GeeksAreMyPeeps

On 9/25/2023 at 3:16 PM, LearnedHand said:

Some observations:

• There are no professional graders.  Last I checked, there’s no curriculum at any accredited institution where one can achieve a comic book grading certificate or diploma for this (part science, part art, part subjective) skill. All we have ever had, since the dawn of people collecting and distinguishing between nicer/crummier copies, is evolving opinions based on gained and shared experiences, and varying degrees of talent or personal interest.  We know this, as there are myriad threads and discussion about how often sellers as well as even the so-called experts get it wrong. 

 

There may be no *certified* graders, but insofar as someone is paying CGC's graders to grade, that's their profession. Splitting hairs, I know. And in any profession, sometimes people get it wrong.

On 10/14/2023 at 11:22 AM, B2D327 said:

On top of the “altering history” plot hole, something that grinds my gears about time travel is how are people paying for the objects they’re purchasing from the past if the currency they travel with is from modern times? 10 cents wasn’t really a pittance 80 years ago so I find it hard to believe a merchant didn’t inspect a coin/coins enough to notice the difference in size and weight when they’ve been handling it on a regular basis, it being the most common form of payment for the time, something I think is an important aspect that “writers” never take into consideration 

I've thought about this problem, and figured that the solution would be to gather up the oldest bills you can currently find that aren't worth any more than the newest bills, go back in time to when they were new, exchange them for the oldest bills you can find that aren't worth any more than contemporary bills, and repeat the process until you have valid money from the time period you're buying from.

On 10/7/2023 at 10:26 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

I guess CGC witnessed someone doing the restoration?

What I wonder here is if the restoration was only on the outer of the double covers, shouldn't it technically still be a blue label, since the inner cover would still be in its original form. (Granted that the label doesn't indicate which cover was touched up.)

On 10/16/2023 at 1:15 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

It was a good shout Geeks. I'm pleased to see any comments really. I'm quite surprised by how muted the response to the discovery of a 30+ year old ASM variant has been. What can you do. My mistake was to post about it on a comic forum 

People probably saw it, and then started hunting for a copy for themselves.

On 10/16/2023 at 12:43 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I see what you mean about the Spidey head UPC, but there's no real comparison there for me. The Shan-Lon books were smaller, repackaged comics, made for a specific purpose.

  Reveal hidden contents

That's not really what's going on with the 320 which is priced and in (largely UK) circulation just as a standard issue would be.

Gotcha. I had never heard of those before; just noticed that in the images you posted.

On 10/7/2023 at 8:22 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Hello 

It's always nice to discover something new when you're looking for something else, isn't it. 

The other day, while looking for Mark Jewelers copies, I spotted something about Spidey #320 that I hadn't spotted before. I'm wondering how many of you might not have spotted it either, despite it being 34 years old and sitting in plain sight. 

The GCD has the two known versions - newsstand and direct....

...as does Pete's place, the home of Spidey Completists worldwide (one of which I used to be):

 

Here are my two copies:

 

Anyway, I was looking for a jewelers copy the other week and found that eBay USA had 205 results for "Amazing Spider-Man 320":

 

Of those 205 listings, 168 (83%) where the Direct Edition:

35 of them (17%) were the Newsstand:

None of them, however, were this Spidey head UPC version:

On eBay UK, 3 of the 12 copies for sale, and 3 of the 8 sold were this hitherto (by me) unspotted version:

 

So, none out of 205 listings in the US, but 6 out of 20 in the UK.

Hmmm....

I ordered a Spidey head UPC copy so I could do a full comparison but the seller sent me the Paladin UPC copy (I suspect on purpose, as I ordered one of each type which likely brought it to their attention). From the eBay images I've seen, the only difference besides the Spidey and Paladin UPCs are a tiny production related line under the word 'LATE' which appears on all the Spidey head UPC copies:

The indicias appear the same - no indication of a second printing or anything like that.

I've ordered some more copies and will do a full review when they arrive, but in the meantime I thought some of you might find this interesting if, as I suspect, it has passed you by too.

Since the previous issue has that "Shan-Lon" giveaway edition with the Spidey head, maybe something similar was planned for this issue?

On 10/15/2023 at 1:16 AM, speedcake said:

amidst the sea of foil and forgettable exclusives at NYCC this year there are some gems.  Will be fun to see in the coming week or two which ones really pop.

The Spawn Universe Sampler already sold for $500 (Canadian).

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=spawn+sampler+todd+mcfarlane+&_sacat=0&LH_Complete=1&LH_Sold=1

On 9/29/2023 at 5:07 PM, brettfes said:

i feel like this is probably something that has been covered someone here before... so please point me or if not answer.

i am looking for a reco for bags for the extra thick cgc slabs. i use 2mil comic pro line "graded - 8.75x13.5x1.5) for othe slabs but they obviously dont fit the extra thick ones. these have a flap and glue strip.
but if anyone knows a similar quality bag i would love a link or point me where. 
cheers
brett

I bought a bunch of these. Works well for the thicker slabs.

https://www.bcwsupplies.com/resealable-bag-for-graded-comics-9-x-14

On 10/8/2023 at 1:10 AM, Bart Allen said:

Thanks a lot :3 Well around £113 ~

I've seen an ungraded copy of 40 go for over $100 by itself, so I think that's a pretty good deal. I still need that 43 in 9.8 (only have a lowly 9.6 right now).

On 10/5/2023 at 4:44 PM, Michael Browning said:

I looked at it very closely and the blue and black are both very vibrant and don't appear to be sun faded, which is why I believe it's a spoilage copy. It may be a case of the printing press not having the right amount of the Y color which would leave a hint of yellow, but the red is definitely not there at all. I think the yellow is just from the paper, though.

Magenta and yellow tend to be more susceptible to fading than cyan and black.

On 10/5/2023 at 4:07 AM, Bart Allen said:

Static #39, 40, 43 and 44 

Nice! What did this cost you?

It doesn't hurt that there are a lot of Newsstand issues there as well. It might help to break out each group (i.e. sell all Essentials together, all of Volume 1 together, etc.). It's a little bit more work, and might result in a higher total overall, because not everyone is willing to spend on each category.

On 10/2/2023 at 9:52 PM, grbox2001 said:

Lol. I will tell him to track down the Thor #238. Yeah I think he wants to sell it as a lot. No real keys aside from the What if Jane Austin issue. Just need to find someone that really wants a ton of Thor books... 

Thor 279 is not a huge key, but sells well because of the bondage cover.

On 10/5/2023 at 9:05 AM, Michael Browning said:

The Magenta and Yellow plates are missing from the CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black) printing process in that cover. It's a book that should have been tossed in the trash as part of the spoilage, which are test copies printed at the start of the run to get the colors correct. Some of these slip through every now and again, but they are very rare and can be very valuable.

I don't think so; I think that's sun fade. You can see a hint of yellow if you compare Ghost Rider's head to the front wheel (or, in the corner box, compare the flames on the head to the skull).

On 9/29/2023 at 10:41 AM, the blob said:

I know they provide this nice forum and a definite valuable service for the appropriate books, but it is hard to wrap my head around the amount of $ that has been spent on slabbing books that probably do not warrant it and the creation of artificial perceived rarity for some 9.8 books. 

 

Take that thought to the next step. Considering that a certain amount of money has been spent on slabbing books that probably do not warrant it (if being slabbed for resale, anyway; I'm slabbing a bunch of books for my PC that wouldn't be worth slabbing if I was selling them), that activity was probably a signal to CGC that the industry is growing at a certain rate, and the usual expectations when you have one company buy out another one (as was the case here) that is growing at a certain rate, is that it will continue to grow at that rate, or at least show consistent growth. Now that the bubble has deflated or burst, I doubt they're seeing any growth, and more likely seeing some contraction. I have to wonder what that is going to mean for the company and for customers. Will they have layoffs? Will we see even more jumps in prices as they try to maintain the same income on lower volumes of submissions (which would only cause a further dropoff in submissions, as the bar for a book being worth slabbing is raised).

On 9/28/2023 at 12:29 AM, FloridianDemon said:

I do have a list( it keeps growing as i discover new ones i didnt know about like mirror's edge SDCC ashcan etc), and nah, if they have a video game I dont mind grabbing it but i would want the comic to be based in the game world. like I dont need the 1st batman, I need the batman Arkham asylum #1 though

Probably a good idea, because the first Turok would be pricey too.

