paqart

Actually, my mom was a paranoid schizophrenic who really believed that the CIA had set up a listening station in the attic of our rented house. She also thought they were drugging our cereal with hallucinogens. She sent samples of our food to a lab to have it analyzed. When it came back negative, that proved to her that the lab was in on it also, so we had to move. However, thanks to her schizophrenia, she could never hold a job for long (a few months at best) so she was always short of money. In this situation, she was terrified we would be murdered by the CIA if we stayed but didn't have the money to move. She knew my comics were worth something, so she forced me to sell them so that I could pay for our move to Las Vegas. I didn't want to move and didn't believe the CIA had any interest in our family but it is tough to argue with someone who had months before almost shot your head off from point blank range and was your legal guardian. So, I sold the comics under protest. To mitigate the damage, I sold them to a store that also dealt in coins. My mom needed $600 but my comics were worth much more, even then. I told her to wait outside while I negotiated for $1200. I took $600 in antique coins that I could hide in my pocket. The remaining $600 I handed over to my mom. This money was very important to me because my mother had promised that my sister and I would be kicked out to live on our own on our respective fifteenth birthdays. I had about a year to go at the time, and the comic collection that I had accumulated to sustain myself and pay for a college education when the time came was now gone. My plan was to learn about numismatics by trading the coins I had, hopefully into the same kind of value I had with the comics. I did pretty well for a fourteen year-old but didn't have enough time. I spent my fifteenth birthday in a home for runaways in Santa Barbara because my mom didn't have money for an apartment, not because I was a runaway. Shortly afterward, my mom presented me with two legal-looking documents. The first was an "emancipation proclamation". According to it, after signing it, I became a legal adult and my mom no longer had any parental rights or obligations to me. The second was a contract wherein I agreed to pay her $50,000 to cover all child-rearing expenses for the previous fifteen years, in exchange for allowing me to live with her while I found my own place to stay. Shortly after signing those documents under duress at the age of fifteen, the Santa Barbara police department located my father in Northern California and I went to live with him. So, this is why I want those comics back. Every time I think about it, it bothers me. I did get my college education by the way, but it took a long time because I had to earn some money first. I got my PhD from King's College, London in 2018.

Nothing as old as FF 49. I did have that (and almost the rest of the series, minus #1-3 and a couple others between #6-9) but don't recall offhand how I got it. I briefly "had" a full set of Fantastic Four and Spider-Man when I was around 13, but that was only so I could sell them for someone else. I earned a $750 commission on the sale. As for these, no, I don't have them any more. My mom forced me to sell my collection in 1979. Now, I'm trying to get it back. Unfortunately, I don't have millions to spare, so it is slow going.

This might not be an exact match for the thread, but it is a good story. I don't remember exactly how old I was when this happened, how it happened, or why, but this is what I remember. Sometime in the mid-seventies, my mom drove me and my sister out to a ranch in central California. I don't remember the town's name, though I recall the dusty drive, the long driveway past corral fences, and the ranch house we stopped at. Inside, I met what might be the only comic collector to have ever owned three copies of the most amazing comic I'd ever seen, Marvel Comics #1. Even more remarkably, he acquired them separately. One, he paid $10,000 for. Another, he traded some kind of labor or professional services. I don't recall how he got the third. He also showed me an original pencil sketch by Carl Barks that he had. He had quite a few other amazing Golden Age comics, but he is the only person I know of who has owned three copies of Marvel Comics #1 at the same time. He pulled them out of his storage area in a converted closet, each in a stiff mylar protector, and let me hold them. It was an amazing moment for a kid who was just barely a teenager.

A long time ago, back in the 1970's, I put a note on a grocery store bulletin board that read, "Wanted: comics. Will buy any amount". I was thirteen at the time and didn't have any money. I knew, however, I could get the money I needed if the comics were valuable enough. I got a call a few days later. A man had some comics to look at. I rode out to his place on my bicycle. He opened his garage, revealing about a hundred boxes full of comics. His brother had owned a newsstand but had been sent to jail. Now, he wanted to sell the comics for cash. Most of them were uninteresting to me, though today they would be quite valuable. All were mint, sitting in mostly never opened distributor boxes. They covered approximately the time period 1967-1971 or so. Because I didn't want most of them, I made a deal for the ones I wanted, $200 for one box of comics (200 comics to a box), but I got to select what went in the box. I filled it with multiple mint copies of many Neal Adams Detective and Batman comics, Wrightson Swamp Things, and multiples of the comics attached here.

Just put him on ignore. I did and it makes all the difference.

What is PWCC? I am getting ready to list the cards soon. After doing a lot of research, I see that the lowest comparable price on eBay for the 26 graded cards I've received so far is $14,528.93. The estimated value, based on sold listings, is $17,875. I'm hoping to get around $15,000 for the group, trying to figure out best way to do it. I still have four cards at CGC that they haven't sent back yet, one base set Charizard, a Legendary set Charizard, a Shining Celebi, and something else I'd have to look up to remember. These cards all come from the same group of booster sets I bought between 2002-2004 to play Pokemon with my 6-8 yr. old daughter. I pretty much bought out all the remaining stock at a WOTC store that was going out of business in LA, then continued buying in Arizona for another year. Every card went straight into a card protector as soon as it came out of the booster set. More than 90% of the cards were never played. Based on the grades I received for the first 26 I sent, I believe that CGC would grade all but one card (received in a trade) out of 1621 cards as some form of mint (8.5-10, average grade 9.0). Keep in mind, these are my cards. My daughter got the really good stuff and hers are not for sale. She has a lot more cards than I do.

Here are a few of the photos I took btw. My guess is they are better than whatever CGC does but they take a lot of time to make. Why better? I have a pro-level photo studio. To take these, I had two color-accurate lights with softboxes on either side of the card and a 100MP medium format camera with the best macro lens in the world. I shot on a sheet of white foam core board, then color-corrected the images so that the BG was white.

Some people submit comics worth less than the submission fees because they anticipate an increase in price. I did that with my 12 1999-2000 Marvel $2.49 and $2.29 price variants. They are worth a bit extra because they are newsstands, but those price variants may be rarer than the Star Wars #1 price variant.

I'm getting ready to sell the cards, so, after kicking myself for not buying CGC's imaging services, I shot them myself. After doing this once, I think it's worth it to pay the extra money to have CGC do it for you.

This brought to mind the movie "the Accountant" starring Ben Affleck. In it, he has to go to his stash house and grab all of his portable treasures. Among them, A copy of Action Comics #1 (clearly a fake). The way he handled it made me cringe. If it had been real, it would have lost significant value just from the filming. Also, not in a case, maybe not even a bag.

My first batch of Pokémon cards just came back. Sent March 03, 2021, received June 14, 2021, standard tier (max value $1,000). Wafting on three more batches of cards. Now I have to figure out how to sell them.

Well spotted! I had to zoom in on a detail of the photo to see what you meant. Here it is at full resolution (the original image is over 500MB). Without the card though, hard to tell if it is dust on the card or part of the card.

According to the TAT message on the site, CGC just started opening packages received the week of April 21. I have four packages received before that date. All of them are listed as "received" as has been the case for a couple of months. When should I expect to see their status updated?

Here are some more of my pre-CGC card photos and their grades: 1) Charizard 3/110 :not graded yet 2) Charizard 6/165: 9.0 3) Charizard 39/165: not graded yet 4) Crobat 147/144: 9.5 5) Crobat H5/H32: not graded yet 6) Dark Gengar 6/105: 9.0 7) Articuno H3/H32: There were two of these. One graded 9.5, the other 9.0. I don't know which one this was.

Before I sent them in, I took photographs of my cards. This is the Celebi prior to grading. CGC later gave it a 9.5. What is the flaw?

I just had the grades for another 18 cards get posted, though none have arrived in my hands yet. Out of 22 cards, two are 8.0's, one is a 9,5, the rest are 8.5-9.0. Now I'm feeling lucky to get 5 9.5's out of 8 cards. CGC Grade Card set Type number of 9.5 Articuno SkyRidge Holo H3 H32 9.5 Celebi SkyRidge Holo 145 144 9.5 Crobat SkyRidge Holo 147 144 9.5 Forretress SkyRidge Holo H8 H32 9.5 Politoed SkyRidge Holo H23 H32 9.5 Scizor Aquapolis Holo H21 H32 9 Articuno SkyRidge Holo H3 H32 9 Charizard Expedition reverse holo 6 165 9 Crobat SkyRidge Holo H5 H32 9 Dark Gengar NeoDestiny First Edition 6 105 9 Fearow Expedition Holo 11 165 9 Gengar Fossil non-holo 20 62 9 Regice ex Hidden Legends Holo 97 101 9 Scizor Aquapolis Holo H21 H32 9 Wailord ex Sandstorm Holo 100 100 8.5 Bellossom Aquapolis Holo H5 H32 8.5 Dark Gengar NeoDestiny Holo 6 105 8.5 Entei Aquapolis Holo H8 H32 8.5 Gengar Fossil non-holo 20 62 8.5 Hypno Fossil Holo 8 62 8.5 Misdreavus Neo Revelation Holo 11 64 8.5 Muk Aquapolis Holo H17 H32 8.5 Muk Fossil Holo 13 62 8.5 Sneasel ex Ruby/Sapphire Holo 103 109 8 Hitmonchan Base 1999 Holo 7 102 8 Hitmonchan Base 1999 Holo 7 102

Shucks, if I'd known that, I would have paid for sub-grades. I didn't even know what they were.

