Hamlet

Yeah, I can’t see springing a request like that on him at a show. I’d essentially be asking him to parody his own work, which many people would not take very well. I just think it would be funny.

I wonder what it would cost to have him do a recreation of Vampirella #1 for me? Imagine the Frazetta image but with lots of pouches and guns ( but no feet of course ). I think it would be worth a fair amount to me just to torment the guys in the Magazine sub forum. 😀

My question is why anyone would be interested in either version of this book? 😈

I hear they are casting him as Vampirella 😀

Nope. I'm generally pretty content with a book in the VF range, so I'm never going to pay huge money for a CGC 9.x copy. I honestly don't buy many graded books. The ones that I do buy are mostly older mid-grade books that are expensive enough that I want to have the restoration check. If I didn't already own a copy, I'd probably buy the nicest raw copy I could get for $200-$300 and call it good. I would say that if I was to get my collection down to just a single box, I would still keep a copy of this book. Honestly, I'd get rid of ASM 300 before this one. This one pushes all of my nostalgia buttons.

I bought my very nice raw copy for $2. It was sometime in the 80s. I couldn't find a copy locally, so I had to mail order my copy. Unlike many of the books I mail ordered back in the day, I got a really nice copy. Collecting has gotten a lot easier, albeit a lot more expensive.

It’s obstructed view, but you’re in the house! 😀

Yup. I started collecting by buying ASM 260 off of the stands. During the next 2-3 years, it was really tough sledding as a Spiderman fan. The books were pretty darn bad until Kraven’s last hunt and the McFarlane era. The Hobgoblin appearances were about all there was to like in that period. The Hobgoblin triggers my nostalgia in a way that few other characters do. I will always own a copy of ASM 238. I think the book is awesome, although I probably wouldn’t recommend it as a book to buy for investment potential, as I think it depends on our specific nostalgia. I don’t get spending thousands for a plastic 9.8 though.

I recommend 3000 $1 books.

I have six copies and no Deadpool card. No found money for me 😀

I have an extremely nice raw copy of this book, as well as nice copies of other Spidey books that have exploded like 300. I feel like I should get them graded to see if any make 9.8, so that I can sell them and get VF+ raw copies for a tiny fraction of the money. This is just goofy money IMO.

100,000 dollar box books

Is it tough or expensive book? I’m guessing that it would probably make more sense to buy a CGC 9.8 and then sell your book, rather than take the risk and expense of regrading. That may not be feasible if the book is hard to find in 9.8 though.

I’m good with the worst two. 😀

Honestly, that would be a really fun challenge for a show. Buy 100 dollar books to make 10 lots at MCS, ship them to them and see what you can net after shipping and fees. At a big show you could go with a few people and make it a competition. It wouldn’t have to be exclusively dollar boxes. You could also do a variation where you all have $500 to spend.

Between shipping costs and the $12 minimum fee, it gets marginal pretty quickly. They really need to be $5 books for it to be worth doing. 😀

My problem is that I do most of my “investing” out of the dollar boxes. Some of my latest acquisitions are below. I think that they are great buys for a dollar. Many of them are probably solid $3 books. Sadly, there is no easy way to sell them for that without a lot of work. So I’ve really just bought myself a low-wage job in the future. On the plus side, I do envision myself setting up at some small local conventions in 10 years or so, after I retire and the kids go off to college. The downside to this plan is that my family history suggests that there are decent odds that I’ll keel over by that time, and my wife will be stuck dealing with 1000s of $3 books. She knows to lean on @Randall Dowlingfor help, who will also probably not be thrilled to deal with them. Sorry buddy, hoarders gotta hoard.

Imagine how big the buying pool is with 100,000 $1 books 😀 Actually, I do think books in the $100-$200 range would be a pretty good sweet spot for liquidity, diversification, and ease of selling.

I wouldn’t assume that the two questions are linked in the long run. There are plenty of businesses that do pretty well even though their customers almost always take it on the chin. Payday lending, variable annuity sales, and rent-to-own businesses come to mind. If people are willing to lose large amounts in casinos, I don’t see why they wouldn’t be willing to lose money buying pieces of comics.

MyComicShop notes this for issue 56- Statement of ownership: average print run 52,038; average paid circulation 51,338 Those are cool covers I’ve never noticed before. I think I’m going to keep an eye out for them now.

I would take the opposite path. Sell all your big keys and buy as many cool books out of the cheap boxes that you can find. I mean really, what would you rather have -- an ASM 300 CGC 9.8 or 8-10 long boxes of cool non-key books? Then you have a great collection, and you can earn $3/hr selling books on Ebay when they get hot. To me the choice is clear

When I read the fine print last time, it appeared to me like they could borrow against the value of the comic to pay their expenses. When they sell a comic, they would pay back the debts incurred before paying out the shareholders of the comic. That is why I have absolutely no confidence in this arrangement. They have every incentive to run up expenses in self-dealing and leave the shareholders with a lot less down the road.

Yup. I drive a 2008 Kia Rondo, but I’m nowhere near as high class as that implies.

How bad was the rest that what you kept was the X-force 1’s ?

I get the appeal of the whole idea. I just think people are going to get robbed blind over the years by the startups that try to do a piece of it. In the first thread, I read some of RallyRd’s fine print. I’m not saying they are definitely going to rob people blind, but there’s not much in the fine print stopping them.