SOTIcollector

I don't know how many publishers did it, but I have seen just what you describe in some Classics. It could have been Classics Illustrated, but more likely Classics Comics. In that case, it was definitely something done in production, not a case where somebody removed pages.

Absolutely, and then some. TMNT #1 is in a whole different category from any other book of the era or since. TMNT transcended the universe of comic book collectors and readers to become a worldwide pop culture sensation. Very few properties in any medium ever do that, and certainly there are no other comics from the 80's onward that had the same cultural impact. Owning a copy of TMNT #1 is likely appealing to many who grew up exposed to the characters in their various media, not just in the comics. Even if a person has no connection to the world of comic book collecting, they may feel an affinity for the Turtles. And some of those people who grew up with the Turtles are now in lucrative careers that allow them to splurge on the introduction of characters they loved in their youth. Huge pool of buyers + small supply of comics =… $100k-ish, so far. If you think of major comic book milestones in terms of their worldwide pop culture impact, outside of comic book collecting circles, you get Action 1, 'Tec 27, AF15, and TMNT 1 at the top of the list, IMHO. Looking at it in those terms, $100K for a 9.8 might seem a bit more reasonable.

Thanks. I do still owe you a response to your last email. And I have some books to add to the site, but I have some technological hurdles to overcome first. I love that you're reading SOTI and hunting down these references as well. I've loved this stuff for years, and the more people who are hunting for these things, the better the chances of finding them!

Thanks for the heads up. Nicky and Gale are in Untamed Love 5.

And here is an oddball. Just back from CGC. A Valiant book with a really cool, but really wrong label. I will be sending it back so CGC can fix their error. But just in case someone wants an error like this, I figured I would post it here first. $250.

And now, CGC 9.4 WHITE. Love that Valiant label. GPA shows a sale in 2019 for $248, but that seems to be an outlier because there have been sales of higher grades for less. Yours for $125. This slab is just back from CGC and the case is pristine.

First up, CGC 8.0 WHITE. Somehow there's a hole in the book that I never saw before sending it in. Graded 8.0 with that hole, meaning it presents a heck of a lot nicer. Great presentation, low price. $70.

Up for grabs, a couple cool books fresh back from CGC. Of course, owning one of the scarcest of the early Valiant books is great. Even better is having is slabbed in the awesome Valiant label! Both books have been pressed. The usual rules. No HOS or probationers. Secure, double-boxed shipping is $15. I'm willing to ship internationally at cost, but it can get expensive so contact me first because I typically only ship in ways that allow me to fully insure the shipment. Payment by PayPal (goods & services of course). Returns within 14 days. If I made a mistake in the listing, returns are at my expense. If you're returning for any other reason, then the return shipping is at your expense. in thread trumps all discussions.

Check out CGC's page here. https://www.cgccomics.com/grading/collectibles-that-are-not-encapsulated/ The salient point is:"CGC will not certify...poly-bagged collectibles. All collectibles must be taken out of poly bags before being graded." A poly-bagged comic is one that is manufactured with a sealed bag around it, as one would see with the bagged versions of Superman #75, McFarlane's Spider-man #1 and many other comics. If you're not familiar with poly-bagged comics, a search of eBay for either of those items will show you want they look like. Although a "cardboard slipcase" is rare, it seams reasonable to expect that CGC would treat it the same way they treat comics that are sealed in polybags. As I was writing this, HaDokKen wisely indicated that perhaps your comic is in a standard comic book bag and backing board. Are you referring to a bag-and-board that was added after the comic's publication, by a comic book dealer or collector? These are typically sealed on the back with tape, but some bags have an adhesive strip built into the flap. If that's what you have, then it's fine (and recommended) that you leave the comic book in the bag and board when sending it. You'll probably want to carefully remove the comic book before sending it, and inspect the comic to make sure there are no defects that are hidden by the bag. If, after close inspection, the comic book is still worthy of sending in, then carefully seal it back in the bag and board before sending. It's also important to know that the bag and board will not be returned to you.

Given what I've seen over the years, that statement is extremely unlikely to be true. If it were true that comics always go up after 30 years, then 30 year old comics would all be worth more now than when they were printed. However, today 95+% of the comic books printed in 1990 are not worth more than they cost new, even if you don't adjust for inflation. In fact, if you have the resources to buy in bulk, you can buy boxes of comics from the 1990's for 5-10 cents per comic.

