VintageComics

Nah, the game hasn't changed for AF #15 in a decade. Now if a 9.8 appeared, it would change the game. It wouldn't sell for much more than a 9.6 now IMO but it would certainly push the prices of 9.6 down.

The people spending the money say no, the people who aren't say yes. Maybe the ones saying yes today who aren't spending the money now will make the difference in the future. Times do change and I never thought AF #15 would surpass FF #1, which to me is one of the greatest comic books of all time. I still have trouble accepting FF #1 being supplanted, and it's been this way for what, a decade now?

The winner of some of the record price Promise Books is someone I know and they're legit. Agreed. He's not jaded by last year's comic prices because he wasn't in the market. His point of reference is his small, $10K investment so if he has $700K to spend that he didn't have before, everything is priced right now. I love the way you think and can relate. This is something I've struggled with for decades because of the 'SA - GA difference' but I think we're past that point. 30 years ago, in 1990 when I was at the height of my young collecting, AF #15 came out 20 years after the GA keys and 'only' 30 years before 1990. It wasn't truly an 'old' book since GA keys were already 50+years old. But today, AF #15 is 60 years old while the GA keys are only 20 years older (80 years in total but not nearly as different as they were 30 years ago) We're getting to a point where the SA keys of today are the GA keys of only a few years ago. AF #15 is older now than Action #1 was in 1990.

There's a tandem reaction here that happens. It's like having a broomstick on your hand horizontally. If the left side of the broomstick goes up, eventually the right side needs to rise to meet up with the left side. Visa versa if the right side goes up first. In much the same way, sometimes the high grade leads and the low grade follows and sometimes the low grade leads and the high grade just lands where it's expected to on the foundation the low grade copies have already built. In this case, both have been rising steadily. The market seems to have an idea of where it wants to go with this book based on what other books have already done this year, and that AF #15 is late to the game and just settling into the market that's already been set by everything previously.

When I said we were entering hyperinflation I was nominated for a good tar and feathering. Pretty sure this book walked up to my table as a 9.4 in NYC in 2010. It was really nice. I kinda knew the owner brought it because he was trying to upgrade it because it was just after the first 9.6 $1MIL sale and the owner had his eye on that 9.6 grade.

Often but not always. That was my favorite thing about him in Kirby's design actually, because it made Hulk seem surreal and different than any other characters (who the heck loses a toe or two when they become their alter ego) but Kirby was inconsistent. Sometimes Hulk (or Thing) would have 3 fingers and toes, sometimes 3 toes and 4 fingers and sometimes 4 fingers and toes. Weird.

I agree. That was Stan's touch. You connected with his characters. The DC characters were abstract. Even the cities that DC characters lived in where not real while Marvel characters were actually all over NYC. Hell's Kitchen, Mid Town, the Bronx One thing that I think also gives Spider-man the edge is his costume colors. I've always believed that red and blue (but mainly red) was THE true Superhero color. I think that's why Superman is so appealing. That red swirl of him changing in a telephone booth in the old days? One of the least appealing things about Batman was that his costume was designed all grey / black and blue (although that little bit of yellow was a nice touch) Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Batman and the 'Dark Knight' concept, but even though I wasn't that in love with Spiderman growing up and Batman was my first love, his costume never really 'struck me' in the chest the way Spider-man's did. As a kid, Spider-man was one of the costumes I always made to play in. So I think it's a combination of story appeal AND visual impact. Without the visual impact it just wouldn't be the same. ps I read Michael Fleisher's Batman Encyclopedia cover to cover once.

The Eternals rule!

This place used to be about people who loved comics. It's more of a pump and dump forum now. I understand. I make money from comics, but I rarely talk about value. I miss the old days when people just talked about how much they love their books. When these 'club threads' started years ago, I kind of saw it coming. We're probably never going back to the innocent hobby we once had. Those days are gone. Kind of surreal to be a part of it over the last few decades and to watch it change. Our hobby has now become a speculator's playground.

Mods notified.

I believe he's talking about a claim if the book is damaged. If you only claim the lower value they only only value the book at that lower value even if it might have graded higher. Most of my books come back in the grade I expect but what I don't expect were the massive bump in prices in this new market.

After they were graded I got an accounting email notifying me of the bumps.

As far as I can tell, CGC uses whatever is currently on GPA for valuation. So if it hasn't made it's way to GPA then they won't use it.

My first experience with submissions now that Blackstone has taken over CGC I know there have been some complaints about CGC's fee structure whereby they charge a percentage of the value of a comic to have the book graded. The concern was that the temptation to overgrade a book was there to gain the extra revenue. CGC would occasionally 'bump' my fee if a book got a grade where the book was valued higher than the tier it was submitted in. My position was that I didn't think CGC was really in a conflict of interest because they rarely bumped my books unless the value difference was significant. That seems to have changed. On my last sub, every book got a bumped increase in grading fees. I'm not sure whether this system was in place or not, but I got a 'bump' email stating what all of my new fees would be for every single book I submitted. This isn't a good or a bad thing, but it's a very noticeable difference to how fees were charged before. And it makes sense. Blackstone is not in this for the love of the comics. They're in this for the money. So I'd expect all changes to follow a similar pattern. Now whether this reopens the 'independent 3rd party grading' conflict of interest of tying fees to grades, well that's a different discussion to be had.

Are you sure? I just watched several auctions, all with record prices.

I have noticed far less notes on new books than old books.

Sorry, but I disagree. There was a lot of questionable moderation for a long time during the Covid discussions that seems to have gotten quite a bitter better lately (thankfully).

I still see him posting on social media. He also retired from the military so that was a big change for him.

I think the story of how you got to those articles would be just as interesting as what you posted.

I was looking for a Mealoaf GIF with that phrase but couldn't find it so I went with the Rocky Horror vid.

It seems that way, doesn't it? They may be the reason behind all of the signings that have been appearing over the last year or so. It's way more profitable to slab a book AND get a sig fee for the same book than it is to just slab a book so I'd expect a non-stop push on signings from here on out.

To me, this is mostly Janson. Once you know how Miller draws anatomy (and I don't see any in here) it becomes easy to spot. This is pure Miller pencils. Easy to tell as Janson didn't draw anatomy like that (especially hands - those are pure Miller hands) I remember buying the issues off the newsstands with great anticipation but it was easy to tell that #185 was where the big change happened (and some parts of the #170s) Thanks for the great read, gang! Apologies for the thread necromancy!

I agree. DD #181 not touched by Miller? I don't believe it. Just getting caught up on this discussion but it's not hard to real Miller pencils from the ones that were 'loosely' done and mostly finished by Janson. That much I know. I can generally spot them from a quick look at any DD run printed page.

Churn and burn, baby!