Hamlet

It all depends on price and availability to me.  I’m thrilled to pull ragged SA books out of dollar boxes and add them to my collection.  If I’m spending real money I’m more picky. I generally am never interested in spending the money for uber-high grade though. 

On 1/26/2022 at 9:17 PM, CycleGirl said:

Here are several things that I would suggest. 

1) Sell on sites like Ebay that are sure to send both you and the IRS a 1099. Don't use craigslist, the boards, or private channels. 

2) Get payment on sites like Paypal on Venmo where you are also sure to get a 1099. Don't use person-to-person cryptocurrency or cash. 

Everyone should pay their taxes!

Those two things are not required to pay your taxes.  My two largest sales have been via the boards.  I would never be willing to sell on EBay given the target they put on sellers for scammers.

Regardless, I will pay the taxes I owe come tax time.

If I could only have one short box of comics, ASM 238 would be in it.

On 1/21/2022 at 1:15 AM, Mecha_Fantastic said:

Anyone else just read this bit and gasp? 

On 1/19/2022 at 4:47 PM, KCode98 said:

I don't want to flip. I'm wanting a solid book (the best option) to hold onto for decades 

If you are interested in holding for decades, I wouldn’t buy certified books, especially right now.  CGC is not able to keep up with the demand right now, so the spread between slabbed books and raw is higher than normal.  Plus, if you are investing over decades, it is better to buy more of the thing you are expecting to appreciate ( the comic itself ) rather than the slabbing fees for the plastic case.

Buy nice books raw that interest you and that you will enjoy owning.  If you are uncomfortable with grading, try to buy from dealers that have  good reputations.  You can slab the books when it is time to sell.  

On 1/19/2022 at 9:51 AM, @therealsilvermane said:

Ang Lee's Hulk is an unsung masterpiece of super-hero cinema.

It's unsung because it is awful.  I went to it with a friend who turned to me in the middle of it and said, "If we leave now, we can salvage an hour that we will always regret if we stay."  This was right in the middle of a scene of them going down in an elevator that went on and on so long that we started laughing about it.  "We get it.  It is really, really deep."

We stayed, and I regret it.

I’ve made it through the first hour of this movie in two sittings and I’m really not sure I’m going to finish it at this point.  It is a really bad movie, IMO.  It is incredibly slow, completely bogged down in tedious exposition about characters and backstory that just aren’t interesting to me.  I would say at this point that it is the worst of the MCU movies.  It’s first Hulk movie bad.  Black Widow and Shang-Chi weren’t my favorites but they were a lot better than this.

 I’m trying to decide if I’m going to force myself to finish this or just bail completely.

I have a few dollar books that I buy pretty much every time I see them because I think they should be worth more.  I suspect that they probably won’t be, but if they ever are the pictures of me with dozens of them before I sell them off will be fun.

I also have multiples of some books because MCS was pricing them below market for a long time and I just added them to every order I had with them.  Thor 338 is an example.  They were selling copies for under $4 when it was probably a $15 book, so I just kept buying them when they were available.  Now they are pricing it correctly, so I will probably switch to selling from buying.

I also have a very few more expensive books that I am speculating on because I think the market will value them higher at some point.

On 1/14/2022 at 5:27 PM, Ryan. said:

MCS buyers know that they grade ultra conservative so they will often buy at prices more reflective of higher grades than what is listed. Usually. Some books just get lost in the crowd though. 

The buyers usually do a pretty good job of figuring out the actual condition of the books from the scans and bidding accordingly.

One thing I’ve found as a buyer is that you have to look carefully at every book, because while their grading is pretty much always tighter than CGC, it isn’t consistently tighter by the same amount for all the various defects.  So a MCS 4.5 will be at least a CGC 4.5, but sometimes it might be as high as a CGC 6.0 or so.  Likewise a MCS 6.0 could be anything from a CGC 6.0 to pushing a 7.5-8.0. I haven’t quite found the exact method to their madness.  You just have to look at every book closely and translate it to CGC-style grading.

