serling1978

Good choices. I have both of those MOKF, but not in that high of grade (well done) and I love them both. That series is a great read too. Still holds up.

This was difficult. Current top 10 below. With my obsession with completeness, it's satisfying to see everyone from the cover of Avengers #1 together. Honorable mention to ASM1, ASM3, ASM14, ASM129, X-MEN 4, X-MEN 94, TOS 52, AVENGERS 4, AVENGERS 8 ...nevermind.

Agree that it hurts the value of his character because the first appearance is essentially split between two books. Kind of like Carol Danvers and Mrs Marvel.

I also am skeptical about Ant-Man ever blowing up, but a lot of crazy stuff has happened in the market lately that i probably wouldn't have guessed. Like how much Loki's intro has taken off. I always thought that book (and Kang's intro for that matter) was severely undervalued, but Loki had already been a huge part of the MCU for years so it seemed like it just was never going to catch fire if it hadn't already done so. However, seems like these days now that Disney started the next wave Wandavision everyone is now willing to re-visit how they value long standing MCU characters as long as that character still has an upcoming future in the MCU. 2021 collector: "An upcoming Loki series? Cool, i'll now pay thousands of dollars for his intro even though he was already in a billion movies before and i wouldn't pay those prices then." Also a 2021 collector: "Iron Man died and therefore I can't speculate on him. I wonder what's up with Daredevil?..." So it's that logic, or lack of logic, that makes me think maaaaayyyyybe Ant-Man could blow up in the bizarro world that we currently live in.

Yeah you summed it up in about 1000 less words than my fumbled attempt. I do technically have other stuff to sell to fund the JIM, but no other grail i would part with and it would take too many of my other runs of series that i wouldn't sell because runs are important to me. So yep, it's the Ant-Man books or nothing.

Fair question. I realize I probably wasn't very clear and a little jumbled there. I bought the JIM because I've been searching for a while and keep missing out and the price keeps jumping. So I didn't want to wait it out for the TTA books to see similar jumps because I may have been priced out of the JIM by that point of it continues to rise. Now maybe I'm just feeling attached to the TTA's and trying to decide if it makes sense to wait to sell them, as in is there a reasonable expectation that they'll see bumps like other SA first appearances have. And to a more high level question, trying to decide if one mega key is worth more to me than multiple lower tier keys. I think it is, but I guess the reality of parting with my ant-man books made me stop and question. That's something for me to decide obviously, but I like to hear from others in the community.

I've posted a few times about my failed attempts to buy a JIM 83 in this market. I started looking a couple months ago right when it really took off so I had no luck. My plan had been to eventually sell off my TTA keys (pictured) to finance the JIM 83. I ended up buying this, probably overpaying ($6200) a little due to scarcity of deals, but even having it in hand I can't decide if it's worth losing my TTA's over. Mainly because the market is so crazy and Ant-man is one of the few characters who hasn't blown up yet so in the long run I may be better off just keeping those and moving on from the JIM, and also clearly the TTA keys are in higher more collectible grades. If anything I wouldn't sell the TTA's for quite a while because I'm not selling while they're cold as ice. I normally am very decisive about keys and grails, but due to this market I'm overthinking everything. Just looking to get some different viewpoints. Thanks!

Filler for runs I've always bought on ebay. That includes SA and BA keys. I don't buy much these days, but the only thing I won't buy raw anymore on ebay is grail books. Need those already slabbed since such high dollar amounts are involved. And to add to that, I also won't buy slabbed grails either on ebay anymore now that I think of it due to the taxes. Ideally I would like to buy those here but I haven't had a ton of luck being able to do that.

I collect comics with humans on the cover Often humans in costumes.

I'd be all for some b villians like Egghead or Whirlwind. El Toro anyone? I just didn't find the Ghost to be interesting or worthy in the last outing . The rumors that Kang will be the baddie in the next Ant-man/Wasp movie is pretty intriguing.