The advice I give to anybody who wants to invest in comics is always the same: buy what you like. If it goes up, it's a bonus for you. If it doesn't, and it usually doesn't, then you've still gotten enjoyment out of it. I've collected comics for a number of decades, owned a store, sold at conventions, and I've talked with hundreds of people who wanted to make money buying and selling comics. Very few have ever made a significant amount of money on them, even when they have devoted a lot of time and effort to it. That said, it seems you're determined to invest this money, and I wish you the best. I'm sure you're aware that while you could make money, you could also lose a lot of money as well. To determine if something is worth grading, you'll want to know what copies are selling for. eBay completed listings are helpful for commonly-traded books, but you can only see a few months of sales. For something that doesn't sell as often, such as Giant-Size Super-Stars #1 in CGC 9.8, your best approach is to pay for a subscription service that gives you access to previous auctions over a number of years. For that, I use GPAnalysis.com. Some use GoCollect. Is your Giant-Size Super-Stars graded by CGC as a CGC 9.8, or is the 9.8 your assessment of the grade? If it's graded, then a subscription service that provides you real-world auction results would be useful. If your book is not graded, then your next step should be to have some experts give you an opinion of the grade, to see if it's worth having graded. With a subscription service, you'd find that two CGC graded copies of Giant-Size Super-Stars #1 sold in 2019: one for $515, and one for $346. That's not what the seller got for the books. That's the price a buyer paid including any auction house surcharges. If I were selling a copy today, I'd consider myself lucky to net $400 and would be disappointed with a $300 sale. As for slabbing Black Lightning #1-11, or any other run, the answer is to ignore the fact that it's a run. Just consider each individual issue. If you're just looking to sell for an immediate profit, then add up the cost of the book plus the cost of shipping to CGC plus the cost of grading (and, if desired, pressing) and the cost of return shipping and the amount of profit you expect to make. Compare that to the market rate for the book, based on the grade the experts believe the book will get. Subtract the cost of selling from the market rate (eBay fees, auction house consignment fees, shipping, etc.) If the market rate will get you the profit you expect, then grade it. If the market rate won't get you the profit you expect, then don't bother slabbing, whether it's issue #1, issue #11, or anything in between. Oh, and somewhere in there you need to take into account the fact that it won't necessarily come back the grade you had hoped for. If you expect a 9.6 but get a 9.0, then you could easily come out with a loss rather than a profit. Best of luck!

I believe the address prints out on your submission form. I was surprised to see that the address is nowhere to be found on the page about how to submit books. Here are CGC's various addresses. https://www.cgccomics.com/contact/

On a totally unrelated note... I see what you did there. I appreciate a clever use of the language, and that's spooning clever.

Ok, I appreciate the response. I was hoping for something different, but I certainly understand. Thank you.

