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zhamlau

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Everything posted by zhamlau

  1. See, I would disagree on prices. You can sometimes win vg-fines for 40-50 but ive been blown out on my last 3 mid grades for 130-150-160. I lost 25 consecutive bids in the last month and nothing went under 70 for fines. I think honestly 35 cent price variants are the most undervalued comics in general. I will buy any price variant 35 cent in fine or above condition for 30 bucks, you have 30 copies of MTU 58 ill buy em all. The print run on most of these books is like 400-1000 range by most estimates, and most got chewed up or sent back since they were all retail. Add to it they are 40 years old and at most only 2-3 a day get listed for the 1000+ books of similar era daily on ebay....I find i have a different experience.
  2. Im about 20 total books away from finishing out a 35 cent price variant set. Most of the hard ones and some goofy ones i never picked up like Human Fly's. I started sending off some of my books for grading, i mostly collect F/VF or better. The grades came back a little hard got a 6.5 one one. However they made a mistake and didst list price variant on the grade. Neat little thing, probably sending back but thought id share, kinda fun to see.
  3. Not to bring up painful topics, but the way to see where this is at is to follow an auction of a a 4.5-6.0 CGC blue label with no chipping and strong eye appeal. We have seen chipped copies sell but the entire argument (the smart one that is) has been that eye appeal copies in lower grade have greatly outpaced superior grade copies with chipping, Or a copy with no chips and good eye appeal but bad PQ will significantly crush a book with better PQ and chips in the same grade. I believe in proof, thats what Id like to see. All drama aside I believe there is merit to this idea but I want to see more of those specific types of sales. It would seem to me to indicate a new breed of buyers coming up just looking for the Internet appeal of the book rather than the sum total value (looks good on my FB and Forum posts where i just show the front, all i care about when i bid).
  4. Has anyone seen a no chips good color CGC 5-6 copy sell in last 2 weeks?
  5. How its going now, probably 19k. It does everything right based on current online sales. 1. Blue Label CGC 2. No Chips 3. Above standard grade Eye Appeal
  6. I was thinking 2-2.5 actually, that spine is ragged up.
  7. I was saying earlier about this, I view the chipping on that book to be very substantial. From what I've seen you have more than one tiny piece off of a cover your price seems to drop substantially, that was so much it looked almost like chipping on top of chipping. It looks like there were 13 total pieces out of that front cover (counting peaks) with pre-chipping conditions on the top center and right center with one huge run getting ready to fall on the right. I still don't get how a book with that much wear can get a 6.0...that book should be a 5.0. If you added up all the surface area missing from that book it would be about 1/2 of the size of the Comics Code box. Heck its almost like missing a marvel stamps worth of space out of a book. How can that book be in "fine" condition? Also its weird too but when you think about it, its like we are grading intent. A. Donny printer decides to not fix his blade and his actions cause at some point after the book was printed for a fingertip of space to come off a the vital piece of narrative of the book (the cover)....Get a vitally important/desired blue label (and really grade isnt really effected considering the severity of the damage). B. Donny Collector decides to use HIS blade and his actions cause at some point after the book was printed for a fingertip worth of space to come off a not important hidden interior page which doesnt affect the story...gets a price crippling green label and again grade isnt really effected. C. Heck, side note Donny Collector decides he likes the words "AMAZING FANTASY" and takes his same exacto he used to remove the Value Stamp to take off the logo of his favorite spidey book to pin on his corkboard above his Joe Pepitone cards. HUGE piece of NARRATIVE HURTING (lost the logo/title and metadata values) paper removed from cover....book is gets a blue label for some reason this time? Cut the value stamp out to pin to your board, you get green....cut the top half of the cover off to pin to your board, you get a blue label....wha....?!?!?! Yeah grade is hammered but beyond that why is one decision to cut something out turn into a green label and one decision to cut something out a blue label? Why allow any variation in policy if exact same issue (collector decided to exacto out a piece of the book)?