One sale I had years ago when spidey was first joining the MCU where what I was selling exceeded my expectations was a raw ASM1 that I figured about $8k max on and it went for $13k.

$73k?? Hard to believe there is even a 9.8 of this book due to age, but I'm still shocked at the amount of those $$$

To me selling most of those that we can see in the pics would be more trouble than it's worth. I've got a bin and multiple boxes of stuff like that in my basement that I'm too lazy to sell. So I speak from experience.

I'm still a little bitter with GPA. A couple months ago I was trying to get a JIM 83 and someone offered me what was then 2.5k over GPA and I scoffed at such a notion. Within a matter of weeks I realized GPA was way off and that deal would have been actually under FMV. So what I'm saying is GPA 100% owes me a JIM 83 2.0. I expect it on my doorstep by Saturday.

True, but collectors have long known of who Ant-man is and his deficiencies, nothing new has come out to change that recently, yet value wise TTA 27 still historically outpaced the likes of DD1, and ST 110, and was worth around 50-60% of JIM 83 as recently as last year. I'm still not sure what changed in the past months where TTA 27 hit a brick wall while others hit a speed boost. Looking back at 2020 GPA averages, books like ST 110, DD1, and JIM 83 are seeing massive jumps. Thor and Dr Strange are long established in the MCU so there's nothing new there. So all this has made me wonder what's up with Ant-man in the past 5 or so months and has a collecting shift taken place where the book is now less desired by long standing collectors or is this more being driven by new collectors who don't care as much about the character being one of the early Marvel heroes and don't value those TTA books the same way.

One thing is sure, all those 9.8 X-men #1's from 1963 are definitely driving up the price of all the other X-men #1's lately.

Ditto. That's the answer. Own both 180 and 181 and you come out on top either way.

One book that will never go back down in value : Iron Man # something, first appearance of The Ghost? Or was it just Ghost. That really memorable villain from the last Ant-man movie that will be important to collectors til the end of time. It's still a thing right? *gazes at wall full of Iron Man # somethings displayed on wall*

I don't think the movies did the character any favors. The stories weren't at the same level as other MCU work, the villains were extremely weak, and like you said they didn't even star Hank Pym. I felt equally disappointed with how Ultron was handled. I guess since Hank Pym created Ultron its only fitting that they both got the shaft in the MCU.

I like his TTA stuff and his early Avengers appearances. I never got into the Scott Lang thing or anything that came after that. But I do like him as an early Marvel hero.

With the crazy blow up of Jim 83 this year, wondering if that is solely related to his next upcoming movie and if so, at what point, if any, will the upcoming Ant-Man movie start to drive up prices for TTA 27 and TTA 35? And TTA 44 for that matter. Need to see some love for my tiny friend. Recently I noticed JIM 85 surpassing TTA 27 in value. Idk when that took place but I've had both books for a long time and I don't recall ever seeing JIM 85 in the same universe as TTA 27. Is Ant-Man destined to fall hopelessly behind the main, and upcoming, SA intro's or can TTA 27 continue to hang around the fringes as a 2nd tier SA "grail"?

Money order or check? What year is this....

I'll never pass up a chance to re-post these from my collection.

Happy to see that maybe UKPVs will finally get their proper recognition as highly collectible original rare versions of the original print run. They should at least be worth the same as the cent counterparts if not more due to rarity. If lower print run 35 cent variants of BA books can fetch way more than the standard priced copies of the time then there's no reason pence books shouldn't be viewed the same way. As I've said before I think it's just decades of misunderstanding from collectors of the time who then passed on the idea of pence books being worth less to the next generation and a "well that's just how it is" mentality that is easier to accept than challenge that has given pence the reputation it had long had as being less desirable. But as with many other things in life, even the deepest ingrained ideas can be changed over time.

One time a spider bit me. All I got was a spider bite. Didn't realize until AFTER I jumped off a building.