Thanks for the plug, @sfcityduck. I need to update the site, but here are the "Lost SOTI" books that haven't been found yet. At my site (www.LostSOTI.org), you'll find others that haven't been found, but which may not exist because they come from questionable sources (like a child telling Wertham or an assistant what they thought they read in a comic, as opposed to Wertham witnessing the comic himself.) Page(s) Quote from unknown SOTI comic Notes 8 Here is the lecherous-looking bandit overpowering the attractive girl who is dressed (if that is the word) for very hot weather ("She could come in handy, then! Pretty little spitfire, eh!") in the typical pre-rape position. Later he threatens to kill her: "Yeah, it's us, you monkeys, and we got an old friend of yours here... Now unless you want to see somp'n FATAL happen to here, u're gonna kiss that gold goodbye and lam out of here!" 8-9 Here is violence galore, violence in the beginning, in the middle, at the end: ZIP! CRASH! SOCK! SPLAT! BAM! SMASH! (This is an actual sequence of six pictures illustrating brutal fighting, until in the seventh picture: "He's out cold!") 9 …graphic pictures of the white man shooting colored natives as though they were animals: "You sure must have treated these beggars rough in that last trip though here!" 106 In a typical specimen a man-eating shark changes into a girl. You are shown the gruesome picture of an arm bitten off by the shark with blood flowing from the severed stump. And the moral ending? "No one would ever believe . . . that the ghost of a lovely girl could inhabit a shark's body..." 111 In another comic book the murderer says to his victim: "I think I'll give it to yuh in the belly! Yuh get more time to enjoy it!" 111 "His body was torn to shreds, his face an unrecognizable mass of bloody and clawed flesh!" 112 In a Western comic book the "Gouger" is threatening the hero's eye with his thumb, which has a very long and pointed nail. This is called the "killer's manicure." He says: "YORE EYES ARE GONNA POP LIKE GRAPES WHEN OL' GOUGER GETS HIS HANDS ON YOU!... HERE GO THE PEEPERS!" 114-115 A four-year-old boy in Florida looked through his brother's comic books and his mother found him under a tree stark naked, with a long knife in his hands. Stunned, she asked him why he had undressed himself, and what he was doing. He replied, "The man in the comics did it." Later he showed her pictures where some "Mongols" had a white man stripped naked and one of them had a long knife to cut out the American's tongue. In Captain Marvel #140, the villains are "Mongols", but there are no scenes in the book that match this description. 137 I can match this almost verbally [Note: Did Wertham mean 'verbatim'?]: "Let's see you try to take me, you big brave coppers!" says a comic book on my desk. This quote sounds like a paraphrase of the most famous quote from real-life criminal "Two-Gun Crowley". His story was told in Hunted #13, Justice Traps the Guilty #4, Justice Traps the Guilty #59 and War Against Crime #2 (although E.C.'s story is about "Hank 'Two Gun' Corley" rather than "Frank 'Two Gun' Crowley", it's clear who the protagonist is). This quote comes from none of those comics. Crowley's story is also told in Crime Does Not Pay #46, Murder Incorporated #10 and Sky Sheriff v1#1. 159 In a recent comic book which has the "Seal of Approval of Comics Magazine Publishers," and is sold in New York subways, you learn that after a robbery you can escape more easily if you shoot out the source of light; you learn how to trade in guns; how to hijack ammunition; how to impersonate regular soldiers (I have had several cases of young people doing just that); and, of course, how to torture and kill a "squealer." A search of GCD for hijacking stories returns a number of crime comics, but the only one with the ACMP seal is Justice Traps the Guilty #11. However, that comic does not contain this lost SOTI reference. GCD also shows several comics with a title that involves squealers. Based on that search, this reference is not in Crime Does Not Pay #89, Complete Mystery #4 or All True Crime Cases #34. 159 In one which has the "Seal of Approval of Comics Magazine Publishers" young men fake disease to get out of the army. 159 "Didn't I bluff my way out of the army?" says the hero-criminal. "Got a medical discharge without having anything wrong except indigestion! If you work it right, no doctor in the world can prove you're bluffing!" It's likely this is the same one mentioned in the prior reference. 160 Another comic book shows how a youngster can murder for profit. He gets a job as a caddy, loses the ball, then kills the player when he goes searching for it. In searching for Golden Age stories about golf, we found that this is not from Journey into Mystery #13 "Keep off the Grass"; Tales from the Crypt #36, "How Green was my Alley" 160 "Fixing" of sporting events has recently been front-page news. I have one accused boy under psychotherapy right now. In comic books that is old stuff: "Here's 500 now, and you'll get 500 when it's over!" Although this could be a reference to any sporting event, it seems most likely this dialogue comes from a "fixed" boxing match. According to eBayer Habib, this is NOT in the boxing story in Racket Squad in Action #9. David T. Alexander was kind enough to point out that although DC's Mr. District Attorney #3 does contain a line about the "fixing" of a boxing match, it is not the book referenced here. Shock SuspenStories #4 also contains a boxing story, but not this one. Man Comics #6 contains a boxing story which has not been checked for this reference, but seems unlikely to be this one since the Man #6 story is about murder in the ring. Crime Detective v1#10 and Crime Must Pay the Penalty #31 each have a story about fixing a boxing match, but it's not the story to which Wertham was referring. 161 Forgery is, of course, also described in comic books. The preferred method is to pick up a blotter which has been used and copy the signature with the aid of a mirror. 161 From one book you can learn how to cut through the glass and break into a store and how to stop the noise when you do break in: "Pile the blankets on to smother the noise!" 162 A man's pocketbook is stolen on the subway. Millions of little boys learn how to do that: "Did someone shove a newspaper in your face? And were you shoved from the rear at the same time? I can see that's what happened. The pickpocket got it while you were upset by the shove." Lesson completed. 162 How to steal a woman's pocketbook is outlined, too. According to the stories it may be done skillfully and peacefully, but if that does not work, just hit them over the head. 162 In some comic books it is shown how the youngest tots are picked up bodily, held upside down and shaken so that the coins will fall out of their pockets. It could be this was a scene of comic relief in a GA Daredevil book; that's one place to look, anyway. 162-163 Often comic books describe real crimes that have been featured in the newspapers. In adapting them for children the following points are stressed: the daring and success of the criminals is exalted; brutal acts are shown in detail; sordid details are emphasized; if there are any sexual episodes they are featured. In 1952 three men escaped from a penitentiary. They stole cars, evaded the police, kidnapped people, held up a bank, and were finally caught in New York where they were living with three girls. A real children's story! In the first picture there is an unmade bed, a half-nude man and a girl. The prison break is described like a heroic feat. The ease with which you can steal cars in the country from a farmer is pointed out to youngsters who do not know that yet. One of the criminals boasts to a little boy that he has killed fifteen or sixteen people, "I lost count." 163 The girls living with the criminals are featured, two of them hiding behind a shower curtain. There are seventy-six pictures of exploits; in the seventy-seventh picture the police take over with a cheap wisecrack. 178 Another boy defended Crimes by Women and showed a copy of Penalty which he said was worse. ""It shows how to commit burglaries, holdups. A gangster has a hand on a girl's shoulder. He is working his way down to her headlights."" This is one that may never be found. All issues of Crime Must Pay the Penalty have been reviewed, and several instances have been found that involve a gangster putting his hand on a girl's shoulder and also involve holdups. It's likely that this reference comes from issue #3, because issue 3 was used in the NY State Legislature's investigation of comic books, to which Wertham contributed. Unless the information turns up in Dr. Wertham's files, we'll never know for sure which comic this is. Possible candidates: Crime Must Pay the Penalty #3 (Story also reprinted in #36) Crime Must Pay the Penalty #17 Crime Must Pay the Penalty #23 Crime Must Pay the Penalty #25 Crime Must Pay the Penalty #28 182 In one comic book with a story on "the man who shanghaied more than 1,000 men from the San Francisco docks," there is suddenly - unrelated to the story - an illustration showing large in the foreground only the lower part of a girl's legs, in net stockings and very high-heeled red shoes. Although the following contain stories of shanghais in San Francisco, they do not fit Wertham's decscription: Buccaneers #23, Famous Crimes #8, Inside Crime #3, Outlaws #12 (which is a reprint of Western Killers #61), War Against Crime #3, Western Killers #61, or Women Outlaws #3. It could be Prize Comics Western #v9#2 (#81), which features the story "Bandits of Barbary."

