Hamlet

Next time, if you go order direct through their website, you'll also save the Ebay fees. They list all of their stuff on Ebay marked up enough to cover the fees, so its a little cheaper going direct.

Try to sell as much as I buy. Buy cool stuff that is ice cold and sell lame stuff that is hot. Organize what I have so that I don't buy books I already have unless they are to speculate on.

Can someone tell me why people are paying money for the first “Spider-Hulk” ( Web of Spiderman 70 ) ?

I’ve only been able to look at past sales for books that have a copy that is scheduled to be auctioned. If you click on a book that is in an auction, there is a sales data tab that has historical sales. If there is a way to do that for books that aren’t in an auction, I haven’t found it. I agree that it would be very useful.

MCS just added a CGC 6.0 of Pussycat #1 at $350 yesterday and it has already sold. You can see from yesterday if you page down in their New Arrivals. I thought it was a good price when I saw it, but it isn't really in my focus.

I always enjoy this convention, although the new venue was a little tight for space. Bought 50 issues of dreky stuff for $20 ( at 40 cents/book, I'm not very picky ), and spent another $80 or so picking up mid-grade run-filler SA stuff. Highlights were a low-grade WW 178 for $10, a very nice FN+ TTA 66 for $25, a nice FN+ Hulk 111 for $10, and some high grade 80s ASMs for $4/each. I had the ASMs already, but I'm pretty sure these were upgrades. Given how the market has gotten so incredibly focused on keys, I barely even look at the wall books these days, since the prices are pretty crazy.

I’m selling these and they look like they are going to go cheap — https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?ItemID=50180730 https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?ItemID=50180731 https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?ItemID=50180732 The 3.0 GI Combat 57 is still at one dollar. It’s low grade, but it is all there and all attached. I think someone is going to get a bargain.

Going to a little convention today- http://epguides.com/comics/ Its in Fridley MN from 10am to 4 pm. It’s just a dozen or so dealers in a room. No guests or entry fee. 5201 Central Ave NE, Fridley, MN Just digging thru long boxes for cheap comics. 🙂

I picked up these this week. One of the Vampi 7s was from EBay and the rest were from MCS. They aren’t high grade, but aside from the Creepy they are pretty nice. The Creepy is just a 4.5 or so but I’m happy to check it off my list.

It has been my experience that people generally figure out the relative tightness of a seller’s grading and factor that into what they are willing to pay. I bought a “2.0” from MCS for the price I would have paid for a 3.5 from a standard grader, because I looked at the book and decided it was really a 3.5. If you look at the actual scans of books and the prices they are selling for at MCS, I really don’t think sellers are really getting less for their books than elsewhere. If they were, then the buyers would be getting nothing but bargains and no one would buy from anyone else Obviously, at a high enough price point, most people want the certainty of certification, and a seller probably loses value selling raw through any venue. MCS calling a book a 4.5 that CGC would call a 5.5 doesn’t decrease the amount people will pay for it anymore that a dealer calling it an 8.0 would increase it. People are looking at the scans and paying what they feel a book is worth, because every dealer grades differently and substituting a dealers’ opinion of a book’s grade for your own is a sure method of getting books you are ultimately unhappy with, IMO. The nice thing is that MCS does a good job of highlighting the interior defects of a book so that you don’t receive a book with a centerfold loose at one staple without knowing it.

One thing I’ve wondered is what training your graders have to catch restoration?