  8. You should move this from the marketplace to the normal category. But off hand ive seen one just like this on ebay from england so seeing this makes me wonder.
  9. What I don't get on many of these lower PQ record sales is this...what is the end goal of the buys? I mean, when you pay 57k for a book that at most can be upgraded to a 5.5 but still is below average PQ....what are you hoping for? It's real and it happened and it's gonna have to have an effect on price so it cant just be boxed and tossed away as a fact. I just don't get it, I'm hoping to see other prices of similar material come up to gauge this new trend more thoroughly.
  10. When it comes to art, im only looking for general art from 2 books from 2 different time periods. The rest of the art I get really I never chase it I wait to see whats beautiful and speaks to me, and at a price cheap enough I can afford to keep it :-) I'm the same way with comic books, I collect 35 cent price variants, all 80s marvels (including my 2 series I like), and Silver Age Marvel CGC unrestored Mega Key books Like AF15 and Hulk 1. Im in no real danger of being "over exposed" to anything. Whats funny, is that as of the last year my comic collection has started to surpase my art collection and that hasnt been the case since 1993 lol.
  11. Do you think than, we are seeing a trend of maybe new money new collectors coming in and making a splash paying whatever they have to for books that look good on front views only? Like Maybe I'm off but it seems like a lot of these books of recent strong sales have had lower PQ and back covers. The real strengths they had were good color saturation, 1 or none chips, and that CGC blue logo. On ever other level many of them seemed to have issues bringing them back to the more standard or even lesser (with PQ) range of copies. Clearly the 5.5 CL sale puts a hole in the "every single copy has doubled this week, lets sell up and get rich!" theory. Im just trying to find the market drivers good and bad on this book and these prices and that's all I can come up with.
  12. I think the formula I've seen is this: 1. CGC Graded 2. No Chipping (at most one piece) 3. Good color on the suit and title. If you book has all that, its gonna crush and seemingly outperform in today's market per GPA. If you have 2 of the 3 it will do well but more normal price range. If it has only 1 expect low average pricing. Page quality i think is about the most important part of a book but it doesn't seem to play into this push for new high prices on this book which REALLY surprises me.
  13. I don't know if I see the Frazetta touch, but this is crazy good McWilliams. A great example. Its in the woman's face and pair in center and the man in the tee-shirt specifically The pose and face and hair and nose profile. He could have just been channeling him though. Again I'm absolutely floored they let Al get away with the girl in the center. The ampleness of her "assets" is kinda shocking. Like how they got away with that in a 1962 daily meant for kids is surprising.
  14. http://www.comiclink.com/Auctions/item.asp?back=%2FComicTrack%2FAuctions%2Fbids.asp&id=1171202 So, the book ended at 27,500 from what I see. I know people didn't agree on some of my assessment but the issue had 16 different chips of various sizes out of 2 of the 3 sides possible to me that's major chipping. Its not catastrophic but its significant and I think helps prove the point many here are making about MC being a major hurting factor in price. Being CBCS not CGC hurt as well, and not having any realistic up-grade potential added up to this book performing under GPA 2016 average by a significant amount. I think you can view this as a positive. Its not just mindless panic buying and hype driving this but actual reasonable market dynamics. People want CGC, People want no Chips, People want good page quality, People want eye appeal. You give them that, the same grade can literally swing the price 100%. A 5.0 sells for 57k last week...a 5.5 sells for 27k this week...what pushed the supposedly inferior grade to 2x the price? I think its the issues we talked about here unless im missing something.
