serling1978

Found out this thread does in fact already exist. ABORT. ABORT. 

I've searched and scrolled high and low and can't find that this exists which is surprising, so maybe I just failed in my search. If so this thread can be closed.  Ant Man deserves some love though. 

Got this on the ebays 4 or so years ago. 

When it comes to the Tales series I would rank them in order of Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish, and the weakest being Strange Tales.  I would like to some day expand on my TTA collection to fill it in though. Could be a while though, still need to finish TOS holes from 66-99.

Have had these for a number of years. My Avengers run was the first big run I completed. Avengers 1 is still one of my favorite covers of all time. A Kirby masterpiece 

Picked up the full Invaders run including the annuals in the past week including a 2nd copy of Avengers #71 as part of the lot. 

Love me some Bronze Age Hulk. I'm currently reading through my Hulks but I haven't hit the Bronze Age yet. I'm on #126 now I think. I've got the entire Hulk run from #1 through #300 so it's been interesting to see the changes to the character so far.  2 years ago at the Baltimore comic con I bought about 50 Hulks, mostly Bronze but also some Silver and some Copper. It was a pretty good day. Got me a long way too completing the run. Looking forward to reading them all! 

35 minutes ago, littledoom said:

"UNPRESSED" .. great now I have to do the pressing smh

Haha in eBay speak "unpressed" = you should pay me more than it's worth since you can probably press it and make it worth way more money . 

On 5/3/2020 at 10:37 PM, Bearcatcoach said:

For the 1st time in a couple months was able to (safely) buy a small collection that consisted of 6 long boxes of paperbacks, a mag box of mostly comic book marketplaces, a small box of comics, a couple boxes of hardbacks and a couple other boxes of miscellaneous stuff.....

A few pics of the cooler comic related books....happy days!

What are those Tales From the Crypt items? Books? 

16 hours ago, 1950's war comics said:

UNREAD !! (by the seller, could have been read before he got it)

coin dealers often announce rolls as "UNSEARCHED BY US " !!!!! (of course whoever sold them the coins rolls searched them before selling them  )

Ugghhhh eBay sellers claiming books are unread is the most annoying thing in the world. Thanks for the completely irrelevant, unprovable claims random ebay seller. 

One other thing that doesn't really fit in this thread that drives me crazy are eBay sellers who list the "grab bag" sales. Even if they do actually own the grail that they list is possible to win, with absolutely no accountability or system of checks and balances why would they supposedly randomly box it up for someone to potentially win?? Maybe some people here do those on eBay and could validate them as real, but jaded me says they are all scams 

1 hour ago, 1950's war comics said:

where are all the DC runs  

No ill will for DC , but i've just always been a Marvel guy .  I did briefly flirt with mostly late Golden Age/early Silver Age DC when i first got back into collecting about 10 years ago, but i sold them all off to buy some other books that i wanted more.  The one book I do miss was a blue label 6.0 Worlds Finest #4 that I had. 

I don't know how I've never seen this thread before. Runs are my life.  Most of the below were slowly built over roughly 5-11 years.  Tomb of Dracula was the only one i bought in a complete run and that was just because i came across a good deal on ebay a couple years ago. For the main titles i typically stop collecting around the 1990's because that's just when things become less nostalgic for me.

The large runs of  mostly main titles in my collection:

Amazing Spiderman #1-#400. 

X-Men #1- #317. Including GSX1 and 2

Avengers #1-#400.  Including all Annuals up til 1994

Hulk #1-6 (vol 1)

Hulk #102-#320 (vol 2)

Tales of Supsense #39-65

Iron Man #1-#300

Conan the Barbarian #1-#220

Savage Sword of Conan #1-#150

Spectacular Spiderman #1-#137

X-Factor #1-50 something... i should look into finishing this one

Web Of #1-50 something... see above.

The complete runs in my collection:

Defenders

Captain Marvel including the Death of novel

Tomb of Dracula

Nova

What If (vol 1)

Marvel Team Up

Luke Cage/Powerman

Master of Kung Fu

Rom

The Invaders (vol 1)

The Champions

Kull the Conqueror (vol 1)

Warlock including pre and post Starlin as well as the Warlock Strange Tales issues

This is my 2nd upgrade of this book. First one I got about 4 years ago and it was raw with an entirely taped spine. Then I moved on to a CGC 1.5 with a detached cover. Last week I got this one in the mail. 

