Westy Steve

Seen a lot of discussion lately about how good books look in certain kinds of Mylar. Do they look better than slabs?

Hey all, I doubt very seriously if any of you have been reading my journal, since it seems like a ghost town over there in the new journals area. Not one subscriber there...not even my Mom! New journals area is kind of cool because it has nice features. Anyway I'm trying to build a nice collection of CGC slabbed Bronze books, but I'm limiting it to 30 books because that's how many can fit in my Safe-box. Hence the "Box of 30". I've got Giant Size X-men 1 through X-men 101 already ,so that takes up 9 slots, leaving me space for 21 books. I also have a Batman 251 and my Neal Adams Superman at the Gates of Hell cover, which brings me down to 19. I have two more nice books that I haven't revealed in my journal. So that brings me down to 17 more books. Also, I do recognize that Hulk 181 doesn't fit in my budget, but it's an obvious choice, so I'll eventually figure out a way to tackle that somehow. (It's a pity my kids won't be able to go to college, but the heart wants, what the heart wants). This brings me down to 16. So I need to figure out 16 nice bronze books. For now, they'll be mostly in the $200 to $300 range. Later, I can upgrade them, so I'm not against buying a book in at least Fine condition, but I'm trying to stay at VF or better. 16 more books. What would you fill it with? You can only have 16. What would you buy? Steve

Not totaled. Cost of repair will be $6,700.

I completely agree on all counts. I wasn't advocating changing this contest one iota. I like the format and I think it's good to learn to self-grade the graded books from on-line scans anyway. If I'm going to buy a copy of ASM129 for 9.0 money, I want to make sure it actually grades 9.0. Yet we've seen some of these books have been consensus undergraded as well, which can be quite profitable to pick up on. As for running my own contest. I'm lazy by nature so....hmmm.... It is a cool idea. Maybe this winter or something. Seems like a lot of work and awfully thankless though...especially because of people like me.

Speaking through the lens of a serious case of butt hurt, one of the problems here is the human error introduced in graded books themselves. IMHO, the consensus grade....(like the "mode" or the middle of the bell curve) is the actual grade that CGC generally does a good job of approximating. But they can still be off by half a grade here and there and then there is the problem of trying to grade through plastic which compounds matters. It would be a really interesting contest to just post some raw books, and whoever gets closest to the group's consensus grade gets a bullseye, and the farther you are from the average, the less points you get. I once set up a time-distance car rally without actually needing to know how long each leg of the rally took by just using the middle time (mode) as the perfect time, and adjusting accordingly. It worked out OK.

Me too. I'm having a lot of fun with this, but I can't help but think I'd be near the top if I wasn't consistently wrong on distinguishing between creases and case scratches. It's happened 3 times now.

So here's that cheap unappreciated Neal Adams Superman. I was showing this around in the Bronze Comics Forum: How can you not love this? Superman at the gates of Hell! How'd that happen? Where are those gates? What did the lady do, and should Superman help her? I'm going to find out and I'll report back! Edit: OK, I read it. A few things I can say, Curt Swan interior art and a Batman Cameo. But I can't describe the plot without revealing spoilers. I can say that it's a good story!

Great post. Interesting snapshot of that time period.

Agreed. That's good advice. And yes, I definitely was bothered when my character was questioned. I strive to be above board and take pride in that.

I'm happy to report that the buyer changed his feedback. I wonder if he saw this post. I know he buys a lot of comic books. Whatever the case I think that I learn my lesson here as well.

I have to admit I didn't think about the getting wet part. The towels otherwise work great, but your reply has made me reconsider. I did insure the book (with my free shipping option) and would have refunded him if that happened though. The book was a "widget", and not a precious piece of history.

The thing that irks me is the "full of excuses" part. What sucks about it is that he wrote me and said "it's all good" before writing that feedback. What a person_who_is_obnoxiously_self-impressed. Seriously, I pride myself on being extremely honest. I didn't think I needed any excuses since it was the fourth business day, and all I told him was that I had a family emergency (which I did). Does anyone remember when ebay was new and most sellers took a while getting out the shipments because we weren't all Ebay professionals...but rather just hobbyists who liked comics? Full of excuses my Azz. If that guy doesn't reverse his feedback, I'll out him here...it's the right thing to do. I can't leave feedback for him on Ebay, and I don't want you guys to get dinged by him. I wish I could retroactively block him.

I've got over 700 feedbacks with only one neutral. Until today. I got another one. When I sell things, Ebay automatically indicates the turn-around time on the seller form. It says 2 to 3 business days. I'd like to figure out how to change it (my default setting), but I've been just living with EBay's selection of my turn around time. I'm not a professional seller...this is my hobby. I sold a book to a guy and couldn't ship it until the 4th business day. I shipped a slabbed comic in a Priority box. I didn't have packing peanuts, so I used paper towels, as I have done many times. I actually prefer them because they are cheaper and do a good job. The guy wrote me and asked me where his book was on the fifth business day, and I informed him that I'd sent it the previous day. I believe I entered the tracking info before he asked, but can't be sure of the timing. A day later, he informed me he got the book, but said I didn't have enough padding in there. But the book arrived fine, and it was insured in the event that it was damaged. So the guy gives me a neutral, said that I was "full of excuses", that the book was poorly packaged and "luckily" arrived in good condition. I know by posting this I'm opening up to criticism, but I wanted to vent. I had a legitimate delay in my shipping time and I will be changing my settings to a slower default shipping time when I figure out how to do it. I sell books to fund my hobby.