This. Beyond this, you've posted a lot of details that have nothing to do with this. By your own admission, you removed the book from sale after his "take". Since then, you've been given a number of opportunities to do the honorable thing, but you've stuck to your guns and indicated that you'll do no such thing. Noted. Thank you, and have a nice day.

That's assuming the buyer is interested. The 10% wouldn't matter to me. I wouldn't be interested in buying anything from a seller who refuses to sell after a deal has been made. Period.

I saw that. I've always taken it for granted that both the buyer and seller were bound by the rules to honor a sale. This caused me to re-read the rules, and I was surprised to find that there's nothing in them saying that people should honor their commitments. If a buyer doesn't hold up their end of the bargain, don't they risk probation? Shouldn't the same standard hold for sellers? Oh, and the seller posted a total BS excuse of "I was tired when I posted this." But if there was a whole conversation about it being pressed or not, the seller had PLENTY of opportunity to recognize a mistake caused by being "tired" and pull the book from sale.

So it appears that the buyer posted an unqualified "take it", and then after that you posted that you were pulling the book from sale because you thought you'd make more money by going a different route. That hardly seems fair to the buyer. Typically on the boards, both buyer and seller are expected to honor a "take it" agreement.

There's no direct answer there, but it's a great start. Thanks, @comicdonna !

Ok, I've searched for this answer, and haven't had any luck poking through this forum and using the search feature. Perhaps one of our seasoned registry veterans knows the answer. Is there a protocol for determining points on a book that has never sold? Here's the story. A while back, I discovered that the book Tween Age Digest #1 was referenced in Seduction of the Innocent. I sent it off to be slabbed, along with my documentation, so I now have the one-and-only slabbed copy. Matt was kind enough to add it to the SOTI set on my request. He also indicated "I added it to the set but used a default value of 4 points for a 9.0 grade. I am unable to find any relevant sales. Please send a pm if you have any auction details and I will update the score. Thank you." Is there a method of extrapolating a realistic number of points for a book that is 1 of 1 on the census? I can't be the only one to have come across this, so if you're aware of a thread that answers my question, I'd appreciate a link. Thanks!

$350

$200

1 Jungle Comics 60 $150 2 Weird Science 20 $75 3 FF 53/Black Panther 1 $75