My mom took my brother and I to a couple shows as teens but it was our aunt who really supported us and helped us to get into going to small hotel ballroom conventions back in the early 90s. I wish I could remember the asking prices for books back then.  I do remember I got a mid grade ASM13 for around $20. The good "old" (relatively speaking) days. 

7 minutes ago, Kevin.J said:

You could always start one 

Haha I might. I'll search first so I'm not "that guy". 

8 minutes ago, valiantman said:

The market is heavily driven by math, even if collectors themselves aren't math lovers (or don't want to believe it comes down to math). 

Here's what I mean:

There are 1,800 CGC graded copies of Incredible Hulk #1 (1962) and let's say that 99% of buyers prefer the "cents" edition to the "pence".  There's a long-term well-established market for both types where the "pence" copies are significantly cheaper than "cents".

The same CGC census shows 97.5% of the graded copies are "cents" and 2.5% are "pence"... and since 99% of our hypothetical buyers prefer "cents", there is more demand (99%) than supply (97.5%) for cents copies... but what would it take for that to change?

Do more than half of collectors need to switch (change their thinking) to preferring "pence" to make them worth more than cents copies?

I don't think so. 

I think if just 3% of these hypothetical collectors decided they'd like a "pence" copy, instead of the hypothetical 1%, the prices could flip.  After all, there are only 2.5% pence copies and 3% demand would be "too little supply" for pence.  Meanwhile, 97.5% cents copies with 97% of the demand would be "too much supply" for cents.

Math hurts my brain, but i think that made sense

13 minutes ago, Kevin.J said:

Totally agree, I have full runs of all Silver- Modern age titles, I dont have a clue how many are Pence or how many are cents though, I dont care either  

Damn. Sounds like you have some serious runs (no poop joke intended ).  Is there a separate thread about runs? I'd like to get in on that......

3 minutes ago, mec3437 said:

  It's always nice to see fellow run collectors.  It seems like the keys have been all the rage last 13 years or so ever since the whole MCU thing came about.  

Amen!! "Grails" or keys are awesome due to their inherent significance and an important part of any collection, but i don't think they should be the only thing that matters.  Completeness is what drives me to collect, because the feeling of satisfaction of having no holes in a run, and also because (brace yourselves ) I read my comics and I don't want to miss part of the ongoing story

20 minutes ago, mec3437 said:

I'm currently working on a complete X-Men pence run, and I really have to give a shout out to @Get Marwood & I for his work on compiling tons of pence copies and all of his research.  So, thank you.  Moving along, I ended up with a pence copy of a Daredevil #163 a couple years ago and thought it was kind of neat.  I actively go out of my way to find pence copies first for any books I'm looking for.  If it does, I'll hop on it.  I dig them, and will buy them if the condition is reasonable.  I have several Hulk, Iron Man, Daredevil and Fantastic Four pence copies but working on X-Men is my pence focus right now.  For me, it was something different to look at after I completed my full run of X-Men.  I have two 35 cent variants to track down as well.  I know quite a few collectors who won't touch pence books for whatever reason, and others who have no problem because they can be a little less expensive even when factoring in shipping from the UK.  

That's pretty cool due to the scarceness of a run like that. I can't imagine that many complete pence runs of a series like X-Men exist out in the collecting world.  I'm a huge collector of runs and have #1-#400 or so for a lot of the major series (ASM, X-Men, Hulk) and complete runs of smaller series like Defenders, Nova, Master of Kung Fu, Tomb of Dracula, What If, Marvel Team Up, etc etc etc, but i don't think I have the patience to seek out any all pence runs .  So more props to you!

I used to have the same negative view as many others of pence books until about 10 or so years ago when i learned more about them (one great source was these boards!) and after I had the whole picture, the negative view of pence books disappeared.  Personally I've never sought out or tried to specifically collect Pence copies.  I'm not a pence collector, I'm a collector of comics that I love.  If an opportunity comes up and it's a pence copy, then cool. I don't understand the point of view that the cents price makes the book more attractive.  For early Silver Age books like Hulk, X-Men, Avengers, FF, etc, with amazing Kirby art, bright colors, great characters, exciting cover text to tease the story and all that, "12c" on the cover is about #101 on the list of 100 important things.  Personally i have no fondness for the number 12 over the number 9.................... (silver age cents vs pence)  or for a month on a cover vs no month.