The nice thing about that is when you are buying books from their own inventory, you can occasionally find books that they hammer on grade ( and price ) that would get substantially higher grades from CGC.  Those books usually don’t last long though. 😀

I believe the AF15 CGC 2.5 was a new GPA high at $42,300. 

On 1/9/2022 at 1:52 PM, MattTheDuck said:

Seems like you're wasting a lot of books.

Could be worse

On 12/17/2021 at 10:34 AM, MR SigS said:

Otherwise it's like saying if Secret Wars II never came out

That’s a nice world to imagine. 

Okay, it sounds like you are set on a 9.8 from the 1980s that has some nostalgic appeal.  Nostalgia for other people is hard to judge.

I have a lot of nostalgia for a lot of books in the 80s, but it might not match your nostalgia.  The four books you listed are very popular.  I would lean towards the ASM 361 because I’m a Spidey guy and I’d rather have a 1st appearance rather than “just” a cool cover ( although 316 is a pretty darn cool cover ).

Some nostalgic choices I would consider for myself ( given the constraints of 9.8 from the 80s )

A set of 9.8 ASM 229 and 230.  These aren’t really keys, but those books have one of the coolest Spidey stories from the 80s, I like the covers and they are not super expensive.

A set of 9.8 ASM 249, 250, and 251.  Likewise, a cool story with little speculator run-up.

Spectacular Spiderman 64.  First Cloak and Dagger. 
 

I don’t typically buy graded 80s books, so take my recommendations with a grain of salt.  

On 1/7/2022 at 12:01 PM, namisgr said:

Yep.  For retirees no longer collecting salary and in an income bracket lower than the 28% charged for collectibles gains, it encourages flipping books in 12 months or less.

 

That is a somewhat perverse incentive that I hadn't thought about before.

On 1/6/2022 at 10:10 PM, lou_fine said:

Not sure what you mean here by a low census count because this chart that I am looking at indicates over 200 copies already in CGC 9.8 highest grade, with another 261 copies knocking right on it doorstep just waiting to have its potential maximized in order to enter the highest graded club.  

Then again, it is super high when compared to the thousands of copies of Spidey 252 in uber HG's becasue that one was definitely hoarded by collectors when it first came out.  I remember speaking to a comic book broker who had started out as a coin dealer and he told me that he had acquire 50 copies of the book in absolute mint condtion when it first came out because coin collectors used to collect coins in rolls of 50.  I found it rather funny because he sure sounded totally peeved off as the book went absolutely nowhere valuation wise due to the absolute huge number of copies in grade that were always available for the longest while back then. 

I believe that was probably the first and last time that he had ever speculated on a new book just hitting the shelves of the LCS and decided it was much wiser to go back to his GA books instead.  

It was “low” compared to ASM 194, which has 416 in 9.8 and 983 in 9.6.

My point was that there are probably more raw 9.8s of PPSS 90 out there compared to ASM 194 because it hasn’t been worth submitting the 90 for all that long compared to the 194.

I remember ASM 252 being worth $4-5 basically right from the start, which given that it was a 60 cent cover price book seems like a pretty good return for speculators. I was in a small market though, so it may have just been expensive in my town.

On 1/6/2022 at 5:31 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

 

That’s definitely worth paying a big premium for. 🙂

On 1/6/2022 at 4:11 PM, MAR1979 said:

 

Books	CGC Label	CGC Total	Avg. Grade	10	9.9	9.8	9.6	9.4	9.2	9.0	8.5	8.0	7.5	7.0	6.5	6.0	5.5	5.0	4.5	4.0	3.5	3.0	2.5	2.0	1.8	1.5	1.0	0.5
Spectacular Spider-Man 90 (5/84, Marvel Comics)             1st black costume in title. Black Cat appearance. Vision & Scarlet Witch cameo.	Universal	1,056	9.19			209	261	199	131	93	56	44	22	10	10	11	5	3		1					1

