Stronguy

On 9/20/2021 at 12:35 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

And I just want to stress @Stronguy that I walked away completely satisfied, its all good!

That's really what Andy's interested in.  If he's got something you want, he wants you to have it.

On 9/20/2021 at 12:29 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

Wow! Really need to add you to my favorites cause of stuff like this! Yes better pics! Thanks for circling as I know any that didn't sell may be available later.

Normally he will note stuff like the printing, newsstand/direct, MJI/ND at the bottom of the post-it next to the grade.  If you see writing there, give it an extra look.  If it's box-stock it will be on the price sticker.

Check out his Facebook Live sales on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday (7 PM CT).  Many of these are likely to show up.

Here's what I see (and from memory)...

On 9/20/2021 at 11:55 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

If they had so many, they wouldn't be able to point out ever single one!
If you'd like I could edit my post, but I was just a little disappointed.

No need to edit.  Mine was an honest question.  If you couldn't see them or they weren't clearly marked, I'll let Andy know.

I'm not sure who you asked at the booth but maybe only Andy would know exact books to point out.  The other folks would likely know some were there but not exactly where to look.

The collection these books came from originally had over 800 MJIs.  Some of those were sold long ago but I know that he processed 15 long boxes from that collection and around 10% of them were MJI.  Most would have been in the box-stock.

On 9/19/2021 at 5:32 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

I got wind that a certain dealer was to have bronze age with mark jewelers inserts. I asked questions about if they were going to be bin or wall books. They answered, they would be clearly marked in bins and there would be wall books too, as the values would be from $5-200+.

That was the first thing I searched out!

I approached and asked nicely, they turned around at the nice display and said, " mark jewelers? They'd be clearly marked on the post its!"

So I now chuckle at the fact that my goals were lost in a sea of post its

Are you saying you couldn't see the MJI/ND notes on the post-its?  They were pretty clearly noted.  Looking at your pictures, I see several. 

I have detailed knowledge of the collection Andy (Duncanville Bookstore) bought that had all the MJIs.  There were at least 100, and likely 200, of them on the wall and in the boxes.  The ones in the boxes would have been noted on the orange price sticker.

On 9/15/2021 at 11:14 PM, SOLAR BOY said:

Master Comics #75---Sharp 7.0 Copy---Asking $95

On 9/15/2021 at 10:56 PM, SOLAR BOY said:

Whiz #56---Solid 5.5 Copy-----Asking $85

My biggest problem with GPA's "My Comics" feature is it's impossible to add books that have never had a public sale.  I have several like this and you're just SOL for tracking them.

On 8/10/2021 at 4:24 PM, kav said:

I was at a bar once and a woman was tearing up 100 dollar bills because she was mad at her BF.  My buddy took  the pile of pieces when she left and he tried to put them back together but it was impossible.  They were in like 5 mm pieces....

Missed opportunity.  He could have sent them to the Treasury, they would have pieced them together for him, and replaced any bills they could match 51% of.  I watched a documentary (years and years ago) where Treasury agents were given a literal rat's nest made from bills.  They had a team of people laying scraps out on a grid to recreate each bill.  The owner ended up getting back nearly all of the money.

On 8/3/2021 at 8:43 PM, Lazyboy said:

2. The colours on the cover have no connection to the interior colours. The covers and interiors were printed separately. The only way it would matter is if there was a completely separate, unmarked print run. (Plus, anecdotally, I have Blue Galactus copies with the cover "#1" being blue)

Good to know about yours having a blue #1.  The batch of copies I have/had likely came off the press around the same time so that could be a factor.  However, since I figured this out, I have looked at another 10 or so copies.  All but one of them had the purple #1 and all were Blue Galactus; the blue #1 had Red Galactus.  So while it might now be a hard and fast rule, it certainly is a possible indicator.

On 7/28/2021 at 6:24 PM, Brock said:

So I just picked up a collection (see the thread on he "Mildew Pedigree" here in copper. There were three copies of Secret Wars #1, and all were Canadian price variants. All three were also Blue Galactus copies, with the purple(ish) $1 that @Stronguy mentioned on the cover.

Since we're 4 for 4 here, maybe we can hypothesize that all Canadian price variants are also Blue Galactus variants?