I bought this beauty at TampaCon Ordinarily, I would try to buy a nicer book, but this one was in the mid $300 range and my dollar seemed to go just far enough with this. What I mean by that is that I saw a scraggly looking raw Batman 251 (perhaps a VG book) for $250 at the show. It seems you almost have to pay at least $200 just to get a halfway decent raw book. For the extra $100, I could get this. It seems that the extra $100 was money well spent to attain a more presentable copy. And yet, though it's not high grade, I don't really like pushing into the $400 range or more in filling my "box of thirty". At least at this point. Perhaps later when upgrading begins. While this book gets a lot of hype, I have to say that it seems to be well-deserved. Yes, the cover art is amazing. But the entire book was drawn by Adams (not just the cover) and the story was very good,and established the Joker as a serious and dangerous adversary. It's an important book, not just a pretty book. Note that I intentionally bought a book that has universal appeal. There are a bunch of under-appreciated Neal Adams books, and some seem to come in and out of style, but this one is always a front runner. There is an old expression that goes like this: "The race does not always to go the fleet, nor the battle to the strong, but that's a hell of a good way to bet". Footnote: I did actually buy one book before this on a lark. A cheap, underappreciated, out of favor, Neal Adams Superman. But this Batman 251 is a serious and calculated addition to my collection instead of an impulse purchase.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, the Xmen 94 in CGC 9.2 is an excellent "investment" based on the method I laid out. Just constant growth in a short amount of time. Regarding the walking dead, I think you'd have to buy too many books to be in the position where lightning would strike for you to make a big return on your lottery tickets. With respect to Modern (or perhaps Copper), if you think about it, the TMNT #1 (1st print) is probably a great choice. I've actually considered partnering on that book. I guess I could sell my collection to buy one, but what would be the fun in that?

Thanks for your help. I figured out with the press the lower right corner will straighten out somewhat. It is folded under. The upper right corner is similar but less so. What do you think this would be grade with the press? I added some better pictures in a reply post below. Thanks for your help.

I'm good. Missed the Hulk by 1 and hearing people who thought the ASM was a 9.2 gives me hope that I may not drop in the rankings. Trying to make a dramatic come-back after a serious dip.

That's crazy. Last time I got burned by including "corner creases" that were on the slab. This time I ignored them, thinking they were on the slab, and they were on the book. I've decided I do my best grading in person!

I wish I had a dog in this fight. I owned an AF15 for about 20 minutes back in the 90's and traded it for a nicer ASM1. Here's my thought about the AF15s. A collectible will rise in value at a certain rate, like an inch worm climbing a tree. The more blue chip it is, the more the movement will be nearly continuous. Second and third bananas move like inch worms that move more erratically. Third bananas sometimes only move in a very hot market (which is a great way to tell if a market is hot). ANYWAY, sometimes prices will get ahead of itself and fall back. Sometimes prices will form a bubble, but that's less likely with blue chip material. The faster it rises, the more likely it's in a bubble. To me, a bubble is formed when people are buying things not because they necessarily love that thing, but because it is rising in value. In my years of experience investing in stuff, I've learned that when something is moving up in price very fast, that's a bubble and don't be a pig. IMHO, the AF15 is getting "bubbly". You know you're in a bubble when everyone is discussing the investment aspects of that collectible, as they are here. and they are in general disagreement. Like stocks, when the volume of sales is way up because there is a divergence between those who think it's topped and those who don't, creating rapid sales, that's a "volume spike" which often signals a turn-around point. Are they selling fast right now? Faster than usual? (I'm asking...I don't know). Those of you who believe it won't backslide, have to realize that if it stalls and begins to dip, people will see their "profit" eroding, and decide it's a good time to sell, causing it's price drop to accelerate. Then the price will drop fast. The buyers will disappear when they realize it will be cheaper next month than it is right now, making it even worse. If I see this happening, that's when I'll jump in...when blood is in the streets. Disclaimer: I'd love to have one, and if I had one today, I wouldn't sell it ever. Footnote: I wrote some stuff about internal rate of return in my journal that's somewhat related to this discussion. You shouldn't compare books like AF15 to Action 1 unless you also consider the age of the book. It's all about internal rate of return.

