serling1978

On 7/23/2021 at 12:57 PM, LizardKing00 said:

From what I've seen, and I just got back into comics after over 20 years so I'm no expert, the high end raffles seem to have small raffles to get into them. So your $1000 spot would have a raffle with ten $100 spots where winner gets into the big one. Then maybe the $100 spot would have a mini raffle at $10 each. I've done a few raffles, I won my first one and lost the next few but it's fun and gives me my gambling fix. 

Oh yeah that's definitely true. I've participated in mini raffles before to get a spot in the main raffle. I was just referring to specific cases I've seen where people literally spend thousands on a couple spots in a raffle. Still blows my mind. 

On 6/30/2021 at 1:06 PM, Drummy said:

Cute but not cool, per se -- I will see this movie at some point, but I'm not wowed yet.  I do like the cast, though.

I love the idea of Shang Chi getting his own movie, but this looks completely forgettable. I'm a huge kung fu movie fan (and I have the full MOKF run) and I would have loved if they had used a 70s style, but what I've seen looks really slick and generic.  It's like they took Fox's formula for the X-men movies and used that to make this one. 

Sneezed? No. Mistakenly used 90s drek as a toilet? Yes. Hard to tell the difference in the middle of the night. 

Not sure if this has already been discussed in this long running thread and I missed it, but are there any known examples where the more rare version (both original, no reprints) of a comic ISN'T considered more desirable /valuable than the more common one?  In the community as a whole, pence books are the only ones I can think of. 

Wouldn't be surprised if I'm missing something though. 

On 7/13/2021 at 6:29 PM, Bronty said:

Class of 02 in the house

Tell me, what were comic books like back in those days?? 

Red captain is more like it. 

Synonyms anyone? 

These guys know each other. 

On 6/6/2021 at 6:47 PM, jmg3637 said:

Group shot.  Sorry a few other random books included

Stairway to heaven? 🤔

16 minutes ago, William-James88 said:

Anyone know why?

Also not including what is becoming a leading auction house for these collectibles renders GPA almost useless.

I think most people caught on that CL was better for them selling wise, and have seen past the BS of the inflated selling figures of HA. So that brings bigger books to CLink, which brings in more collectors, which brings in higher prices and brings us to where we are now where you are better off consigning there. I will make fun of CLink's dated website and UI till the cows come home but that won't stop me from buying or selling there.

Clink is definitely not user friendly. And I agree that them not playing with GPA hurts seller confidence in GPA values. 

On 5/20/2021 at 1:14 AM, Every Day A Story said:

It's starting to as collectors discover that these books were printed at the same time and on the same press as the US books (some believe the UK variants were actually first of the press run). They were however only a fraction of the print run, making high grade copies scarce.

Like all things it depends on the book, grade and/or if a key issue; whilst some collectors will always favour the US version, some UK variant pricing books are seeing significant price premiums (ie. Werewolf By Night 32). Other region price variants are seeing similar gains when available (ie. Canadian, Australia, etc).

It still baffles me that 35 cent variants command a very significant mark-up over the more common 30 cent and everyone goes along with that fine, yet the majority of collectors still don't see the obvious correlation there that should make pence books worth even a higher percentage over their US counterparts than 35 cent over 30 cent . 

I've had multiple cases where I bought raw books at shows only to later find out that they had either missing pages, detached covers, missing coupons, etc. In cases like this I do blame the dealers for being hopefully lazy or possibly devious. At a con when I'm buying a lot of books I'm not going to get out every book I buy (some tables don't even want you to open any bags ) so I'm putting my trust in the dealers, but it can and has backfired. 

43 minutes ago, THE_BEYONDER said:

I've been on IG and buying and selling here and there for a number of years now. Buying is really hit or miss. You have to luck across the right book at the right time but sometimes the stars align. My IG name is @ryhyatt

I post both my life and comics. Going back over the years most of my collection has been posted on there and is still relevant... Because I'm a hoarder who rarely sells... 

27 minutes ago, wiparker824 said:

Yeah like I said eBay protects the buyers so you can always get your money back or work something out but still a headache that I’d prefer to not deal with. Especially when I know that I have a 0% chance of dealing with that with the bigger auction houses. 

