Jaylam

On 6/26/2018 at 5:40 PM, Unca Ben said:

I recall the controversy surrounding this page.  It's fairly amusing, given a holstered gun is pretty darn suggestive in itself 

Yeah, more of a visual metaphor than the original drawing! Of course, being 9 years old at the time the book originally came out, it kind of went over my head, however years later...well, here we are still talking about it.

On 1/15/2023 at 12:40 PM, shadroch said:

Paying to have a book cleaned and pressed only to have it grade at or below the sellers original grade is not a win, in my book.  Others obviously have different standards. 

After going through my records of buying from both Metropolis and ComicConnect, they have been very close, usually a half grade plus/minus or equal to that of the CGC grade 90% of the time. I am also very discerning and have either not bought the book to start with based on the images provided or sent back books or requested an adjustment on books I thought were over-graded once I had them in hand, so those misses never got sent to CGC in the first place. I mean, seriously, if you can tell a book is a Fine that is listed as a Very Fine just by the images, why would you proceed to buy it as in the Tales to Astonish #98 as shown above that has at least a 2" color breaking crease (which is really too bad because that book looks amazing otherwise). 

Here are some examples, all books cleaned and pressed after purchase.

Amazing Spider-Man #28, Metro/CC grade 7.5, CGC grade 7.5

Amazing Spider-Man #50, Metro/CC grade 7.0, CGC grade 7.5

Fantastic Four #39, Metro/CC grade, 9.0, CGC grade 8.5

Fantastic Four #49 Metro/CC grade, 5.5, CGC grade 6.5

Justice League of America #43, Metro/CC grade 9.2, CGC grade 9.6

X-Men #64, Metro/CC grade, 9.2, CGC grade 9.2

I'd say my experience with Metropolis/ComicConnect as far as grading is concerned is about 50/50. You must also understand, they sell raw books that the seller lists and sets the grade and price on those books themselves just as a seller would on ebay. My only suggestion to them would be to disclose on the site if a raw book has been directly listed by a seller or if it's one of their books that they have screened and graded themselves.

To me back in the 60's, the FF was much like the Jonny Quest cartoons. The concept fit the times and resonated with the world stage at that time. We actually hadn't been to the moon yet and JFK presented that as the challenge of the decade and the FF fit or fell right into that sentiment of the times. Once a lot of those challenges had been met, the framing of the FF that had been their bread-and-butter kind of fell by the wayside. Obviously by the interest and comments of this thread, a lot of us really care and appreciate the impact and importance of the FF in the genesis of Marvel, but the truth is that ship has sailed and the best and uniqueness of the FF is locked in the time they were conceived. Marvel used them to launch and bring attention to other concepts and characters that eventually outgrew the FF, but no one has been really able to make them fly again like they did in the beginning. 

On 1/8/2023 at 4:23 PM, Topnotchman said:

 

You may use any of the following as proof of value:

Note:  Indemnity may be limited if you present only the packaging without the original mailing or sales receipt.

1. A sales receipt, paid invoice, or paid bill of sale.
2. A copy of the credit card billing statement indicating the amount paid.
3. A copy of the front and back of a canceled check used to pay for the item.
4. A copy of the money order receipt if the money order was used to pay for the item.
5. The final or complete transaction sheet indicating the amount deducted from an Internet account to pay for the item.
6. Estimates of repair costs from a reputable dealer, or paid repair bills. A reputable dealer is defined as a licensed business owner who is qualified to estimate value or cost of repairs for the item. We will not cover repair costs above the original purchase price.
7. Receipt or invoice of costs incurred for the reconstruction of nonnegotiable documents. We will not pay more than $100 for document replacement.

If you package is lost, filing a claim could be more challenging than expected if you don’t have an actual paid receipt to verify value.  Buying $5,000.00 in insurance doesn’t mean you collect that amount if the package is lost. 
 

 

How true. When I reported a damaged CGC book, they would only pay me 50% of the insured value saying the damaged item was not a complete loss even though the CGC case was crushed by what looked like the package being run over (it had an obvious tire track on it where it was crushed). 

