Mike's Rack

My Dad owned a small business for years. Occasionally, a customer would comment that the shop down the street has it for less. His response was always the same “Well, then I would buy it there.” I never saw anyone do that.

It must be an outlier…

I use whatever sale I feel I can leverage into getting a better deal. Last sale 2009? Sounds reasonable. But I would never try that with you Bob…

If this post concluded with “and you can all go f—- yourselves.” It really wouldn’t sound any worse.

Yes.

You can tell because their books are all “sick bangers bringing the heat”

Does that mean the Jay Company exclusives with the added covers will now get a blue label? I think I have a stack of those around somewhere?

Years ago I walked through a con taking pictures of peoples boards while they were setting up...

That thread reads a bit differently now...

The real victims in all of this are the Miles Morales fans that really wanted a copy of the reprint with a cool plastic cover stapled to it and were not able to buy one for $85 and must now pay the scalpers premium.

Hot damn!

Mmmmm.... Dave Stevens...

The comics I bought in 1990 are worthless, the comics I bought in 2012 are paying for my kid's college.

My take is, if you like the book, hold it. You will have a 9.8 copy of a book you like. If you don't like it, sell it and use the proceeds to buy a copy of a book you really like. That way, you will have a copy of a book you really like. If you are riding the train trying to time the market to get the most money from this specific book, you may get it right or you may get it wrong. If you are ok with that then by all means have fun and shoot for the moon. But if you would regret selling the book too soon or holding it too long, then you would loose money plus you would suffer the pain of regret. Like the Buddhist story of the second arrow. Whether you should sell the book now or hold it, the decision is more about you than about the book.

I'm sorry for your loss Cat. I've never met you but in 2013, I was fortunate to have you as my CGC secret Santa. In my office hangs a beautiful drawing of a dragon that you did for me. It's dated 12/4/2013, my mother passed a year later after her own bout with cancer. I look at that dragon each day and it brings me joy. I've never really known how to properly thank you for such a gift.

Joke of the day!

So sexy...

You're right, even the old Overstreet guidelines limited books with cutouts to 1.0.

Yeah, you should out this guy. There's no way anyone in the hobby for more than a month or two would fail to inspect a book like this before selling it on eBay. I have missed stuff on books before but this stinks.

I've pondered on this before. I think the major difference is that MCS doesn't have a qualified grade so if you take an otherwise 9.8 with MVS cut, cgc can give it a green 9.8 or you can request the universal grade. (I'm not sure that CGC has said the highest a book can get with a cut out is a .5 but I could be wrong. MCS doesn't have the qualified option so they grade the whole book. Traditionally, I believe the hobby allowed pieces cut in the 2.0 grade, so MCS is following the norms of the hobby. I have gotten some really nice GA books with pieces out from MCS for my PC at amazing prices.

In general, the hobby has embraced 9.8 as the standard for high grade books. (The reason is nuanced, but basically for late silver to modern age books, this is the highest grade you can reasonably expect to receive. A trained hobbyist can recognize a 9.8 book but to accurately call a 9.9 and 10.0 takes a grader trained in CGC's methods.) This has caused demand for 9.8 books to increase. Not everyone desires to have their collection contain the highest grade possible, but those who do understand the difficulties and risks of submitting raw books in an effort to get a 9.8, and are willing to pay a premium for them. The CCG registry also provides incentive for collectors to seek 9.8's of key and non-key books. People competing on registry sets are very competitive and also willing to pay a premium for higher grade books. There has also been a bit of bootstrapping; for example in my personal collection. Generally, I don't really care if I have a 9.8 or a 9.6 or even a 9.4 in my PC, except I know that if I ever try to liquidate, the higher grade will generate a better return. So, if I am going through the effort and expense to fine a certain book and store it properly for several years, it is better to do that with a 9.8 because the odds are better that the returns will be higher if I ever need to liquidate.

Plastic boxes suck to pick up and move as they have a tendency to dig into your hands and this compounds if you move a whole lot of boxes at once. I once bought a collection in plastic boxes and my helpers said it was the last show if I kept using plastic boxes. Through I guess they could have worn gloves.

On the other end, about 2 years ago, a friend of mine bought a large copper/modern collection and started listing the books at BIN of $2.99. One book he listed sold within seconds and he called me to ask if I knew why it sold so fast. He said he decided to list the cartoonish books first since they have little value and he didn't feel like looking them up. The book was a pristine copy of Batman Adventures 12.

There's nothing like a high grade copy you bought yourself off the rack! Congrats.

What ever happened to the guy that thought he could spot 9.9's and guaranteed that he would have multiple 9.9's in each submission?