FineCollector

i'm going to be that guy and say, if someone is a Killer Croc fan, he would want all of them...

Marc the Comic Hunter, Georges at Comic Age, Oscar and Alex who run the con are all in bed together, likely Million on Pierce as well. Astro used to fill want lists from their stock too. Georges is bad news, lots of people here have unfavorable opinions.

Hunter is your favorite shop? If I need something 1980s and up, and price is no object, maybe... What has Charlie done with Capitaine Quebec?

I'm in no hurry to see the day-traders and profiteers make a mess of DC prices like they've done with Marvel. The Eternals movie is probably going to be the first of the Marvel stinkers that sets the ball rolling back downhill.

I'm not sure it's crypto profits as much as market manipulation a la Game Stop stocks. Imagine, you buy a book off eBay at a stupid price, and everyone just agrees that's the price from now on? Couple that with new collectors who hear the muppets on Youtube pushing them to buy at any price, and you have a runaway train that's destined to crash. There's plenty to buy that hasnt spiked. I'm a run collector, so I just move to other titles and plug away. I wont own the Marvel mega keys, but finishing runs of non keys has never been easier, when the online flippers desperately liquidate any non key they acquire.

Spider-Man has the most keys, but few with any real significance outside of the Spider-Man title. What effect did Chameleon, Vulture, Dr Octopus, Electro, Mysterio, or Shocker have in the rest of the Marvel Universe? Absolutely none. Fantastic Four is the title from which the Marvel Universe was built.

The way I see it, there are three kinds of buyers at work in the market: - day traders who dont care what they're buying as long as they can flip to someone else for more than what they paid. They're the ones setting new highs, flipping back and forth with each other. - old guys, who mostly have what they want already. They are largely unaffected by the mob, because they're not chasing trends. - the young collector, who was told by some of the old guys "buy what you like, but you really want to buy keys." They're buying books they cant afford and are afraid to touch. They're overpaying because they dont realize the day traders are pushing prices above a sustainable value. They're always selling because they put themselves into debt overpaying for the flavor of the month. When the market corrects, they're going to lose money and disappear.

I could use a list if you have one.

I think the run ups in price are from people who have no interest or attachment in the books themselves. Collectors don't want to set new highs, they want bargains. I think prices are being driven up by speculators selling to other speculators, as long as they think someone else will pay a little more than they did. It's like day trading stocks, except the market is far easier to manipulate. I'm already tired of this... bring on the crash.

I don't do "keys." If I don't like the title enough to attempt the run, I don't need the single book. The phrase "quality over quantity" makes flame shoot from my eyes. A complete run to me is one of each standard, original cover. I don't care if it's newsstand or direct, Jeweler insert or not, it's all the same, because I'm not selling it. Canadian versions are fine for the 80s, but Canadian prints of GA books have terrible color and are often missing a story, so I avoid those. I can have pence copies, 2nd prints, or variants in addition to the original US cover, but they can't be my only copy.

The books don't bother me, it's how young collectors want every "key" indiscriminately. As soon as something's announced, there's no longer a question if there will be enough demand to drive up the price of a book, only how much it will go up by. It doesn't matter how insignificant the character, the people buying it have no sense of context.

Bonkers is I start typing "Avengers" in Google, and 186 is the first option. I'm so sick of people flowing from hot book to hot book like locusts.

Those aren't socks... it's natural protection from the cold. Same for the "sweater."

A week or two ago, I was checking eBay for a different Canadian variant, JIM Annual 1, and the blank copy was selling at a premium over the more plentiful US copies. I get the sense that since 80s Canadian price variants like ASM 238 or Thor 337 sell for more, buyers feel justified in paying more for other Canadian variants.

It depends on your means of selling them. Do you want someone to come haul them away? Are you going to advertise a yard sale? Do you want to get a table at a con? Do you want to sell on eBay? Do you want to start an online store, or sell on Facebook? Prices realized will be different in all of those scenarios.

Frankly, if you collected them because they're worth money, then the end goal was always to liquidate, and profit from their sale. I wouldn't expect a lot of sentimentality for random books that were purchased because the price tag was impressive. The person with a more emotional attachment to their collection wouldn't feel that same sense of relief.

UPS enjoys sending you a $50 brokerage invoice a month after your package gets there. It's not fun.

I'm not fool enough to throw my coins down that well. It's a scam to sell overpriced or unwanted books that takes advantage of the suckers who fall for get-rich-quick schemes. Sales forum rules: 16. Raffles are not allowed. 17. Mystery boxes are not allowed. You must list everything you are selling exactly as the buyer will receive it. There are no happy stories where comic raffles are concerned, except for the shady seller.

Darn, sweetie of a deal. Nice pickup

Wasn't Gem Mint the guy who got busted by Paypal for forcing people to pay Friends and Family for his overpriced raffles? Then he went on a rant to complain how unfair Paypal was, and that we should all boycott. FK that guy.

Just bought a few things from MCS...

Also the home of the infamous Gerry Ross, who is still operating to this day. I grew up in Montreal, and it's definitely a shady comic town. They've always had a well developed comic market, so they know their stuff, but the dealers are incestuous, there's more collusion than competition. Rosaire Fontaine who runs Fantasticon is a trustworthy guy who handles big books. Everyone else has what I call the "Montreal stink" on them.

Flipping in the modern market is an expensive game of hot potato. Buy a hot book at $20, hoping to find someone to buy at $30, who will try to sell it for $40. No one wants the book, they just want to build up enough profit to buy Spider-Man keys. It's difficult for moderns to build any lasting value. The people buying moderns at the top of market dont have the disposable income we do. When next Summer's hot books hit, they'll sell this year's hot books en masse to pay for them. The prices will fall back down, and those who pumped them will sell, saying they've changed focus/aren't into it anymore.