I'm a fairly new consignor at MCS. I've done three small consignments with them since September. They often grade tighter ( sometimes much tighter ) than CGC. I've found that buyers understand that though, and I've gotten prices that are pretty decent on the fixed priced books I've consigned. For example, I sold a Marvel Premiere 1 that they graded as a 7.5 for $250. That was strong CGC 8.0 money at the time. Since I thought the book was probably an 8.0/8.5, that seemed like a pretty good price for a raw book. The auctions have been a mixed bag, but I feel like auctions often are. I've seen some of my books go for more than I expected, and some go for disappointing amounts. Typically, the books I'm consigning in their weekly auction are books I'm just looking to move regardless. If you are looking to auction a more expensive book, I think you are best off waiting for their Prime auctions that they have every 3 months. I've got some nicer stuff ( $100-200 books ) scheduled for their Jan 6th auction, so I'll see how it does. I did submit three lots with them. I sold two groups of 10 McFarlane Spideys, and a set of the six Kraven's last hunt books. The two McFarlane lots sold for about $50 each, and the Kraven lot sold for $65. They were nice copies for the most part, but not extremely high grade. I'd say they were mostly VF+ copies. I probably would have gotten a little more through Ebay, but I would have had to ship three times and deal with the Ebay hassle. The higher 25% ( $12 minimum ) commission rate for the lots ( plus the increased shipping cost of sending lower dollar books ) makes the lots a much more marginal choice for most books. I see an awful lot of lots in their auctions that don't make much sense to have consigned, IMO. On the other hand, it is a low work way to move the books. If you aren't willing to do the work of selling them yourself, its one of the only ways to move books like that. I probably netted $3.50/book for the McFarlanes, which isn't top dollar, but it is more than I bought them for and more than I think I could get for them without much work, so I was pretty content. I see them all the time for $4-$5 each. I can now confidently buy them for $2, knowing I have an easy way of moving them for $3.50.

I think the issue is that it is rarely “just a few dollars more”. You can often get raw books for a lot less than a comparable slabbed copy, especially at the ~ $100 price point you mention. You have to be careful, and good at grading, but that uncertainty can work in either direction. The cost of slabbing is a huge percentage of the price of a $100 book. For me, the biggest issue I have with slabbed books is I can’t see the inside of the book, and CGC’s label notes are not detailed enough for me to know if the book has internal defects I hate. Staple half-popped? Centerfold loose at one staple? Is the interior cover tanning? These are all defects I’m left in the dark about when buying a slabbed book. And I hate to beat this horse, but for the most part I expect that any slabbed book I buy has been pressed/cleaned/manipulated ( at least once ).

I had to return a book to MCS recently ( they missed a clipped coupon ). They had me print out a return shipping label from their website so I wasn’t out return postage. I get the impression from stories that they are a much different business than they were a few years ago.

Yup. You can't compare a MCS 6.0 to an Ebay "Fine" generically. You really have to look at the actual scans of the books to compare them apples to apples. MCS grades strictly enough that their raw books often sell for more than a CGC book of the same grade, because they grade tighter than CGC in a lot of instances. My MCS "7.5" sold for $250 on 9/5. At the time, that was more than CGC 8.0 money. I would have graded the book as an 8.0-8.5. So it got what I considered a strong price for the book, considering that it was raw, but it wasn't crazy out of line. However, if you just looked at it as a 7.5, it would have been crazy money.

I wouldn't say their prices are super high if you compare the actual grades of the books rather than the stated grades of the books. If I go to a random seller on Ebay, its very likely that the stated grade is an upper limit to what the book actually is. If they say it is a Fine, it will occasionally be a Fine, but will often be lower. With MCS, their stated grade is a lower limit to what the book actually is, and it will often be higher. If they say it is a Fine, it will be at least a Fine, and if you look carefully, you will find some of their Fines that are actually 7.0-7.5s, IMO. I'm still trying to figure out their grading, tbh. I've also noticed some weird pricing choices. I bought a bunch of Sgt Furys and Superboys with Neal Adams covers because they had a bunch of them where the 5.5 would be $3-4. However, the 6.0s would be like $15. Sometimes their 2.0 is just a regular 2.0, and sometimes they've been so strict that it is actually a 3.5-4.0 listed as a 2.0. I feel like I need to look at a lot more scans of their lower grade books than I would at other places, because they often have books listed at lower grades that I actually find acceptable. I will agree that they are going to be able to get more for a book than most Ebay sellers. It just isn't nearly as dramatic as comparing the listed raw grades would indicate. Something that has been interesting for me to look at is their "New in Stock" tab. They mark stuff on it "sold" when it sells, so you can see what is selling very quickly for them, both in their regular stock and their consignments.