  15. I think a true test of this books value will be to see how a superior graded copy sells when it has nearly ever negative going against it outside of grade. http://www.comiclink.com/Auctions/item.asp?back=%2FComicTrack%2FAuctions%2Fbids.asp&id=1171202 This book ends tonight, its at 26k right now. 1. CBCS not CGC 2. Below average page quality 3. Strong marvel chipping and pre-chipping. 4. Decent eye appeal with detractors as mentioned, but not outstanding. those 4 will be weighing on this book and its final price. How this book does will tell a lot about the price/value of this book. It has no realistic upgrade potential, Chipping, and doesn't have outstanding eye appeal (nice red though). If this thing goes 41k or higher, yeah this book evolved this isnt one offs and bubbles (in my opinion). Its in a well known auction house with a strong track record of sales on this book and books in general. Lets see how capt average flys.
  16. Yeah, i figured that out recently...oh well...how long does that take on value (if you know)?
  17. Got this a bit ago but finally got around to posting. I think its the best Twin Earths daily ive ever seen. I have wondered if Frazetta worked on it cause its almost to good for McWilliams and he was already pretty danm good. Either way, its pretty...huzzah....
  18. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Amazing-Fantasy-15-CGC-6-0-HOLY-GRAIL-KEY-1st-app-Spider-Man-Ditko-Lee-Marvel-/382018222798?hash=item58f20f7ace&rmvSB=true I really hope this book doesn't go for 60-70k. Its not that bright, its page color is just average for grade, and its got a fair amount of chipping in multiple spots that probably accounts for almost .25% of the cover area being gone. If this one goes nuts price wise than it changes the thought behind the pricing jumps. Nothing can be upgraded, its not exceptional eye appeal, and its in fact over-graded on some level based on the chips in multiple spots.
  19. Well status changed today to "graded", yay. Nothing filled in yet but that's probably a good sign for sooner rather than later.
  20. The issue is one of remediation. So many copies with MC were given the pass over the last 10+ years that it would be difficult to start lower grading them now. Its like "so your saying older grading is inferior?" and that cant happen. SO the options for them (I assume) are limited. 1. Leave it as is and let the more engaged collectors figure out the grade is not the final say that chipping/eye appeal matter as much and on some level more (for some books). 2. (my favorite option) start treating Marvel Chipping as a comment/qualifier defect they list on the label the same way they do "tape on cover" or "Spot of glue" just have "Production Chipping" as new term to put on. Going forward all books will have that, and any reholders the book will have it put on label. 3. Use the "star" system they have a copyright on. Put a star on all copies with exceptional eye appeal (aka no chips). People will put two-two together and realize all "exceptional eye appeal" copies will also MAGICALLY also be books without MC.
  21. 1980's Nude Dave Cockrum Storm of X-men Drawing Put this up for trade on my CAF. I didnt hide it since ive seen others not NSFW listed but, as title says its storm without clothes on. http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1383338&GSub=145532
  22. What is timeline for "scheduled for grading" status? Hello, been watching about 20 books I sent in about a month ago. it showed up as verified status on 2/23/17 but have been sitting in that status until this afternoon it switched to "scheduled for grading". How far along is that? when it gets to that point how long in your experience does it take for the books to be graded/published on your invoice? Not an exact science I'm sure, just looking for experiences on this one.
  23. Nope, it has not. It remains a plausible theory. And based on what I've read by and about Ditko, it would be very unlikely that he would have donated it. I don't have the multi-quote function down yet. Yeah, in the comic art groups i move in it was pretty much thought it was Marie who did it. As for Ditko, in theory objectivism and its followers shouldn't have an issue donating an item to the federal government like the AF15 pages so that wouldn't preclude Ditko. However based on his views about physical art from the past and its importance now I would think he wouldn't care enough to make the trip to donate it. I think right now its on her still as the single strongest option.
  24. Its a good show. For a long time i felt like I was the only guy bringing portfolios of stuff to trade and sell to other collectors and dealers. Now, everyone does it. I always tell people, bring whatever you have to trade/sell and bring a few keeper pieces just to share with others. It's a lot more fun sharing this stuff with folks who get it than your friends and family who nod and say "I like the word ballons on that" and "thats nice..." :-) Ill be doing it like always, you should do the same.