Hamlet

I think people have gotten way too focused on keys currently, especially at conventions where everyone has the keys priced at FMV at the minimum. Conventions are for buying cheap books that don't make sense to buy when you have to pay for shipping, IMO. The keys are always available online. You just have to pay the money. I've always enjoyed hunting through the bargain bins and finding cool books that no one is currently interested in at the moment. I have varied enough collecting interests that there is almost always something neat I can find for almost no money. I'm generally not all that picky on condition if the price is right. At the local convention I just went to, I found some real nice DC SA books. Some examples-- Flash 167 in Fine for $5.40 Flash 183 in F/VF for $5.40 Superboy 131 in VF for $5.40 Superboy 139 in VF ( oops, much lower, didn't see the popped staple ) for $5.40 Tomahawk 98 in F/VF for $5.40 I also found- TTA 93 in G/VG for $25 ( seems reasonably priced to me ) A high grade Thor 339 for $3 Some mid-grade Conans for a few bucks each A high grade ASM 220 for $4 The beauty of collecting what is currently cold is that occasionally cold books develop heat. Stuff like FF 67, Thor 165, Marvel Premiere 1, Thor 337, ASM 316, and Astonishing Tales 25 are all books that I bought really cheaply 5-10 years back because no one was all that interested in them at the time that I have recently sold for many multiples of what I bought them for. Now those sales are funding my current collecting. In 5-10 years, I imagine that some of the stuff I am buying today will be a little hotter than it is currently. Even if it isn't, I'm getting pretty neat books for almost nothing.

Well, it kinda depends on what the sticker is, doesn’t it? There are some dealers I’ve dealt with that start with extremely reasonable prices but mostly don’t discount any further. The overprice so that you can discount model is more common, but frankly I prefer the Walmart model of putting your best price forward in an effort to turn the books over quickly. It makes for a much faster buying process as well, since I don’t have to guess what kind of discount I can get went evaluating whether I want the book. There are an awful lot of dealers that seem to be running a comic museum instead of actually selling books. 🙂

I don't doubt that there are people hoarding AF15s. I wouldn't expect that there are very many ultra high grade books in those hoards though. Gator's description of the hoard he was aware of seems like the most common scenario. If someone was trying to accumulate AF15s in the 80s and 90s, they probably would have just bought reasonably priced copies whenever they could. Someone who devoted $10k/year to that could have ended up with a lot of copies, but the vast bulk of them would have been the 1.0-4.0 books that were available on the market.

The size is a problem. I’ve finally bought a magazine box to deal with my half dozen or so magazines. So now I’m in the market for more 🙂 I like color though, so that is a strike against the B&W mags. A Frazetta cover definitely makes up for it though. 🙂

I do have about $500 to spend, and I suspect that I will use it to fill a long box or so out of bargain bins. At my last convention, I bought something like 107 books for $92 . As far as more expensive books, I'm on the look out for nice mid-grade copies of TOS 58 and 59, and TTA 57, 59, 60, and 93. Honestly, I'm not interested in most books these days because prices are just loony.

I’ll let you in on a little secret - you can usually buy a nice raw VF for peanuts ( heck, often from a dollar box ) compared to a CGC’d book of any grade, and the story is the same inside. Some people really enjoy having a “perfect” book - but if you aren’t one of them, I don’t see much reason to buy most copper books slabbed.

No one has mentioned Hudson Hawk. That seems like an oversight that cannot stand

I had to google those names because I didn’t know who they were offhand. I did recognize them then though. 🙂 They seem to have some artists I heard of, but I’m really not into signature books. I just want to dig thru longboxes. I’m going to FallCon on the 5th. Let me know if you’re game.

Looking at their website I can't find anything showing who is exhibiting at this. I'm wondering if vintage back issues are a significant part of this event, or is it mainly a pop culture/cosplay/etc event?

The problem with this is that most sellers have their initial prices above market knowing that most people will negotiate. It’s like paying sticker at the car dealership. If you pay full price, you are probably overpaying. Some dealers have their best prices out initially and don’t negotiate, but they seem to be the exception to the rule. I much prefer a set price model, but for whatever reason this is what has developed.

People seem to have figured out that MCS is a tight grader though. People pay more for a MCS grade than if someone else graded it. I had a MCS book they graded at 7.5 sell for CGC 8.0 money. I probably would have graded it at 8.0-8.5, so getting 8.0 money ( minus their 10% ) seemed pretty good. I might have made more if the book had come back an 8.5, but that’s a lot of shipping and hassle to maybe get a little more.

