On 6/14/2024 at 10:36 AM, A-DONIS said:

It WOULD be nice if customer service was consistent with their answers.  Fact of the matter is that all customer service is REMOTELY from home..no one works at the office anymore and there's no direct line of contact.

They can't even email you back properly.

Do not criticize authority or you will be banned....naughty, naughty.

_{Nothing to see here, inconsistent answers on the forums are just your imagination and pointing them out is very mean.}

3K is probably a good price (3x 9.8 cost) but you have to know what to look for as IIRC someone made a number of fakes and sold them.

For a bit of history:

The spiral bound version was shipped to retailers as a preview incentive and was only printed to around 100 (+/-). This version doesn't actually contain the full story from issue #1 it is only a preview with an additional text letter.

I have never been lucky enough to own one and have only seen one in the wild 15+ years ago; there is a fanbase for this that does not easily part with their treasures.

On 6/10/2024 at 2:06 PM, devilsrain said:

ALL sketches?

Good sir are you trying to impugn CGC's reputation by showing cases of inconsistency..... I foresee many 9.6s without grader notes in your future.

On 6/10/2024 at 6:09 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

Did you just admit to tax evasion?

of course, I always admit to federal crimes on internet forums.....

If someone is worried about giving the government money on a random $200 sale, I have some bad news for everyone that has ever given money to a friend without reporting it, or your untaxed yard sale purchases and sales, even contest winnings.... registry awards are right around the corner .

obviously don't listen to rando's on the internet for tax advice, but the IRS swat team isn't busting down your door because you sold a Darkhawk #1 at a convention and didn't report it. That drastically changes when you try and not report that highly publicized Action #1, though. Reporting this stuff if you are at the level that it needs reporting is very messy and should be handled by your accountant because they know what profit means, what can be deducted to limit exposure, and most importantly the exact form needed.

pretty sure it is Denny O'Neil

speaking from a purely hypothetical and very anti tax stance...

I don't self report anything that I have not been personally issued a correct 1099 for, by someone else.

Your moral position on what you owe the government and are willing to pay is between you and your accountant.

All those beautiful books and not an Adventure #346 in sight.... it is a conspiracy!

Thanks for all the great pics, one of these years I will eventually make down to this convention, it always looks great.

On 6/7/2024 at 8:26 AM, CHWL said:

Saw this on Ebay. Got the green label treatment.

glad you found this on Ebay....

On 6/6/2024 at 1:50 PM, Adam Care said:

I have a graded book at 9.6, when i go to verify, it says no notes available.     any thoughts on how i can get the noted on why its 9.6 and not .8 

I find that a crisp $20 inserted behind the front cover often solves this issue and since only one grader looks at the book they don't have to split it!

..... maybe.

Quote

How could you have so much laziness and hoping to sell?

I've had a box of slabs i've been meaning to sell for over six months now sitting under my desk without posting them or just sending them to CLink. I am starting to get mad they haven't sold yet... not even an offer.

It depends what will happen to your stuff when you are no longer here.

Anything personalized is going to sell for much less than non-personalized and leaving your family the burden of selling your personalized collection of Sleepwalker or Quasar comics will absolutely be a burden. Your personal collection is only a cover for what you own currently or not "wanting" to sell at this very moment, tomorrow is a completely unrelated subject.

I hate to say this but the idea of "passing things down" is generally overly romanticized by old people whose real purpose is to tacitly live on in some form afterwards. While obviously not every case colloquially 90% of items left to family are just sold for cash or thrown away since it doesn't suit their interests or just having old people stuff dumped on you isn't really the caring endeavor most want it to be regardless of "value". Speaking of which you might have something that is valuable and the knowledge of how to extract that value, but does your husband have that same knowledge? do your grandkids? or will they be gifted something of value without the tools necessary to maximize it and end up selling it on facebook for 25% of what they could have gotten at in a random comiclink auction?

It is something that has to be thought about outside of yourself.

This just popped up today: (4436357001)

@MattM CS Is this the correct labeling and designation?

I have never understood CGC's absolute stubbornness of and absolute hatred of not grading a sketch and just authenticating it with letters ART in the box vice a numeric grade. It would cutout turn around time and skip an entire step of the process saving time/money for both the company and customer. It is literally the easiest win/win of lowest hanging fruit available.

Forcing a green label for a sketch on one hand but offering a yellow on the other will confuse the customer base and make CGC just look dumb with the needless double standard.

2/4 on my original guesses is probably as well as can be expected.

These are pretty underwhelming overall and are pretty safe from a financial standpoint. The Alex Ross heroes/villains should be generic enough that it sees a lot of cross book usage.

I still wish they would at least try a test run for a golden age label using public domain characters that way there is as little investment as possible and higher chance to meet ROI targets.

On 6/1/2024 at 4:51 PM, Sigur Ros said:

Or any reholder, really.

Saw this on IG

Reholdering is fine as they do not regrade the book unless something happens (which you will be notified about).

The grade drop and lack of transparency on how sketches affect the grade (outside of the nebulous statement offered) has me very hesitant to submit any green label for authentication. Best internal practices would include automation in tracking a book entered as a 9.8 then leaving as a 9.2 being flagged for review. But we all know CGC does not do this in any way and blames all mishandling of books in CGC possession on the customer. No graders notes on this is also a substandard practice, I am going to have to see a lot of these books in the wild prior to sending in anything and trusting the current process.

The facsimiles don't have any value, most do not even sell on ebay for more than the cost of grading/shipping. Even the signed slabs rarely hit the break even point.

Technically you can store your slabs in the microwave if you want... it is all a matter of gumption.

Unfortunately it will turn the 3D hologram on these into 2D as a result of the flat pressing with additional heat....

They can be pressed, normally without issue. I would only recommend doing your research about CGC pressing prior to submission.

I never collected many of the previews outside of a couple with interesting inserts (Defiant #0) but I did have a pretty sizable stack of Mile High Futures prior to a storage unit flood. These have proven pretty difficult to replace despite being almost worthless.

The Peter Krause art looks a lot like the art from the ghost band kickstarter from some years ago (I double checked and he wasn't listed in credits). I don't hate the art and I wasn't expecting them to try and mirror mid-50s style, but my expectations are low. As for "no words" these are preview pages, I am going to greatly assume like many preview pages the text has not been added purposefully.

Regardless it is two singular issues and they are not making 100 alternate covers to boost total print numbers so I will probably pick up at least the first issue.

This is the kind of 90's drek I absolutely love!

IIRC this is Ashcan - B and they were all signed. The blue cover (ashcan A) were not signed.

I really want to say these were mail away books but they pre-date Avengelyne #1 so probably some type of retailer ordering incentive.

On 5/28/2024 at 12:45 PM, WOLVERINE335 said:

Thank you for that insight.  So yes, it certainly appears that the problem is DC!  It's just hard to understand from a business standpoint why they would operate in such a manner.

Those DC labels do look nice.  Were they ever available for the general public?  Or just placed onto those particular books for some type of limited time promotion?

I looked back over my original notes when I first found out about these and I was incorrect in who distributed them. Diamond did not give these out as DC had parted ways with them when they shut down during the pandemic. These books were given out to retailers (one per store as an incentive) who ordered through DC's new distribution houses UCS & Lunar (each got a different book). I cannot verify the next part as I didn't write down a source but apparently these were encapsulated back in 2016 and unused as a deal was not reached (or maybe fell through?) and sat in storage until they were given out in 2020.

They are a very good example of DC micromanaging/meddling though with the incessant branding: "DC Certified" under comic name, "DC logo", "comic title logo", another DC logo in the background...

On 5/27/2024 at 11:17 PM, WOLVERINE335 said:

Similarly, I find it impossible to understand how they haven't reached a deal with DC yet.

The only explanation that would have made sense to me is if their deal with Marvel stipulated that Marvel labels would be used exclusively.  But according to CGC Mike, "We have made multiple attempts with DC to get a signed contract for custom labels.  To date, none have been successful."  So clearly, the deal with Marvel must not be exclusive.

If the issue is from DC's side then... Seems like someone is really dropping the ball there.  Not only could they generate a new revenue source with zero work, zero expense and zero risk... but they also get free advertising of their characters on thousands of labels showcased online in auctions, and in person at conventions and local comic shops, etc.

It's truly inexplicable.  Unless of course I'm completely overlooking something.  

I do have some ancillary information on the DC front and posted this before.

DC is exceptionally difficult and demanding to deal with, they view it as "protecting their brand" which is why there are so few DC store variant exclusives. Back in the 2010s I worked with a comic shop trying to get an exclusive DC cover, it was frustratingly difficult and very expensive! in the end, the shop switched to a Marvel cover and the deal was wrapped up in 3 weeks at a third of the cost. Everything with DC was a sticking point from approved art (had to use current costume), approved artist, min/max order supply, a stop order after 30 days to no longer sell books (they had to be destroyed), store branding on the comic, and the escalating cost throughout the process.

There are actually two custom CGC DC labels that were put out by Diamond, though no one knows the agreement details. They look really nice.

On 5/27/2024 at 11:30 PM, Castle83 said:

I saw a first issue ghost rider from the mid 2000s going for over 100,000 on ebay with just Stans sig on it.. not to mention the guy at cgc recommended i get it signed by both of them when i was at comic con because it would double the value..

You are smarter than this.

You absolutely know the difference between inflated ebay random asking price and actual sold value. CGC also does not give "value" advice at the booth especially future guaranteed speculative market advice outside of determining FMV for grading.

I am sorry you are disappointed in the appraisals that you asked for; but a lesson in market value is never bad to learn.