Shrevvy

There is a little bit of a story behind this FF #5 slab. The company we used to own did some work with ACTOR (now The Hero Initiative). In 2005, ACTOR held a benefit auction in which they auctioned several items. The "big" item was billed as the worst copy of FF #5. It was Stan's personal copy and was signed by Stan. It was a fun auction and raised some money for a good cause. Our plan was to purchase the copy and auction it again every year for ACTOR, with the intent of winning our own auction as a donation to ACTOR. We got some follow up press in CBR or Newsarama, I forget which. Well, I realized I wanted the book for myself. We did other things with ACTOR, but I held onto this copy of FF#5. There are plenty of nicer copies, but this one is a favorite.

Supply and demand is not ignored. It is the exact opposite. Demand exceeds supply and prices rise. Just because there is more supply for a book like ASM #300 does not mean market forces are ignored or excepted. If there was little or no demand, prices would be a fraction of current values. See any ASM issue around 300. Supply is likely similar, but prices are much lower because the demand is not there.

Pricey gamble? I want to play poker with you guys . Downside in value for grade is $0. Upside is what? I don't know the market for SS books and GPA doesn't show any recent transactions. Is the upside $500? Standard is $65 (assume shipped with other books). You need the grade to go up 1 in 7 tries to break even. That's pretty good odds. If the value bump is higher, odds are more compelling. If lower (or cost is higher), then less compelling. Looks like a 1.0 to me. Those notes are pretty poor though. Does whole book tears mean the entire book is nearly ripped in half? That is very different than the entire book (every page) has tears.

ASM 162 and Cap 241 per PM

The auctions end 7 days apart. They should NOT be the same price. Anyone want to bet that the second does not close a $1000 lower than the first? Every single duplicate book in the CL auction will show the same thing if the close is 7 days apart.

Centering is much more important to me than page quality. I would rather have a perfectly centered ow or ow/w than a poorly centered white pages. I think this gets worse in the bronze and copper ages. I cringe when I see a high grade book with a 1/8" strip of white down the spine. I was always trained to downgrade for that. I have almost zero interest in books like that. My only interest is if it was cheap enough that I could make a few bucks on it, because it wouldn't stay in my collection.

It is the paper that Fox used. They can come back back blue or pink. Blue and pink are the Fox equivalent of white pages.

Personal preference, I know, but that is an ugly cover. Is there any copper age book that has had more homages than Spider-man #1? Is there any copper artist that has had more than Todd?

I love the old Vegas match books. Don't know what I would do with them if I had them, but they are cool. From a different era.

Why would you need deep pockets to sell cheaply? Unless you mean he first has to buy those 30 copies and then repeat. Makes no sense. All it would take is one guy with 1/2 as deep pokets to buy up those 30 copies he is selling at 1/2 market and the market will not blink. I dare anyone to offer 30 copies of ASM #300 at 50% of the going value and see what happens. If anyone wants to do so, I will buy all 30 copies of a CGC ASM #300 at half GPA right now. You pick the grade. Deliver me 30 copies and I will deliver the cash.

There is an entire thread in comics general that was started with that NYT article. The article itself is junk. There may be some truth in there, but the article lacks focus. It jumps around starting with $90k earrings and $69 mm NFT art, but ends with the last third about a guy making $4k on a Slack stock trade and investing in Pokemon on Rally Road. The article is not about "bored rich people" as the title states. It reads as if they had the conclusion in mind and found the examples to justify the headline.

Thank you! I was hoping someone might find the thread for me (half the reason I posted about it). Looks like my memory was faulty and the sale did occur to a board member. I was really hoping the pics would still be there as I cannot find the scans on my computer.

You are right. In this market, every sale is a bad sale.

We had to wait 45 minutes to get into the Westlake show a couple weeks ago. It is sort of funny. They were trying to keep the sales floor less crowded for social distancing, yet 150 of us were standing six inches apart in the hotel lobby waiting to get in... But you are right, lots of buying going on. I can only guess at what we had missed getting into the con late. I still came home with a stack of books. Already tried following up to purchase books post con and they are gone. Some nice books at the show. Two DD #1s, one of which is probably a deal today. I am ready to hit another show as soon as I can.