Do you have a list of books you're hunting for?

Are you just looking for comics from properties that were video games first? Because that makes Shadowman a little less of a necessity. (And that's not Shadowman's first appearance, anyway.)

On 9/27/2023 at 4:59 PM, the blob said:

I am selling a (small) NYC apartment right now. Multiple offers, cash. over ask. Of course, a card bro isn't buying it. Is the economy about to tank or take off. No idea.

 

I'm also in NYC. I know multiple people that regularly get inquiries about the sale of their home, whether they're selling it or not. I think there are just a lot of people with money looking to buy real estate to rent out.

On 9/27/2023 at 3:23 AM, Lightning55 said:

A lot depends on what you sell, and your volume level. My best years selling comics on eBay were about $200k per year. I offered 30 day Free Returns and 1 day shipping to become Top Rated+, to get the extra 10% off the fee total. So my $25k in fees per year became $22.5k, saving $2500. 

I had about 5 returns per year, costing me about $150 out of pocket. A couple were legit returns anyway, something wrong with the comic, so you can't even count those in the offset calculation. A few other returns also involved defects....the Buyers! But paying $150 to save $2500, yeah, no-brainer.

Different products like clothing, probably a heavy return rate. You would have to test, or look at your sales and return histories to make that decision. 

Now that I only sell casually, I pushed my handling time out to 3 days, which took me out of eligibility for the discount. I usually still ship in 1 day, but if I can't, I don't have to sweat it.

Since I was already in a non-discount situation, I changed to Buyer pays for the return. But I have been lucky enough not to have any returns (knocking on wood).

That makes sense if you're doing that kind of volume, but my sales are significantly less than that.

On 9/26/2023 at 5:51 PM, davidking623 said:

That would be correct ! People that are just buyers and not sellers don't really understand that in it's entire nature and that really is a problem , they think they need free shipping , so that is why I don't budge on charging shipping .Also if a person succumbs to that way of thinking as a seller then he gives into the 30 day return policy and I am never doing that . So call me stubborn but I am not giving in to that . 

I generally think it's a good idea on eBay to take returns, with the cost of return shipping being the responsibility of the buyer. Offering returns I think gets you a slight decrease in fees (or some other benefit that I'm not remembering at the moment). Any buyer can claim the item isn't as described and return it anyway, and that's counted as a defect on the seller. It's not is it's an accepted return.

I wouldn't offer *free* returns though. I think there are too many consumers (not talking about comics, but merch in general) that will absolutely buy more than what they plan on keeping, and return what they decide not to keep, because it's no hassle to *them*, but seriously cuts into the profit of who they're buying from, if the seller isn't selling expensive items.

On 9/15/2023 at 12:31 PM, PossumGrease said:

That's a pretty shocking pie chart. This industry (perhaps like all industries) always goes to far with a trend and pursues a strategy until it kills what it started. Meaning, a variant, a foil cover, a facsimile, a crossover, etc., these can all be neat and cool when used sparingly, but when books are only being printed to sell a variant, what are we doing? Just sell limited print run posters.

Some might say that the variant game is only thing keeping the industry alive, but that's short sighted. Words and pictures being used together to tell a compelling story is what should be driving the industry. If you can't do that, then maybe you don't need to be publishing.

Is there any "data" on how variants affect long-term collectability of a title? It completely turns me off from trying to have a run because it is impossible to own them all. I know I was working on a complete CGC 9.8 of Invincible, but all these post-story, convention variants have killed my interest in that pursuit. 

I think you need to clarify what you mean regarding "long-term collectability"; I think a lot of people would have different thoughts on what that means, and there are probably many different contributing factors influencing "collectability." Clarifying what you want to track makes it easier to determine whether there is data to track that.

On 8/22/2023 at 10:11 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

“If you want the rainbow, you’ve got to part with the rain. Do you know which philosopher said that? Dolly Parton. And people say she’s just a pair of tits.”

 

*put up with

Jim Croce sang it many years ago (not verbatim, but same sentiment)

On 9/2/2023 at 9:47 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

DD label on a Batman book. 

They both look like Ben Affleck, so…

Not eBay, but I saw some interesting results on another online auction site. Makes me want to consign to them.