Westy Steve

Agree. Your comment made me chuckle, because I'm completely in agreement, but in the back of my mind, I know the rest of the story (a super powerful alien from a dead planet raised on earth) is a stretch.

You guys have been holding out on me! I thought I knew all of the cool Adams covers and most of them seem to feature Batman. I'm not a big fan of Superman, but then I stumbled across this and had to buy it. How did I not know about this one??? (sellers photo) The Gates of Hell! You gotta be kidding me!

Cool! Is there a text version of that list? It would be great if it was searchable.

Well Darn, now I know why I'm not getting many replies for my WTB ad! The thing is, I'm advertising there and I'm personally not looking for a screaming deal. Perhaps I'm an exception. I'd be satisfied buying my "wants" at the lowest buy it now on ebay MINUS the cost of the ebay fees. Saving 10% would make me happy. I did get an offer to buy stuff off of a website, but I saw better prices elsewhere so that was an easy "no". Wish someone would compile a list of ebay sellers (by ebay name) who were sellers-in-good-standing here. They'd probably sell a lot more stuff. I can't ask the ebay folks if they haunt this place, and there isn't a "rosetta stone" here to figure that out. Shame, really. Might be a lot of money left on the table by our boardies.

Hey guys, I'm shopping for a book right now in a 9.4 slab. At the location of the lower staple is a dark area on the cover. Seems like the only fairly priced examples of this book I can find in 9.4 show staple stress there in the form of small, thin white lines. Is this allowable in a 9.4??? Steve

Please, please, please, someone take that first cover where Spiderman has a perfectly Oval Head and draw a picture of Peter Parker with a head of the same shape. I gotta see what it looks like under that mask!

I think I know what's going on because I think I've seen it before. One of my other hobbies is fixing up/driving old Volkswagens. There was a time when you could always find another project car sitting in someone's field somewhere. But eventually, all those "field cars" rusted too bad to be viable and the only good candidates for restoration was a car in someone's garage (not their field). Then as the prices started going up, the opportunists came out of the woodwork. Now, if you find a VW for sale, it isn't one that was recently found and flipped. It's held by strong hands, and the price of them has gone parabolic. People keep hoping the prices will go down, but then as the higher prices captivate the media (a new record price for a VW bus at auction), everyone thinks they are sitting on a gold mine, making it worse. I'm not saying that the comic books are rotting away like cars in the fields. But I am the same phenomenon. As supplies dry up, prices rise. As prices rise, the opportunists search harder to find what's still unclaimed, so it's an upward spiral. Eventually, the only material is what is in people's collections as a cherished item. They won't sell it cheaply. I honestly don't think prices are coming down for a long, long time. Kids have been playing with Ironman toys from Walmart now for...what...10 years? Demographics are great compared to other things I've collected that still showed dramatic rises. It isn't ending. It's only going to get worse. Buy what you want now.

I'm exclusively Bronze now. I grew up buying them off the rack, though I didn't buy as many as most hard core collectors. I collected Silver Age for a while, and have a hard time relating to the newer stuff. I always thought the early silver age stuff was too campy. I just think that Bronze is the most authentic, with a good cross between story and art. The crossovers they did back then and the fleshed out lives back then were awesome. I remember waiting for the next issue to come out so I could buy it off the rack. It was great stuff! Now I find myself gravitating toward keys or semi key books in better condition....slabbed ones. On my budget, that precludes silver and gold, and I feel that copper and modern is just too much of a commodity...just too common. So I'm liking bronze keys or semi keys in nicer grade. I love the way the colors pop off the page and the candy-like gloss on the covers without too much wear....Rarity, coolness and condition floats my boat. I'm happy with what I'm doing now and I'm going to stick to it. The rest I'll read online of in TPB format.

I just wish it wasn't so white. I'm going snow blind.

Rogue One was a war movie instead of a Swashbuckling Adventure Movie. It was mostly a "capture the flag" exercise. I think it had some neat elements in it, like a long overdue explanation of how the weakness was engineered into the Death Star. Honestly, when I watched Episode IV back in '77, I had a problem with how volatile Death Stars were. I mean, I was 12 years old, and literally thought to myself, "how could they engineer such a major flaw into the Death Star"?...That's worse than a Ford Pinto! I got my answer in this movie, though I don't understand why the second death star was ready to explode, unless maybe it was built from some of the same plans. As an aside, I can't help but feel that the Empire would have never fallen if they would have spent their resources developing a larger fleet instead of death stars. I really liked how this movie gave you a flavor for day to day life under Empire rule. The big cruisers flying through oxygen atmosphere, storm troopers on every street corner and dissent in the street. I guess I'm saying that the setting was really good, but it was hard to fall in love with the characters. If they had put 10 minutes more into character development, it would have been a much stronger movie but the grief factor would be off the charts when you walked out of the theater. Maybe it's better that I didn't have the opportunity to grow attached to them.