Here is a question for the group. What are the key Warrens in mid-grade as opposed to high-grade? I’m not a guy that needs a perfect copy, just one that looks decent, say FN-VF for most books. Obviously I get the best copy I can find at a price I’m comfortable with, but mostly I just want a decent looking copy. I feel like the Vampi Frazetta covers are really the must own books in the run for me. What are the others you would buy in FN condition first if you didn’t have them? Certainly there are covers I like a lot - are there books you feel must be owned for the content within them?

Yeah, I have one book that I bought and then kinda regretted because it was almost loose at the top staple. I was going to sell it for what I paid for it to someone I know, but they decided they wanted a nicer copy ( which they bought shortly after ). So I held onto the book and it is now worth more than twice what I bought it for conservatively. Now I'm trying to decide if I want to keep it even if I'm not thrilled with the condition, since I will never pay the money to buy a nicer copy now, or if I just want to sell it and take the win.

Start stocking up on TOD 50, baby! I actually think that it is a really cool book. My copy is probably only a VG though.

When was 151 a big deal? I seem to remember that it was kinda expensive in very high grade at some point, but I don't really remember much about it otherwise. I should probably read mine and see what is in it, since I don't think I've read it since I got it 25-30 years ago. I've always considered 153 as one of the best Spidey issues. I re-read that one periodically.

I’d buy 1000 dollar box books that look cool.

It has a cool cover and its a "number 1". That's about it. I've made the point before that I think TTA 70 is a much better book to buy if you like Submariner. You can get it for about 1/10th the price of the #1 in VG+ ish condition. Heck, you can buy a decent chunk of his TTA run instead of the #1. That seems like a better use of my money than dumping a few hundred dollars into a very lackluster "key" that is suddenly hot.

Plenty of people are buying classic storyline comics, just not at extremely high price points. I think people have just gotten so crazy with the keys that the rational pricing of everything else looks really cheap. However, it only looks really cheap in comparison. If you didn’t know how much keys go for, I think most people would say that the classic storylines go for pretty good money. I just sold a set of Kraven’s Last Hunt for $65. They were nice enough books, but none of them were above VF+. That’s $10+ a book for stuff that has never been hard to come by. People are actually paying money for all of the issues of the original Secret Wars, not just #8. It’s not huge money, but books that were always dollar box books are now moving at say $5/each. A VGish copy of FF 51 probably goes for ~$25. That seems like decent money for a super common lower grade SA book. If all of the classic storyline books went for the kind of money the super hot keys are going for we could all sell our collections and retire. There is just so much of all of this stuff out there that crazy prices can’t be sustained. It’s not that demand is low, it’s just that there is supply to match it. There are plenty of books to go around at reasonable prices.

It’s also a pretty common Copper age book. What does a decent raw copy go for? $20 or so? Does that seem too low? How many books are people supposed to be pilling 100s of dollars into? Honestly, I think this book’s price makes sense. It’s the higher priced books that don’t.

Honestly, I agree with the current market’s relative assessment of those books. GSXM has the first appearance of several major characters and is the first appearance of the new X-men as a team. X-men 94 is the start of a run, and a lot of 2nd appearances. It’s a cool book, but if you are picking between the two it is no contest, IMO. The market was wrong about this and is now right, IMO. Note that I am speaking to relative values and not absolute ones. I think that expensive comics may face rough sledding ahead. I suspect that even if things correct though, that GSXM will remain more valuable than X-men 94. There was a time when AF15 and ASM 1 had similar values as well. That has changed dramatically and rightly so, IMO. Sometimes the market changes and sometimes those changes make more sense than the market of the past. Sometimes it does not ( see Rocket Raccoon 1) 🙂