I'm kind of amazed at how much heat all of these books can sustain. I just sold a nice MP 1 and an low-grade FF 67 at MCS and was really happy with the money I got compared to what they cost me 7-8 years ago ( which was almost nothing ). I have another similar copy of the FF 67 in my FF run that I feel like I have to hang onto. Likewise, I have a mid-grade copy of Thor 165 in my Thor run that I got for almost nothing along with the FF67. They were 5 bucks each when I bought them. I'm just having trouble wrapping my head around them being $100+ books in VG-FN grades. The only MP 1 I have left is an ugly copy that is only good for a reader. I'm going to end up with the "trashed Marvel keys" collection if this keeps up. I sold a decent Astonishing Tales 25 and kept the copy that had been ripped in half through 90% of the comic and then carefully taped back together. I'm attached to that copy now, since bought it for 50 cents back around 1989 when the book first got hot. Whoever did the taping was incredibly meticulous. It actually is an okay reader.

I used to read my daughter SA X-men and Spiderman on my Ipad through Marvel Unlimited. Last week she asked to use my Ipad so that she could read one herself ( she's eight ). I felt like I'd won the lottery.

I think the odds of the Black Knight catching fire and generating sustained collector interest are very low. This is pure speculative hype, IMO, with little chance that it will be sustained. Given how crazy the prices are for these books now, I wouldn't be buying them at anything remotely close to their current values. If I currently owned them I would be trying to sell them as quickly as I could before the opportunity is lost.

I'm skeptical that either is going to hold sustained collector interest as an expensive key. I suspect that once the movie hype dies down, these books will slowly trend down as well. I would look to Avengers 55 as the model here.

Yeah, I'm really liking their setup. I've had pretty good luck with the first batch of books I sent them. I sent all single books to them in my first consignment. I'm going to try some lots next. I saw someone get decent money for some McFarlane Amazings in one of the weekly auctions, so I figured I'd send my extras in and see how they do. The challenge with the lots is the shipping and that they take 25% or a minimum of $12 for them, so you have to think through whether they are going to be worth selling that way. I like the way everything is kept track of on their website. It takes them awhile to grade the books and get them set up on the website, but once they are in you have complete control over setting the prices or putting them in auctions.

They are the first Marvel reboot issues. Let’s throw a cool cover and a new #1 ( or a title change ) on an ongoing series and sell it to the rubes. 🙂 I’m just trolling ( kinda ), but I’d rather collect the TOS and TTA issues that precede them. Just as cool books, there are less of them, and they generally cost less money unless they are actually keys ( unlike the “Big Premiere Issues” - oops, I’m trolling again ) 🙂

I bought some Byrne FF out of a 50 cent box this weekend. That counts as heating up because I usually leave them there.

You haven’t done badly with the FF 5. I’m pretty sure I would have made the same trade. I think it will look better in 5 years. I think there are now a lot of people buying IH 181 simply because they think it will continue going up. I think there are more copies than normal in speculators’ hands because of that. Looking at GPA, it looks like it has started to show some signs of peaking in most grades. I can see this book getting hit pretty hard if the people holding it stop expecting it to increase in value.

It is so key that I bought my copy out of a 50 cent box a few years ago 🙂 I’m glad the book is getting some attention. It’s a cool book in a really cool run of books. My hope is that a few people actually read it and grab all of the issues around it as well. There was a reason the books were hot in the 80s. It wasn’t because it was the first appearance of Stormbreaker, though. 🙂

They are welcome to spend $1000 for a ragged copy. I’m not even remotely interested.

When did "first Stormbreaker" become a thing for Thor 339? I saw someone had one up on their wall at a local convention for $40 and thought they had lost their mind, but apparently it is a thing, because they are selling pretty decently on E-bay. People are really reaching to find a reason to call a book a "key", IMO. I'm not hating on people for buying this book at a decent price. It is really cool, with part of one of the best stories of the Copper Age, IMO. I just think it is crazy that the market would value it higher than 338, which is a great cover and part of the same story. Are people really going to buy 337 and 339 and skip owning 338? I think we need to explain to people that it is okay to own books that are really cool, even if they aren't technically a "key".

I was at a convention and got a sick feeling when I realized that I probably should buy the Dazzler 1s that I found in the cheap box. I decided not to bring shame on my family and left them there though.

Honestly, at these price points, I have absolutely no interest in either book. I've read them. They are pretty meh. I think these books are more about people wanting to own the books everyone else wants to own than actual interest in Wolverine these days.

I agree that it wouldn't make sense unless you are doing it primarily for enjoyment. I'm not digging through dollar boxes to make money. I'm digging thru dollar boxes because it is fun and I find a lot of comics I am interested in owning in them. But as long as I am doing it anyway, I'm certainly going to grab books that I know are worth flipping. Whether I ever get around to actually flipping them is another question entirely.