Missing packages party site. Location unknown.

Remember the good 'ol days before CGC when if a Comic book shop or dealer had a book, it was Near-Mint-Mint, but if you had the same book trying to sell to them it was a Very-Good at best.

"I know, but I'm the only who does know........right now! And then the camera pans back over the plane to show the damaged engine cowl, classic!!!

On 1/4/2023 at 8:54 AM, frozentundraguy said:

I recall watching that episode, and thought they packed quite an armful of suspense into 30 minutes at the bus depot. About 4 years ago I watched all of the episodes of Twilight Zone. One of my favorites was episode 13 from season 3. Buster Keaton travels from 1890 to 1961, and back. I think it the only episode played entirely for laughs.

I love those old Twilight Zone episodes. They did so much with so little. The story telling, pacing and acting carried the show, something that seems lost today. You couldn't help but get sucked in and invested in the suspense and tension of the story. 

Paul Gambi, tailor to villains first appearance from Flash 141...

Just watched an old episode of Twilight Zone called "Mirror Image" (Season 1, episode 21, Febuary 1960) and couldn't help but draw the comparison between it and the creation of Earth-1 and Earth-2. I wonder if Mr. Schwartz was inspired by the suggestion of co-existing parallel universes used in this episode when he first introduced the concept in Flash #123?

Happy New Year Flash fans. Yeah, go ahead and just try to kiss Batman!

Be wary of any prolonged light exposure. If you must display your collectibles, rotate them frequently, keeping light exposure to a minimum. UV protection helps, but don’t think that gives you a free pass to light abuse them. 

On 12/21/2022 at 10:26 PM, flashlites said:

If it weren't for Julie and the success of Flash and the Justice League Stan Lee would have never had been given the assignment to come up with a group hero title (FF#1) instead he would have quit Marvel and its likely comics would have been non existent by 1962-63.

I think it's interesting to note that Julie understood something about the market, that readership turned over about every four or five years and the core readership in those days was 8-12 year olds. Stan not only understood that, but did something to try to maintain readership past that age group my creating more complex and mature themes. That phenomenon actually happened in the late 40's and early 50's as comics delved into more mature and explicit territory in order to maintain readership, of course we know that resulted in tremendous push back. Stan tried to navigate that territory within the confines of comics code and was quite successful at it and made Marvel great in the process while Julie kind of lagged behind at first, locked into that 8–12-year-old demographic, failing to realize the potential of cultivating older readers or just not thinking he could do it within the confines of the code, based on what had happened before.

On 12/23/2022 at 12:58 PM, FoggyNelson said:

I was waiting for a post like this , it will be virtually impossible to get the run in 9.0 or better even if you are Jeff Bezos because many collectors do not care to sell their books no matter at what price

 

I think this FloridianDemon is Jeff Bezos! 

I think B'wana Beast was a flop back in the 60's. However, he did show up in some cartoons years later (Batman; The Brave and the Bold 2008-2011 for one), he even got a few toys made.

Don't know if any of you saw it over on the Flash tread, but here is Julius Schwartz taking about what led him to create the Showcase title.

On 12/19/2022 at 11:24 PM, flashlites said:

Speaking of Showcase, here's a video. You may have seen it already but just in case take a look...

 

Love it. The unsung hero of the Silver Age! Marvel may get all the glory these days but Julius here was the right person at the right time with the right ideas just as much as Stan was.

Showcase #13 is a pretty rare book in any grade with only 201 Universal copies showing up on the CGC census and there are probably less than that if you consider the re-subs that the labels weren't turned in for. Since so few show up for sale, it's hard to get a bearing on the prices, but overall, it looks like it trends upward every time one comes up for sale.

Addendum: After taking a look at all four Flash appearances in Showcase, #13 has the least graded copies of the four. 

On 12/18/2022 at 3:57 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

We're off to slay the Sith Lord... 

What's the small tape pull? All I see is a common printing defect that many of these FF 48's have. 

Book without ink loss defect...

Book with ink loss defect...

ebay book in question, has same ink loss in the same place, that is not a tape pull unless I'm missing something else.