105 points. My new 9.8 is worth 280 points! The next book is Bad Planet 6. This book doesn't show up often on eBay in 9.8. It's worth 128 points, which is a lot in this set. The last book is Rocketeer Official Movie Souvenir Magazine. Another book that doesn't often show up for sale in 9.8 (in fact I've never seen one for sale). I decided to settle for this 9.6. I got it for only $21 (like many comics, there's a big drop off from 9.8 to 9.6), and the difference in registry points is only 15 points (35 for 9.8 versus 20 for 9.6).

Focusing My Collection I'm in the process of reducing my collection by about 50%, so I can fit it all into the small bedroom I have for my comics in our retirement home. I have over 10 years to retirement but knowing the eventual smaller home for my comics, I've decided to reduce my collection now. Doing so will help me focus my future buying. I've always been a completist. But now that I'm older, I need to get realistic. Am I really going to get a complete run of Action, or Detective, or even Brave and the Bold? The answer is no. It's not just the money. I'm less interested in complete runs now. I'd rather have a mix of comics, some complete runs, but keys too. So I've decided to limit my collection of Action to 300 to the current issue. For Tales of Suspense, it'll be 50 to the last issue. That's not to say I won't buy issues earlier for Action or Tales of Suspense. But for issues lower than my starting issues, I'll probably focus on keys. So here are my starting issues for the big DC and Marvel titles I collect. For other titles -- like ASM, FF and Justice League of America -- I'm going for the full run. Action (1938) 300 Adventure (1935) 300 Batman (1940) 150 Brave and the Bold 50 Detective (1937) 300 Superman (1939) 150 Tales of Suspense 50 Tales to Astonish 50 Wonder Woman (original series) 150 World's Finest 100

January 2015 ComicLink Auction - Win #2 Here's my 2nd win in this month's ComicLink auction. I've wanted a graded Spawn #9 (1st Angela) for a while. What a great McFarlane cover! It hasn't been high on my priority list, but I regularly check eBay for a good deal. This month ComicLink offered a 9.8 and 9.6. I bid on both. As the end of the auction neared, I decided to focus on the 9.6 (thinking the 9.8 would go for more than I was willing to pay). I was very happy to win the 9.6 for just $22 (my max bid was $32). Starting prices on eBay seemed to be about $50, so I think I got a good deal. But ... the 9.8 went for only $55! What the heck?! I would definitely have paid $60 for the 9.8 (the next bid increment). But I've learned you can't think that way. Sure, I would have gone $60. Would I have won though? Maybe I would have gotten into a bidding war with the other buyer. In the end the winner would have paid more. So I got my 9.6 for $22, and he/she got the 9.8 for $55. Not the worse result. I guess I'm good with it. Especially since I won the THREE I really wanted (I'll write about those comics next).

I have too many comics! About 45,000. I'm actually finding it easier than I thought to weed down the collection. For example, I really like the original ASM series. I'm keeping that. And I like a few of the related titles like the original Spider-man, Peter Parker and Ultimate Spider-man series, and a few mini-series like Blue and Black Cat. I'm keeping all of that. But do I really need all the other Spider-man titles? And, similarly, all the related Avengers, FF, Cap, Iron Man, Hulk, JLA, Superman, Batman, etc. etc. titles? More and more I'm finding the answer is no. Now that I'm going through it, I actually think I'll be able to weed out more than 25,000 comics. It's very liberating and exciting, the thought of focusing my collection. For example, I also collect the original Action and Detective series. Is it really possible to get full runs? For me, the answer is no. So what I'm going to do is set beginning points for these titles (and others like it). I don't know, maybe issue 250 for Action and Detective. Then I'll focus my collecting there. To me that focus reduces my stress, because I don't have to worry about how I'll ever afford earlier issues. And with those goals I'll actually have a chance of completing the runs before I get too old to enjoy them. I agree with you completely. Sometimes though I just get panic attacks about whether I'm doing the right thing by buying so many CGC books. When I submit books I always say to myself "Why am I doing this? I could buy a few nice books for the submission price."

January 2015 ComicLink Wins I won a few books on ComicLink this month (and still working on a couple). Here's the first. J. Scott Campbell. Spidey, bad guys and Mary Jane. Nuff said!

Update on My Collecting Life Here's a quick update. * I'm working to reduce my collection to under 100 long boxes, so it'll fit in the home we plan to retire to. This means reducing my collection by about 25,000 comics. Not easy, but surprisingly liberating, and it's an exciting opportunity to focus my collection so future buying will be more fun. Not ready to provide details, but I'll share my experiences eventually. * We're in the midst of the January ComicLink auction. There's alot that I want and bidding on, but no wins yet. There are a few I REALLY want for my registry sets. But it seems everyone thinks the same way. Hopefully I'll win at least 1 or 2. * Sometimes I wonder if my collecting focus is getting too CGC focused. What happens if CGC goes out of business? How will that impact my collecting and the value I put on these encapsulated books? Does anyone else worry about this? * How do you feel about cracked cases? I picked up this Planet Comics for significantly below GPA, I think because a corner of the case is cracked. I have about a half dozen CGC books with cracked cases. I figure someday I'll submit them for new cases. But maybe not, I'll save the money for more comics as the cracks aren't that bad. Anyway, for me I'll take a cracked case if it comes along with a significant discount under market value. * I'll end with a few modern GGA books I've picked up via eBay recently.