I would only go do far as to say, CPVs also have Blue Galactus.  Over the past 35 years every first print SW #1 I've seen or owned (and that's a bunch of them) have been Blue.  I'm guessing Red is much, much harder to find. 

On 7/28/2021 at 8:28 AM, MyNameIsLegion said:

any theories as to why? Bi-monthly status for part of the run meaning fewer books on the rack longer and more beat up? Does the census show any trend?

It's purely anecdotal on my part.  The a random sample of the census seems to show a lower percentage of 9.8s compared to other books from that time period.  I don't know what it is about it.  All I know is, when I sub Byrne X-Men, they always seem to come back lower than expected when the rest of the books are spot-on.

On 7/27/2021 at 11:03 AM, labratnotincluded said:

CBCS graded 9.8 X-Men 120

Fact: CGC hates giving 9.8s on Byrne X-Men.  I have subbed dozens of them over the years -- 100 books will come back 9.8 but the lone Byrne X-Men will come back 9.4.

On 7/14/2021 at 9:32 AM, HighVoltage said:

Your post count is going backwards since the site reboot

Prior to the reboot I had the 1,000,000th post. 

On 7/27/2021 at 7:30 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

The time it takes to change the price plate isn't overly relevant.

Actually it is relevant because the press must stop and covers checked to do it.  That means the chance of a few Canadian covers just shooting off the press and onto the assembly stack is greatly reduced.  To complicate things further is the alignment check that would/should have taken place when the plate was changed.  Several (hundred?) CPV covers would have come off the press and been checked as a standalone activity.  These would have most likely not gone into the normal collating process but might have been retained and used for remainder copies (the 4-staple books you sometimes see where the guts have one set of staples and the cover is attached with another set).

On 7/27/2021 at 7:30 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

The instruction to the assembly crew would have been:

Assembly was automated based on a pre-defined sequence.  Covers were collated from one press with the pages from another press; if there were inserts, they were then added to the stack -- all automated and happening at a blindingly fast rate.  Pages were stacked, trimmed, stapled, then folded.

On 7/27/2021 at 7:30 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Do you think something like that is possible...?

Possible, yes; probable, no.  In fact I think it's is so highly improbably that assuming something fishy went on should be the first inclination -- Occam's Razor.

I think the bottom line is, even if everything is on the up-and-up, these would be a complete fluke and not an actually intended printing variation.

On 7/23/2021 at 12:37 PM, mec3437 said:

Maybe they were only distributed in Ottawa where the US DoD has a personnel exchange program with the Canadians.  

That's possible but they still would have had US covers on them.  MJIs were added to the end of the US print run.  The only possibility I can think of (which is discussed in the linked thread) is that there were some leftover guts left in the stack from the US run at the beginning of the Canadian cover run.  That seems highly improbable because making the Canadian cover requires taking off the front/back cover plate and adding the Canadian price to it.  That takes some time.

Oddly enough, this copy has better centering than 99% of them out there.

Don't make me hop on a plane and pay you a visit, @greggy!

 

On 7/17/2021 at 6:12 AM, John Worley said:

Please help I am confused. I have 5 modern books, two say Grading/Encapsulation/Imaging and 3 say Grading / Quality Control can you please tell me which ones will be done 1st? I can't find the explanation for  "Grading/Encapsulation/Imaging" is it basicly the same as grading/Quality Control? Thank you in advance

It seems to be another BS shell game that CGC is playing with the status to make people think their subs are moving.

In the past, when a sub went to G/QC, they were done in a week, give or take.  I now have books that have been in G/E/I going on 4 weeks.  The frustrating thing is, one of the 4th week G/E/I subs is Standard and was received 5/12.  I have another Standard sub that was received on 7/8; it went straight to G/QC on 7/16 and was shipped on 7/22.  WTF! 

On 7/23/2021 at 8:23 AM, topcat54 said:

BATMAN FAMILY # 9 F/VF $ 6.00

On 7/23/2021 at 11:09 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

 

I remember that.  I still think they're fake but I don't have any way to prove it.  I've done a ton of research on the production, history, and distribution of MJIs over the past 20+ years.  Their existence is not logically consistent with the MJI history I know.  Besides, you would think more of these would have turned up.