9.0. Spine looks pretty nice.

Thanks for the response. Really...this area is slow and there is good content in this new area but don't know if it's being seen! Anyway, I agree with some of your points, but not others. All I'm saying is that it makes sense to look at the rate of return on books. In my spreadsheet, I assumed that book was worth double the cover price in the first month after it was made because people back then were like, "Did you read about this new Spiderman guy?", and the owners of the books expected some kind of "instant" profit. But after that, barring a book popping up in value due to a movie announcement, one can calculate the rate of return on the books over the years. What I've found is that the better books will make 13%, the much better books can make 15 to 16%, and the grails can even make around 20%. But the problem is TIME. If a golden age book started at a value of 20 cents (double the cover price) back in 1938, and it grew at a rate of 13% to 20%, it's too darn expensive for me to buy today because it compounded for so many decades. If a silver age book compounded at 13%, it would be worth about $1,000 after all this time. I could buy books like that, but there would be so much time in between saving that this hobby wouldn't be satisfying. But Bronze Age books growing at 13% are still around $250. I can get one of those every month to two months and they'll look really pretty in the slab. While I also like Copper books and Modern ones, there are two issues. I think it's prudent to expect a proven track record, so there aren't a lot of modern books meeting that criteria. Repeating for emphasis...Modern books need to show a proven track record....there aren't many of those. I do like the Copper books, but you have to make sure you're not paying for the "plastic boost"....the premium that the book gets for being graded by CGC. For example, a $200 NM bronze age book grade in a CGC slab isn't going to get that much of a premium (percentage-wise) for being grade. But a $50 copper age book can have a 100% premium for being in the slab. That's the only reason why I don't buy too many copper age. (Though buying them raw in NM/NM+ is probably a great use of funds.) Moderns also suffer from that "plastic boost", but it's worth it to buy them in the raw. Note: I am talking about NM books here. Not 9.8. With a 9.8, you're paying for more than just the book's importance. It's sort of a plastic premium. For me personally, Bronze is in that sweet spot. I can still buy higher grade books that look so dang good in that CGC slab. And if I pay a justified $250 or more, I'm confident they've been growing at a rate of 13% or more, barring movie hype (which is hard to avoid). You asked about risk: Yeah there is risk. IMHO, it's about the same risk as being in the stock market. They've had equal number of market crashes, and the reality is that stocks don't always trade on fundamentals either. Sometimes (like comics) it's hype. For example, Tesla stock trades at 100 times earnings. Essentially, the value of Tesla stock is based on the perception of how the Tesla brand will be perceived in the future or people are buying them BECAUSE ITS A HOT STOCK and not because they like the company. Unfortunately, key comics are also heavily dependent on how people might view them in the future and whether they are HOT RIGHT NOW. For example, Duck books are absolutely wonderful to read, but people are actually avoiding them because they are concerned about the future consumption of them. But I like Batman because kids can find Batman stuff in Walmart so we'll have legions of people buying Batman in the future. See what I mean? Edit: BTW, lately I've been spending more like $350 to $600 a book. And by lately I mean I've bought a couple of nice ones that I'll be showing soon. That means these books increased in value from approximately 40 cents, so they doubled an average of 10 times. That's an average doubling time of about 4.4 years, which shows a return of about 16% based on the rule of 72s. Stay tuned for more.

Back when I was collecting coins, I was interested in appreciation. Yet I kept making the same mistake over and over. A mistake that collecting Bronze Comics corrects. Without fail, when presented with a cool looking coin from the early 1800's, vs. a cool looking coin from the modern era for the same price, I would always buy the old coin. But that was a mistake....and here's why: Imagine a coin made in the year 1800 worth $100. Now compare that to another coin made in the year 2000, also worth $100. Which is a better buy based on appreciation? It's important to realize that the coin made in 1800 took 217 years to appreciate to a value of $100. Yet the coin made in 2000 did it in a scant 17 years! In summary, the newer coin is increasing in value at a much faster rate! For fun, I played around with a spreadsheet and made some assumptions. If a bronze age comic book is worth about $250 today, then it is roughly appreciating at a rate of 13% a year. That's actually a pretty healthy internal rate of return! Why $250? Well, that's the general price point I've been dabbling in lately. I've fleshed out my collection of CGC 9.4 early X-Men at that price point. OK, so here's something interesting. A silver age comic book is around 10 years older than a bronze age book. So assuming it's also growing at a rate of 13% a year, it would need grow to about $1,000 since it's publication date 10 years prior to the bronze era. . What would that $1,000 buy today? To give you an idea, that's the approximate value of a Spider-Man #50 (1st Kingpin) in CGC 8.0. Not too shabby! How many of us would like to jump in a time machine, go back 10 years, and purchase some VF copies of Spidey #50 in VF for around $250? I know I would! I'd stockpile them! So there you go. Buying higher grade (justified expensive) key bronze is not just fun, but I think it's smart too.

No. It was me. And I got a bullseye on the second book. But on the Starwars 107, I saw what I thought were really light creases that looked like remnants of a press. I guess I was seeing scratches on the case. Edit: I've attached a photo of what I thought was one of the creases that I've circled in red. There were two of these on the book: