fantastic_four

He does sell some slabbed books--I'm guessing some of these buys were slabs.

You shouldn't be ashamed about buying from Dupcak. He's a great and knowledgable guy to talk to, his work is quite slight, and his con is highly refined. If you're always afraid of snakes in the grass, you'll never run through another meadow...

Doesn't look like it, I couldn't remember but checked my PayPal history, didn't see his name in it.

SAME! ebay username is "fantastic-four", although I did buy from him as comic-keys and it was quite a while ago, I think in 2001 or 2002.

That's a really sweet Spidey 14, definitely better than mine!

Well that's just with respect to the art and subjects...you could be right in terms of toughness with regards to color preservation, not sure! (thumbs u

No way #2 is a 5. I should have given it a 1. (thumbs u Just because it is a Ditko cover does not automatically qualify it for a 5 ranking. #21 is god awful with the beetle on the cover. Agreed...the #2 cover is pedestrian, and the Vulture blows.

Spiderman-on-tilt screwed up my saving for AF15 budget again...I wish he'd stop coming up with books on the verge of perfection!!!

Picked up a really nice 57 this week...I'm trying to save for AF15, but when perfection comes along at a reasonable price, it's tough to pass up!

Whichever is colder and dryer...most likely the basement since you have a dehumidifier.

How do we know this? Because we've either seen it ourselves, because conservators tell us this, or both. You'd think we'd "all know" high temperature is bad for paper products as well for exactly those same reasons, yet still this thread continues purely out of egotistical argumentativeness...I'm slowly coming around to joining FFB in his disgust.

Don't advise people that high temperature is irrelevant nor that the garage is a good place to keep them as it runs counter to every bit of professional conservation opinion to be found in any library or paper-related hobby. I'm assuming here that your garage isn't temperature controlled since most aren't and you didn't explicitly say yours was.

This was one of the Mile High 2 issues...I think it's the easiest to find in high grade in the 1 to 93 run. The issue never seems to go up in value and mostly has gone down over the last 10 years due to ever-burgeoning supply. That's a great copy, the edges look better than 9.2 in the scan. (thumbs u

It's difficult, but not THAT difficult. Impatience.

This is gonna sound snarky but it's not. You must be living in a different Connecticut than I've lived in all my life. It gets humid as HELL here in the summer. No, not Florida humid or Louisiana humid but still pretty damn humid. Yep, I can confirm that. I have lived in florida for most of the last 40 years and I have NEVER felt any humidity here at all The entire southeast is humid, even if you're 200 miles in from the ocean; I'm 150 miles inland and the gauge on my wall tells me it's at 50% humidity just here in early spring. I didn't think you had to be really close to the ocean to be affected by evaporation off of it, but eh, I really don't know every variable that contributes to high humidity.

This is gonna sound snarky but it's not. You must be living in a different Connecticut than I've lived in all my life. It gets humid as HELL here in the summer. No, not Florida humid or Louisiana humid but still pretty damn humid. Plus, your comic room is on the third floor? Only the attic will be hotter and more humid in the summer. What he said. I’m a bit farther north up in MA, but I don’t think the climate is all that different. It gets powerful humid here. You can get a hygrometer for about $15 at Home Depot. I’d strongly recommend one for your storage room to monitor humidity. Wide humidity fluctuations as as bad as wide temperature fluctuations. I was under the impression that EVERY east coast state in the US gets humid during the summer. I know it gets up around 60% to 75% humidity in the middle of the summer here in Virginia...I'd expect Connecticut to be a bit lower in the summer than Virginia, but not much, as it's a small state and it's right on the ocean.

Yea that's exactly how I've seen "best of" forums managed, the admin bumps posts in there. It solves the problems of stickies dominating the first page or two of a forum...it's mostly just admin stuff that should be stickied in a high-traffic forum.

Instead of stickies, we should have a separate "best of" forum. Many heavy-traffic forums with quality posters use these, and there are MORE than enough quality threads here to merit one.

It's all in how long you want the books to last without degrading. If the answer is around a decade, you're fine, you'll do a little damage but not much. If the answer is 30-50 years or more and we assume the pages are white today (I'm sure many aren't), then the pages are highly likely to go offwhite or cream in this environment while in your possession. The average collector barely cares about offwhite and cream pages with raw books in hand, so storage in highish temperatures is deceptively safe to people who largely ignore page color. Books can go from white to offwhite after 10-20 years in 80-90 degree temps, but to most people, that's no change at all, although obviously since CGC started noting page quality in addition to the numerical grade, this has gained a LOT more attention from the high-end collector.

THANKS! They're thumbnail links to larger scans...I don't like posting multiple full-size scans in a single post, particularly the 150dpi scans I take. Nice FF 36!

There are two Pacific Coast X-Men #1 copies, the other one is a 9.8 white. Doug used to own both, but he upgraded the 9.6 to a 9.8 and sold the one pictured above. My memory is telling me this one was a 9.4 at some point, but I could be misremembering that. Gosh, how could there be a BETTER example than that 9.6 ? Here's the 9.8--actually this is the 9.6 I listed above but upgraded: Here's the other 9.6 that's Pacific Coast, it's ow/w in the pic, bet it's White now, but I don't know that at all, it's a wild guess:

There are two Pacific Coast X-Men #1 copies, the other one is a 9.8 white. Doug used to own both, but he upgraded the 9.6 to a 9.8 and sold the one pictured above. My memory is telling me this one was a 9.4 at some point, but I could be misremembering that.

I agree...I have never saw a 9.2 even with W PQ, anyone? I wonder if the few copies that are 9.6/9.8 are White pages. Yes, I think at least two of the 9.6s are and both 9.8s are. Here's one of the 9.6s:

Printing plates. What is done with these? I'm surprised that these don't sell like original art does.

I've got #1 up to the latest newsstand issue all in VF or better. Amazing Fantasy 15 is the only one I'm missing. :hail: I saw that #92 you picked up the other day. Unbelievable copy. Got the #92 in from loboagain yesterday, packed securely and shipped fast, and an absolutely stunning copy with perfect QP and PQ of one of my favorite early Spidey covers!