I do wonder if the Scarlett Witch and Vision cameo has also contributed a tiny bit?  Also due to the black cover it's condition sensitive. Census pop in 9.8 is very "low" when compared to ASM252 (or ASM194 )

I think the low census is probably because it has only became worth grading in the last few years.  Those Spectacular Spider-Mans are pretty sparse on the census because no one will pay to slab them.  I have a 9.8 copy of 78 that I paid as much to ship from Comiclink as I bid a number of years back.  There are still only 24 copies in 9.8, which appears to be supplying all of the demand at the moment.  If I see a nice 78 in the dollar box though, I snag it. 😀

On 1/6/2022 at 3:49 PM, MAR1979 said:

Same month as ASM252, it does surprise me it took that long for most to realize.

PPTSM 90 is my personal favorite Black Cat cover. I have my 2 childhood copies sitting in Sarasota since Sept. Perhaps I will receive them back this decade?

Sure, it’s the same month, but it’s not on the cover.  The black costume is just on the final page of the story.  The other two books have it on the cover and throughout the story.  It’s a pretty lame book to have to spend money on to complete a run, IMO. 

On 1/6/2022 at 11:27 AM, THE_BEYONDER said:

If I wanted an Uber HG copy of ASM 238 for my collection,  I would definitely take the discount and buy a green label with missing tattoos.  I’m amazed that the tats effect the price so much.

I have a really nice raw copy that is nice enough that I am afraid to actually read it these days.  I almost bought Dale’s copy in his sales thread just to have a reader.  

On 1/6/2022 at 1:52 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Back to the topic at hand....

 

Any one that thinks Felicia Hardy is a bit part player in the Spidey universe obviously wasn’t reading Spidey books in the ‘80s.   Spidey and Black Cat are a hundred times more interesting than Peter & MJ.   Toss in the Kingpin , and you have dark drama.

I have an intense nostalgia for those Spectaculars from 70-100 or so.  I get that the art isn’t great, but I did really enjoy the stories.  I still pick them out of dollar boxes even though I have at least doubles on most of them.  Sadly, I had to buy a raw copy of 90 for a somewhat inflated price because people have suddenly decided that was a first black costume issue.  Talk about manufactured keys.

On 1/6/2022 at 2:27 AM, lou_fine said:

Well, let's not forget how big Carol Danvers was in the MCU, even much more so than this Felicia Hardy.  Especially she was big enogh to headline her own movie, with another one on the way and her character, Captain Marvel, deemed to be a key central figure in the MCU going forward.  

And yet her first appearance in MSH which used to sell for multiples to condition guide, with a second highest CGC 9.6 even selling into the $30K's, can now generally be had at a discount to condition guide.  So, not sure how things are going to turn out for Spidey 194 when there are so many hundreds of copies in uber HG already, especially in comparison to MSH 13 with single digit copies in uber HG and yet they still couldn't maintain their prices longer term.  

Actually, the book which I see heading for a big big fall is the supposedly HTF, but in actual fact readily available variant edition of Ultimate Fallout 4, with CGC 9.8 graded copies selling for $30K+.  As I had alluded to in another post a few weeks ago:  

 

I didn’t have any idea who Carol Danvers was until the movie stuff started.

On 1/5/2022 at 12:06 PM, sledgehammer said:

Unless it's something genuine, like the Punisher.

As recently as 7 years ago,  ASM 194 had the same value in 9.2 as ASM 130-133

$85

 

It’s 6 years newer than those books.  I’m also not saying it should be super expensive, since there are lots and lots of copies of ASM from that era.  I’m just saying that if you are picking out ASM keys between 151-225, it is probably one of the first books you grab, and has been for a long time.  She was in almost every Spectacular Spiderman book for 2-3 years.  If you collected Spiderman in 1980s, you probably want her first appearance.