Brock

On 5/26/2024 at 6:53 PM, MAR1979 said:

Thanks for explaining. 

I do not agree that watchers is = buyers. I'm sure there are many like me who do it out of curiosity as we already own the item. No longer will I click on "Add To Watchlist" and have deleted my current watched comics due to what you have mentioned.

Some books, I watch to buy. Other books, I watch to… erm, watch.

In so many ways, the behaviour of people on the CGC boards is not reflective of the hobby as a whole. We are the voyeurs of the hobby, in that we like to watch. I am confident that our little fetish is not widespread.

When I sell books on eBay, they sometimes sell when there are no watchers or views. But when I have books with many watchers and many views, they are far more likely to sell. The correlation between watchers and sales is strong in my experience, and @whetteon’s data speaks to this correlation.

Shipped to Switzerland, it’s a very good deal.

On 5/16/2024 at 3:41 PM, topcat54 said:

Didn't know this one was getting attention

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p3519243.m570.l1313&_nkw=Farlaine+the+Goblin+%23+5+skottie

I know it’s the Skottie Young cover, but Farlaine was a great book.

On 5/11/2024 at 3:19 PM, Lee Enterprises said:

At this point, I'm struggling to think of anything Bronze Age that's "heating up". I'm trying to take advantage of the cooling down because I have so many holes in my collection.  

Could be hard… the day after you posted this, I sold a big lot of Warlock books on eBay at full asking price.

This series is awesome... mostly new, but as @shadroch says, the 100-pagers had some reprints. In my opinion, though, those Fawcett reprints hold up better than many Golden Age stories do.

On 5/14/2024 at 2:49 PM, pickycollector said:

Does anyone know if the Marvel Treasuries were polybagged when originally sold? Any original owner whom bought them when offered on newsstands?

I have that MTE #20 that is polybagged and I dare not opening it before knowing for sure.

I bought many of them off the newsstand, and never saw a polybagged one. I'm 99.9999% certain that none were bagged - even the Whitman variants didn't come bagged. I did not, however, buy #20 on the stands, which keeps me from being 100% certain. I have seen (and bought) many over the years, and have never seen one bagged.

On the Richie Rich front, my friends an I really got into collecting about 2 or 3 years after these figures. We were all DC guys (my favourites were Justice League and Brave & Bold), but we also all read Richie Rich. Star Wars broke the DC monopoly, and we slowly started reading Marvel as well. By the time of Micronauts, we were Marvel converts, and probably gave up Richie Rich as we made that transition.

Archies were everywhere, but they were "girl" comics. My younger sister had hundreds of them, and I read them all, but I didn't know any boys who bought Archies.

On 4/27/2024 at 4:38 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

I realize that Superman breaking out of chains is one of the all-time most iconic images in comics.

That said, I've never understood exactly how somebody got those chains on him in the first place ... so many times.

I mean, chain me up once, shame on you ...

It was the same arch-villain who slipped an extra pair of pants on Batman on that Batman 244 cover…

On 4/26/2024 at 12:00 AM, OtherEric said:

 

I'm particularly fond of this one, where the previous owner wrote "249" inside the CCA stamp.

It's issue 248.

They could work for CGC… several of my slabbed copies are misnumbered the same way.

On 4/25/2024 at 3:12 PM, Mayor006 said:

Overall I've had rotten luck with Whitman covers. I bought a bunch of them over the years inexpensively because of condition or in the case of several I bought at one time, they all had the same problem. Someone was not happy with the fact the issue number wasn't on the cover so they wrote them all in ink randomly so we wouldn't have to wonder what issue they were.

 

My CGC copy of Superman 348 actually has a little home-made sticker with issue number pasted over the “W” logo.

On 4/24/2024 at 4:59 PM, Ryan. said:

They'll likely come down not because of the quality of his work but as high grades start populating the census and the FOMO cools off.

I've had a top 10 set on the census for many years, and I can't see these coming our of the woodwork like that, or at least not in high grade. For every common book (like Vanguard Illustrated or Alien Worlds) there are a bunch of scarce ones...

His original Rocketeer books are around more frequently, and often in high grade, but if the oft-rumoured Disney reboot comes together, all bets are off on these, too. 

On 4/14/2024 at 10:46 PM, bellrules said:

Picked up this guy at a local show this morning. Beat, but complete 

I'll match that with today's mail call from the Yukon...

I knew that Marvel’s Godzilla books were doing well, but I was just just doing some eBay listings, and I didn’t realize how well Godzilla #23 was doing. It’s a late, (supposedly) low print issue, which feature a battle between Godzilla and the Avengers.

On 4/19/2024 at 2:31 PM, 1Cool said:

Stevens was good but I'd rather collect Hughes or Campbell if I'm looking for girl art.

I do feel like At least some Hughes books have started to rise in the past couple of months. Not everything, for sure, but I see upward movement on the “big” Hughes books, like Catwoman 51 and 74, Harley Quinn 1, Teen Titans 75, Zatanna 15 and 16, etc. I also think “tough” books in CGC 9.8 are climbing - Legionnaires 16 DCU variant, Sable 19, Chassis 1, Stargrazers 1, etc.

On 4/19/2024 at 2:31 PM, 1Cool said:

Next you are going to tell me Stevens was better than Zeck.

Stevens IS better than Zeck.

Seriously, though, I think the question is not if Dave Stevens is a popular artist in the vein of Art Adams or even Neal Adams. In my mind, it's more like whether Stevens will command premiums the way that, say, Matt Baker does. 

People like Adams, but they obsessively track every obscure Baker cover, and drive the prices through the roof on all of them.

The Dave Stevens insanity continues... I just listed a book for triple the previous sale on eBay, and it sold within 24 hours at full asking price.

What are everyone's predictions on this? Is this likely to blow over, or is this just the first phase in a bigger run up?

On 4/14/2024 at 10:36 AM, BingBangBong said:

Why would you need to raise your own bid if you already bid your Maximum?

Because shilling is real, and legal in many jurisdictions.

On 4/14/2024 at 10:11 AM, BingBangBong said:

I collect comics.

Sniping is good for the seller, no?

A half hour between bids? That's crazy 

The “extension” model is used in industrial auctions, but also auctions for many high end collectibles. Away from EBay, the thinking is that it raises the prices achieved in auctions, which draws more sellers to the marketplace. In this way, it raises both the quality and volume of what is offered for sale.

Similarly, the thinking is that sniping is actually bad for the seller, and only good for the buyer. The whole point of sniping is to bid in a way that does not allow another bidder enough time to respond and raise their own bid. Therefore, sniping is - by design - intended to win auctions below FMV, and to reduce the prices achieved by the seller.

And only the instant gratification generation sees a 1/2 hour as a long time… 

i don’t really care much one way or the other, though… I’m just interested in the thinking behind peoples’ perspective on this.

On 4/12/2024 at 12:38 PM, BingBangBong said:

 

No thanks.

This is quite common in industrial auctions, and prevents sniping. It also means sellers tend to achieve prices closer to fair market value, whereas we frequently warn each other on these boards not to sell items on eBay by auction, in case they don’t get noticed.

What is it about this model you don’t like?

I recently listed an item, and quickly picked up 10 watchers. Buyer xallstars made a lowball offer, and I countered. He accepted the counter, then later e-mailed to say he had accepted the offer "accidentally" and wanted to count offer another lowball amount.

I accepted the cancellation, but now I'm out 10 watchers...

3.5

I think the rust stain around the lower staple hurts.

9.2

9.0