True. Just comes down to weighing the hassle VS the price you'll pay. Last year I got a raw TOS 39 on ebay for $2900 that had some minor undisclosed flaws so I had to work with the seller and we agreed on a discount. Ended up grading a 2.5 so in the long run that former hassle is well in the rear view mirror, but I've still got that book at a good deal as a permanent part of my collection. To me the deal is worth the hassle, but I get the assurance piece. I'm just to cheap to pay for assurance i guess 

23 hours ago, wiparker824 said:

eBay goes to extraordinary lengths to protect the buyers from bad sellers or scams. I mean you can list an item with a no return policy and still be forced to accept a return 30 days later even if you’re not a scammer and sent exactly what you listed lol.

I think more likely is people don’t want to deal with spending that kind of money with sellers who ship a CGC book in nothing more than a padded envelope and hope for the best. Honestly that’s my main reason for not buying on eBay… if it’s a book that’s worth <100 okay whatever, I’ll roll the dice with whatever crazy way people want to package and send me a book. My all time favorite was when I got a couple Tales To Astonish books (nothing crazy expensive) in a gallon size ziplock bag, in a giant box. But I digress.. anyways big money I want it to arrive safely by people that know how to ship books is what I’m saying. That plus I’m slightly paranoid about giving randoms on eBay my address and at the same time telling said randoms I have a 10k book in my house at my address or that I have the financial means to buy said book in the first place. 

When it comes to ebay far the biggest deterrent to me is the fact that they started adding sales tax in the last year or so. I know people rightfully complain about poor packaging or undisclosed flaws but those things don't slow me down. I haven't bought much in the last year, but anytime there's an issue with an item I bought on ebay I always resolved it one way or another. If it's minor I'll message the seller in a very calm and professional way and explain the problem and request a discount. It works the majority of the time, probably way more often than you might think. Sellers don't want to deal with a return and have to re-list the book. If the problem is too big like shipping damage then I'll just kindly let them know I'm returning the book and if they don't respond or if they pushback I let them know it's nothing personal but I'm filing a return with ebay. That's works 100% of the time. Despite all of the scammers and amateurs selling on eBay I've never lost a dime. And that includes buying from 0 feedback sellers and other sketchy stuff. I don't mind rolling the dice here and there because, again, I've never lost out. I even once had a case where ebay favored for the seller who was totally in the wrong, I called to dispute their ruling, and they ate the money and gave me a credit. So I got my money back and kept the asm lot I had purchased. 

But as a whole I don't think eBay is as common of a place to sell grails at least anymore it seems like. Which then affects GPA values since a lot of sales have moved to other non-recorded avenues like IG and Facebook. 

I just recently started looking at comiclink to see if I should consider it to be an option to buy some early Marvel SA's. I have a couple points of confusion. 

If it's still the case that old lists hang around I get that they can't police sellers, but why not just have a template of pre-set end durations for listings? Ebay figured that out pretty easily. If a seller lists a book seems reasonable to have options like list for 30 days, 60 days, maybe up to 90 days. But at least that would keep listings from sitting around for years. 

Also I haven't yet been able to find a way to save searches yet. Maybe I'm just totally missing it. Without being able to save searches and quickly check if what I'm interested in has been put up for sale, I don't see myself going to the site daily and entering multiple searches to see what's new. Hopefully I'm just missing an obvious way to do this. 

Now that a little time has passed since this thread started and we're further away from the price explosion of the first quarter of 2021 I'm curious if seller opinions have changed at all about buyers being willing to pay GPA. I think at this point GPA has started to catch up now that books are no longer doubling in value seemingly overnight like earlier in the year. Hopefully GPA weathered the storm and will remain reliable over time as a baseline for buying and selling. 

I've noticed someone who shall go unnamed posting a lot lately with very general needs for big boy books. Could be valid, but to me if someone says they are looking for COPIES (plural) of FF1 and they list a fairly wide grade range like 2.0-4.5,  then they are just looking for lowball deals so they can flip. 

Same guy also has been saying somewhat wide grade ranges on all the Marvel grails including AF15 of course. Considering how much the price varies between an AF15 2.0 and a 4.0 it seems unlikely the person is just looking to throw such a big range of money at it to own it. The tactics and the way it was worded feels like a lazy flipper on the prowl. 

Just now, Jesse-Lee said:

Last few eBay sales of copies in a similar condition to mine have been between $1,650 and $2,000. I don't think I'd ever sell mine though, or at least not for a long time.

Nice score. I don't know enough about books to have any clue about what anything is worth but I imagine there must be a lot of flippable books at Hpb and yard sales, etc.