Cool. In the end, it will be like paying for an upgrade. And the OCD demons will slake their thirst. I think I'd have done the same thing. Keep us posted. Steve

He's right. First, I'm not knocking the book...I like it a lot. But as nice as the book is, the spine would keep it down around 8.0. There's an 8.0 on ebay right now with a nicer spine. But here's the kicker....They are only asking about $80 more for it than some other 7.0s. Financially, it doesn't make much sense to upgrade. Now emotionally, that's another issue. If you want to see what you can do with that particular book, I totally get that. I've got one like that myself....perhaps not cleaning and pressing, but I want to see what happens. Steve

That's a cool book. Never seen that one either.

Awesome recommendations! Keep them coming. This could be fun to put together. What's funny is I have a lot of these, but in low grade.

Hey guys, You probably saw my thread about how I'm almost done with my X-men mini-run from Giant Size X-men 1 through X-men 101 in higher grade. I really enjoyed putting together a higher grade Bronze "short set". http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=9659368#Post9659368 Some of the responses referenced other good series, and inspired me. In the past, I used to collect first appearances of my favorite characters. But I've found I really like to collect higher graded books. And now those first appearances are insanely expensive. So I was thinking maybe I'll collect one interesting high grade book from the Bronze age for all of my favorite characters. Like 9.0 or better and as key as possible in the $100 to $300 range. So for Daredevil, I can get the 1st Bullseye Appearance. For the Hulk, maybe I can get the 1st Sampson. For Doctor Strange, I'll probably get a Doctor Strange #1. For Batman, maybe the Gothos cover. But for other main characters, I'm kind of hazy on what to look for. So anyone have some suggestions? What's a good Key or Semi-Key Superman from the Bronze era that will cost about $200 in a 9.0 or better? What about Thor? If you had to pick one book to represent a character from the Bronze Age, what are a few good suggestions to look at? Thanks, Steve

What if these were cars? If Peter Parker stole your car, and then sold it to Tony Stark. Then Tony Stark resold it to Bruce Banner, you should expect to recover the car from Bruce Banner. And then Bruce Banner needs to go back to Tony Stark and complain to/sue him about selling him a stolen car. Then Tony Stark can complain/sue Peter Parker. You're just supposed to get your stuff back and no money. The money is everyone else's problem.

Come on guys! Let this thread die out. It's making it harder for me to buy up all the Legos! Last thing I need is competition from people with a Comic Book Collector's budget. Help a brother out!

I dropped one off at MegaCon for pressing and grading with the normal turn-around. Any idea of when I might get it? I am not a member of a club, so have no way to check progress. As an aside...ya'll should dabble in the collectible currency market. I've seen turn around times of more than a year when they run special rates. Steve

I saw that, and there was no way I'd buy from a zero feedback seller.

When I was at Tampa Con, I saw a 20-something girl and her boyfriend/husband go up to a dealer and look at his books. Then she started saying, "It's gone! It's gone!". Then she began crying. Full on tears. She carried on for a while that way. I found out the back story. Apparently she had stopped by his booth earlier and he had issues #1 and #2 of the early Harley series for $50, and instead of buying them, walked around the show for an hour or so trying to find a cheaper set. When she got back, they were sold. (To be honest, i don't know what books she was referring to). But it made an impression on me that the 20-somethings could feel that strongly about it. I have done a lot of coin shows in my past. I've been a coin collector for years. Never saw someone start crying because the coin they wanted was sold. Hell, I've never seen anyone in their 20's at a coin show. But what I'm saying is that there is a lot of emotion for comics in general, and perhaps Harley in particular. It made an impression on me.

You seriously collect low-grade copies? I absolutely will collect a low grade copy of whatever book suits my fancy. I'd rather have a low grade copy of something awesome than sit around wishing I had something awesome in higher grade and then settling for something else.

Here's what I don't understand. Why would you spend $100 for a NM copy of Livewire's first appearance when you can get a low grade copy of BA12 for about the same price? Seems like the greater fool theory at work.

Nuh uh...Billy Madison, when he interpretted the story about the Puppy as an analogy to society's ills.

From a financial perspective, TMNT #1 is a better deal. They are both about the same value, but the TMNT climbed to that value in a little over half the time. So it's climbing faster. If you assume that it will keep doing that (admittedly a big assumption), in 10 years, you'd be able to sell the TMNT #1, buy an AF15, and pocket a tidy sum. Consider one other thing. If you walk through the toy aisle on Walmart, you'll find Spiderman on the shelves. But you'll also find lots of turtles. The TMNTs aren't going away...not when it is still the theme of birthday parties for little kids. Steve

OK, I'm in the club. I'd say this one is an 8.0. Has a really nice cover, but a tiny tear and a bit of roughness on the back cover. Thought maybe you'd rather see an interior page instead: