Westy Steve

I agree. Personally I’m of the mind that chasing these movie books is a waste of time. Just wondering if others feel the same way.

Last night I read a movie rumor that sounded interesting. And for a change, I felt like I was hearing this rumor early. So I looked up the associated key book and determined the associated book had already sold out on Ebay and started to rise (i.e., I heard the rumor too late). FWIW....I DO NOT...chase "movie announcement books". I feel that it's like trying to get a financial windfall by purchasing all of the new comics that come out every month. There are simply too many losers or too big of a potential mistiming potential to make it worth the few winners. Instead, I try to avoid the hype...I don't want to buy a "hot" book that goes cold. I've been enjoying collecting "cold" books, and might get hot out of dumb luck. So (as a Friday thread topic of conversation), if a person were trying to flip books/make money off of the sweat and tears of the true collectors, which strategy do you think would work better? Chase movie rumors and sell fast, or purchase "cold" keys or semi-keys and wait? Just curious, Steve

A Snapshot of Go Collect's recent sales for Fantastic Four #2 in CGC 0.5. I'm sure this is because of Secret Invasion.

Love this cover. That's some early Dr. Doom right there.

Well now I feel like an . I didn’t realize this thread was going in order

I've collected stuff as long as I've been with my wife. In the beginning, I'd characterize her as "putting up with it". But she's seen first-hand that when the fecal matter hits the whirligig, I will not hesitate to sell things for the betterment of our family. I've sold stuff to stabilize our rental property empire and to buy a car for one of the kids who needed it. Again, no regrets. Lately, she's seen first-hand that my collecting is large enough and old enough that they are virtually self-sustaining. I can sell things that I bought a long time ago to fund new purchases and their appreciation/growth more than makes up for the transaction costs. She gets that. The collection improves over time with much effort, but not much money. Along the way, I invested the kids savings accounts into collectibles. She noticed that the kids got great returns on their money. I just sold an ASM 238, CGC 9.6 that I bought 5 years ago...do the math on that one! Two of my kids had half interest in it, and with half the proceeds, the older kid got a computer for college and the younger kid's proceeds were invested into a nice looking Flash 123 that will be sold in 2 years when she hits college. Very recently, she's seen the ridiculous price runs in our hobby and she's been exceptionally supportive, even recommending I "hurry up and pay my layaway stuff off" to lock it away. Not saying that I had any qualms about the integrity of the sellers, who were sterling sellers.

I can't argue with that. I've seen some ugly higher grade books. But I'd have bought it regardless. Ironically, when I first became a "serious" collector decades ago, this was my first "big" (for me) book.

Just made a painful payment to get this off layaway and into my hands. I'm trying to collect early silver age Marvel and this is almost as early as it gets. I always loved that the FF were wearing street clothes here and the Skrulls are cool. (seller's photo)

Lots of love for FF Doom in here. May as well add my own Newp.

Friend of mine went to a comic book show today and while he was at the show picked this book up along with another. I paid the dealer directly with PayPal from 100 miles away based on texted pictures. This one is seems to be a “cold bargain”. Issue number two is worth about three times as much, but this issue has a true first appearance (The Owl). Seems undervalued relative to issue number two.

How about this one? The second appearance of Doom has moved up quite a bit, and I'm pretty sure this is Doom's third appearance, which hasn't moved much at all. Has a Lee and Kirby appearance. It's a "circle 12" too. I think I can get the spine roll pressed out of this copy, and it was too cheap to pass it by.

I started a thread on a coin collecting forum to gain insight into what happened in the coin market crash of 1989. One of the old timers there said something that rings true. He said that there were some coins that moved so much that the collectors stopped buying them and they were mostly traded back and forth between speculators until they crashed. Those were the common ones that didn't make sense. (example: I'd like a NM98 for my collection, but I'm not going to buy one right now). I also learned that the rarer, good quality stuff, went into hiding, because nobody wanted to sell at the post crash prices. Alternately, some have told me that the rarer, good quality stuff was barely affected by the correction (and some news articles did back up that claim), and the reason they seemed to "go into hiding" was because the rarer, nice stuff (i.e., non-widgets) were snapped up quickly in the marketplace post-crash because it was immune from falling prices. Prices actually dropped for several years, and the dealers who survived "sold low quickly and bought lower".

This time it won't be Don Cheadle, I'm sure of it. Thousands of Black Panther Fans Petition to Recast Chadwick Boseman's King T'Challa to Honor Character's Legacy (yahoo.com)

That bites. Bottom line is: Back then, it was a cold book.

Oh, I have another one to share. Found this for less than $100. I know I got a good deal on it, but still...so much history for a C note! (seller's photo)

Very smart. Back in the day, when you could get an X-men #1 for about $300 in good, I found one with a huge date stamp on it for $100. I decided I needed to buy something else later and sold it. Why did I do that? I didn't get much $$$ for it and I gave up all of that future potential.

Never force a deal. Keep saving and be patient. It’ll fall in your lap eventually.

Thanks for the grades guys. It’s a shame it wouldn’t likely get a bump because I think it look better if I took some of the waves out of it and cleaned it up. But it just doesn’t make economic sense.

6.5 after a press. Raw sellers would call it a 7.0.

If you seek out the best press guy you can find, maybe those scratches will press out and it will be an 8.5. Hard to tell how deep those are, but I'd send detailed close-up pix to press wizards and see what they say.

2.0 as is, 2.5 (maybe 3.0) with a press.

8.0 with a press

Hey guys, Maybe you saw me posting pictures of this book. I’m kind of proud of it. But when I got it, And especially after the friend of mine looked at new pictures of it, we both agree that this might be a press and regrade candidate. It has significant marvel chipping on the front cover, and some stress in the lower right corner, but otherwise the spine looks pretty nice. But when the light reflects off it you can definitely see wrinkling/waves that would press out. Not sure how CGC would upgrade this book after a press...likely the chipping will hold it back Without biasing yourself by hunting down my old posts, how would you say this book grades now? And how do you think it would grade after a press? I appreciate all the input. I’ll reveal the grade after a while.

Yeah, this sucks because I had to sell a bunch of keys a few years back to put my kid in college and stabilize my rental properties. I guess both efforts were successful, but I missed those books. After trying to figure out how to collect again, I have lately been having fun shopping for early non-key marvels and some DC keys. Trying to avoid buying things that I think will go backward that I might be able to use as trade bait to repurchase my keys when things do cool off.

Bought this for my daughter's college fund. This is an important book. Of course, i know the book's story, but one ebayer cleverly advertises that it's the first multiverse in comics. Don't know if that's true, but it did open up Earth 2 and completely change the story line. And it reintroduces a golden age character, similar to Avengers 4 or Fantastic Four #4. Seemed cheap. Most importantly though, she's not a comic book reader, but she did obsess over the old Flash TV show, so she can relate to the book.