I don't think the continued idea that pence books are less desirable is due to a current lack of understanding, i think it's more of a long ago initial lack of understanding that has perpetuated and seeped into the collecting world as an accepted norm. 

5 hours ago, Frisco Larson said:

I collect a LOT of comics that most others don't, like issues from other countries for example. I personally LIKE the idea of the pence copies being available and actually would like to have a matching pence and cents copy in my collection, or at least where it's feasible to do so. I think they'll probably always be less valuable than the cents copies, as there is a tremendous herd mentality in comic collecting and I believe it would take quite a swing in popular opinion to make a significant change in the market. If I had to guess, I would say the main reason that they sell for less is that when it comes to larger sums of money, people are much more cautious and likely don't trust that there is enough of an established sales history for them to "gamble" on a foreign copy over an American one with a much larger proven sales history, but that's just a guess. If you're talking about a hundred or two, most collectors wouldn't be very concerned, but when it's multiple thousands, then then would likely question a purchase much more before making a decision. My 2c. 

Agree on the "herd mentality ".  I think the only way that changes is slowly over time as new generations continue to come into collecting. It's much less likely that an older collector who has seen this as an established norm is going to swing the other way. Just human nature. 

On 5/8/2020 at 12:34 PM, goodrockrich said:

If you are buying this on eBay and paying with PayPal you can always return.  It doesn't matter what the seller says.

Great point. I've taken all kinds of crazy risks on ebay over the last 10 years and I've never lost a single cent. Ebay buyer protection is pretty safe, I'm sure someone would chime in with a time they got burnt because nothing is 100%, but I've always had good results. 

And I 100% agree with the theory that pence priced books have historically been less valued by collectors due to confusion. Once the idea became an established norm collectors just accepted it because "that's the way it is". There seems to be a better widespread knowledge these days but established norms are hard to break, so while it will take time I do think eventually pence priced books will be better regarded as a whole 👍

On 3/15/2018 at 10:06 AM, colossus is awesome! said:

Hi everyone,

I wanted some opinions on Pence copies vs Cent copies on silver age keys. I know this has a topic prior, but has not been mentioned in a thread in quite some time. Whats everyone's opinion them.  With the boom of silver age keys in the past few years you can pick up a UK version surprisingly cheaper (at least in my opinion) than it's US counterpart.  Obviously with the rising prices of the Cent copies the U.K versions are steadily rising as well, but there is still a decent margin. So after doing some research this is what I found out. (Please correct me if I'm wrong)

Both Uk and US versions were printed off the same press at the same time. Pence copies were printed first in strictly limited quantities so often have better overall color and less marvel chipping than the cent counterparts. Pence copies are (going by the cgc census SUPER RARE compared to its counterpart) Examples:

Hulk 1: Cent: 1504, Pence: 38

X-Men 1: Cent: 4012, Pence: 58

AF15: Cent: 2902, Pence: 48

FF1: Cent: 2017, Pence: 13

JIM83: Cent: 1604, Pence: 22  

ASM 1: Cent: 3415, Pence: 56

Every single silver age key follows this trend, I understand that there is still probably a decent amount of raw copies in the UK that have yet make it over state side and or CGC. So isn't Pence copies technically cent variant kind of like the bronze age 30 to 35 cent variant? I most cases variants whether its a 35 cent or 1 in 200, newstand edition ect. follow the tread that those vairiants normally sell for more that the regular version. Why does the Pence follow the same suite?

My personal opinion: If its a silverage key I'm not picky between the two, I actually think they are super cool and rare, but the price difference between the two from value stand point gives you cause to pause. Why do most collectors prefer the more common of the two? Do you all believe this trend will always stay the same? Do people not care for the 9d, because I believe that and the Month on the cover are the only thing different. The interior is the exactly the same to my knowledge.  I just think this is a super interesting topic and look forward to everyone's input

 

Thanks,

Dave 

Are there really only 38 CGC graded pence priced Hulk 1's out there?  Maybe it has slightly changed since this thread is from a couple of years ago. Had no idea it was that rare though . I own one of those 38 or so 😁

1 hour ago, Batmanis#1 said:

As you should be. Any Hulk 1 even the UK version is a great book to own.

Definitely. I've never thought twice about picking up a book that had the pence price printed on it.  Same original print run and more scarce 👍

Got this just this week from a fellow board member!