I don't usually regret sales, but I sold my GSX1 several years ago. I looked for months to find the whitest CGC 9.8 I could find. I bought it from Metro for peak or above GPA at the time ($4k or $6k, I can't remember and I don't want to look it up - I've been having a good day so far ). It was the best 9.8 copy I had seen. I ultimately sold it for around what I paid for. I tried selling it on the boards. Lots of interest, but no real takers. I ended up selling it off boards. I tried finding my sales thread for the book, but I am terrible with the search function here. A 9.8 closed on CL last night for $67,900. I should not have just looked...

I agree. Interior art has been de-empasized with slabs. It has been for a long time now and will probably get worse. I always liked X-men #108 and that was a key book in the new X-men run in years past. First Byrne art on the X-men series. It no longer holds the prominence it once did despite the Byrne/Claremont run still being held in high regard. I do own a 9.8, but also have a copy to read. The Detective #403 cover is better than #408, but that is subjective. My opinion, of course. In gold, Baker covers are big money. Interiors, not so much. I have been a Baker collector well before those books took off. A Bker cover with no "desirable" interior art brings far more than a book without a Baker cover, but multiple Baker interior stories. Look at Teen-Age Diary Secrets (except for the Marilyn Monroe cover, which has also started moving), all of which have multiple Baker stories but no Baker covers. They bring 1/5 to 1/10 of what any Cinderella Love with a Baker cover brings. The Cinderella Love are all reprints with no Baker interior art. Slabs are the reason I think we will get more "key" covers in the silver, bronze and copper ages. It has already happened in gold.

We are getting far away from comics here, but I don't want a couple of these statements to pass without comment. If Enron matched 401K contributions, those were not lost when Enron went under. Those assets are held outside the firm. It is when Enron matched contributions in Enron stock, which did/does occur. Holding stock in a public company you work for, is a very poor form of diversification. You do not want your investments tied to your paycheck becuase if one goes bad, they both go bad. Does not mean it is right or wrong, but it is a risk judgement. Yes, you can afford to diversify. A $100 invested in a mutual fund will get you ownership in 100 or more stocks. You are diversified with $100. You do not need mass amounts of capital to be diversified.

Whether you believe me or not, look at what is available on eBay. Look at the book instead of the grade. The 9.4 on CL with White pages and near perfect centering is a better looking copy than the 9.6s on eBay. My comment was as much tongue in cheek as anything, but if the winner wants to sell me the book send me a PM. Let's just have a friendly conversation here. Yes, I think Batman #227 is a key book. Last 9.2 in Jan sold for $2400. Not sure many would debate that it is not a key book. Detective 403 or the covers around it are not key books now. But I don't doubt that one of the covers could be seen as a key in the future and be priced accordingly. There are hundreds of examples of this happening in golden age. No reason that collectible cover mentality does not trickle into silver, bronze and copper. It already has, just not to the extent as the golden age.

Thanks. Strong colors and good centering. That's what I was looking for.

Bumping this thread. I will close this later tonight and send out invoices. Always open to offers, especially on multiple books.

My first win this time around:

I had a tracking bid on that book. It's been a $200 book in GPA for a few years. I always thought Batman #227 was nuts, but it has been a strong book. Neal Adams Batman covers from this period are great. Several of them will ultimately become minor keys in a slabbed comic world. I don't think Batman #227 is the best Neal Adams cover of the era. Whether it is Detective 403 or 412 or some other Neal Adams Batman cover, some of them will break out. A Batman #227 would be near 10x the close of that Detective #403 in 9.4. Of all the craziness in recent auction prices, I don't see this Detective Comic #403 being one of them. Plenty of books from the Golden Age to Copper Age are valuable because of their cover. Since I was a kid, that Detective #403 cover has stood out to me. I am sure it has to others as well...now, I wish I didn't go to bed early and bid on the book!

People keep mentioned the "bored rich people." Who is that? Is it the "I made $4k on Slack" guy from the article or Elon Musk? I think people's definition of "rich" vary widely.