I just saw the grades for some of the cards I sent to CGC, but they haven't been received home yet. All but one of the cards were opened by me in 2002, put in a sleeve, then in a box, and never played. I was expecting a few 10's, but got 9.5's instead. It reminded me that I'd read somewhere that CGC is tougher on trading cards than PSA. Has anyone else noticed this? Anyone disagree? Here are the cards I have coming back to me (with 32 cards still in Sarasota): 9.0 Articuno SkyRidge Holo H3 H32 9.0 Charizard Expedition reverse holo 6 165 9.0 Dark Gengar NeoDestiny First Edition 6 105 9.5 Articuno SkyRidge Holo H3 H32 9.5 Celebi SkyRidge Holo 145 144 9.5 Crobat SkyRidge Holo 147 144 9.5 Forretress SkyRidge Holo H8 H32 9.5 Politoed SkyRidge Holo H23 H32

Mine just shipped today, 6/4/2021. I sent them in on 3/8/2021. That is about 3 months turnaround for "standard" tier grading (cards up to $1,000 value). Of note, it took until 3/24 for them to acknowledge receipt of the cards. Other packages have taken 5 weeks.

I wonder how they'd react to old folks like myself? My first job at the age of 12 was at a comic book store in San Jose. My job was literally to grade and price collections because 1) I was good at grading comics, and 2) I memorized the Overstreet guide every year. later on, after acquiring and selling several collections, I became a comic book artist at Marvel and DC, one of which was made into a TV series, then a CG artist, VFX artist on superhero movies (Spider-Man, Daredevil, and others), then started a school for CG artists in the Netherlands and earned a PhD. All of this would, I think, be useful to a company like CGC. I have loads of contacts in the comic book industry, understand the history, and collecting issues. However, the new 10 point grading scale is something I am still getting used to. I'll be curious to see how closely matched my grade estimates are with the final grades of the 75 comics I recently sent to CGC.

Agreed, and yet, we have examples of when it is worth it anyway. When I started buying newsstands, I wasn't aware of how much more difficult they are to find after 1999 or so. My first purchase was a CGC 9.4 newsstand copy of Teen Titans #2 for $200. I later regretted the purchase because I discovered that the newsstand and direct editions are about evenly represented in the marketplace. It seems to be worth around $300 now, so it wasn't a total loss, but not as good as some other purchases. I also bought about 3x to 4x copies of ASM #298, 299, and 301, and one copy of 316 in conditions ranging from 9.2-9.6, all for around $50-$75 each. Those have all shot up in value despite the fact that the newsstand editions of those issues, though less common than directs, aren't that uncommon. I've avoided paying the very high prices (meaning, "above $200") for modern newsstands, though I am getting tempted as the pickings thin out. I just paid a little over $200 for an early slabbed newsstand from the eighties, Swamp Thing 25, but it is the Canadian version, so I felt its rarity is more similar to a modern newsstand because Canadian editions are a small subset of the total pool of newsstands.

I bid on all three as well. The price differences appear more related to their grades than the issues. I already have the #1 in very high grade (at CGC now), so I figured I'd pay a reasonable price for the 9.2 as a backup copy but not a premium price. The #2 and #16 went well above my comfort zone, though I really wanted the #16. I have a copy with another on the way, but the one in hand is mid-grade and the one I just bought is raw and I haven't seen it yet so I'm not sure what it's grade is. The 16 (and #15) have been very hard to find, something other collectors have likely discovered as well. My availability index score for the 9.8 # 16 is n/365, meaning none in any given year. For a #16 in any condition, it is about -80/80.

Update to the topic: A 9.8 CGC copy of newsstand Hulk #16 (2008) just sold for $798 on eBay. The highest price for a direct edition is $82. Several other directs have sold for within 25% of that price. There are no comparables for newsstand sales. Therefore, that issue went for almost a 10x premium over the highest available direct price. It also went for more than quadruple the $160 Mile High Comics NM price for a newsstand edition of that issue.

Good point