serling1978

If it was to keep raw in wouldn't even worry about it. But if it's a flip or something you really want graded I don't know of a way to successfully re-attach without getting a green label. Maybe sell it and go back on the hunt if you can't live with it or it's not financially a good idea.

i just recently discovered mercari and at first I thought I might score some deals there, but then I quickly realized the completed sales I was seeing that were steals were actually fraud. After separating the fraudsters from the legit sellers, it looks like mercari is just a place for eBay sellers to try to ask even more outrageous prices with the hopes of tricking newb buyers. I'm sure some deals can be had because nothing is 100% one way or another , but overall it just looks like another flippers platform.

I learned long ago to not bother trying to figure out what scam a fraudster is trying to pull. I think the obvious fraud situations like this that have no clear end goal are just a case of amateur fraudsters with terrible plans. That's all. And as far as mercari, I see those all the time. People selling the same ASM 129 pic over and over for around $180.

My biggest ebay score was four years ago. I bought a large ASM run that had a straight run from #70 through #441. It also included about 15 issues between #51 and #70 and other older books like the first Rhino . All of the annuals were included as well. On top of all that there were many dups, including #129. Below is a pic I took at the time. The seller listed it BIN for only $1200 and I was the first one to swoop in.

Or my wife....

Well looks like I'm out of luck on the JIM 83. I guess GPA doesn't mean a whole lot in today's crazy market. On a 2.5 the high sale from Dec is $4700 and the average is around $4600, but I can't find anything even in that universe. Had one offer here for $7600 for a 2.5 . I really hope speculation isn't rendering GPA obsolete. Long story short, looks like I won't be moving those ant man keys.

I've lucked into a good spot where I basically already stopped buying a little over a year ago. Not due to the market, but because I've reached my main collecting goals. I acquired a handful of silver age grails and the runs to follow them. One thing I'm looking at is JIM 83 so that does suck in today's market. I was planning to swap out my TTA keys (1st Ant Man, 1st/2nd Wasp, and others) but I can't even figure it out out anymore with the unrealistic fluctuating prices.

I was also thinking some ink level difference seems to be the case. I've seen all kinds of books faded from the sun or indoor light, but even cases with only part of the cover being faded it doesn't match up with this.

I've had the full run of MOKF for a long time now and for the first time in a while I dug them out and noticed the title of the first issue looks to be oddly partially faded. I'm wondering if this is actually a printing defect and here's why. The words "Master", "Kung" and parts of "Of", and "Fu" look faded at the red border, but nothing else on the cover is faded. Fu Manchu's head overlaps the title and none of that is faded. Also, Shang Chi and some wording is to the side of the title and no fading there. I got curious and looked up numerous high grade slabbed examples and found the exact same fading on quite a few which leads me to believe it was a printing issue and not actual fading. Any other MOKF owners seen this?

Yesssss. The art and stories of both Barbarian and Savage Sword Of blow away all other comics in my mind. I've got a pretty large collection with huge runs of the main marvel series like ASM, Hulk, X-men, Iron Man, etc, but Conan books are by far my favorite to read.

Some serious books here! Waiting for a JIM 83 to show up..

No truer statement has ever been uttered. Just finding someone selling a book for what it's currently worth at the time involves a ton of work and luck. I won't go on a tangent but I think that is often times due to flipping. The seller needs to create room to pay fees (if applicable) and make a profit. So FMV won't fly.

I get your point and often feel the same way, but remembering that comic collecting wasn't what it was now back in the old days, professional grading was decades away, and the owners were often times kids who weren't speculating on future value for some other owner, helps. That is of course assuming the books are older and the actions were taken at the time by the original owner and not by some recent dummy.

Thanks!

Haha how big of a grain?

Looking at buying a book that was graded by Vault (who has since gone belly up), with the intention of unslabbing and sending to CGC. Curious if anyone has actually done this before and how far off Vault's grading is from CGC. I normally wouldn't ever buy a non CGC graded book but the deal is good enough that it may be worth it.

This immediately makes me think of some seller on ebay years ago who CONSTANTLY posted and re-posted pages from TTA 27. And this was when I was trying to buy the issue so every time I got an ebay alert I would go to check the search results and guess what, it wasn't a copy of TTA that I could buy or watch and bid on, it was THAT SELLER'S SINGLE PAGES. Other than that I have no problem with them.

Wow

Human bodies with animal heads only. NO ANIMAL BODIES. I don't want to see any tails or claws.

Just wait til the Bad Blood movie drops. That thing will AT LEAST triple in value!!

Nice. This reminded me that I have a fairly important ASM pence issue.

Joseph Koch's warehouse in Brooklyn fits what you're describing there. If you haven't been, its in no way prettied up for customers. It's literally a warehouse with stacks of comics on shelves, on the floor, in piles, and also in boxes. There are cats wandering around and the occasional cockroach (my wife was quick to spot the latter). Nothing has prices, but once you make your selections they'll look up each one in the price guide when you go to pay. Overall it was a lot of fun to dig around for stuff. When I was there I didn't see a lot of SA issues, but found a ton of bronze and copper that I needed for my runs. Also got a number of older Savage Tales and Savage Sword mags.

Amen. I went to midtown in Manhattan a couple years ago on a trip to NY and to say I was "disappointed" is the understatement of the year. A seller this large has no excuse for having such a lame and horribly overpriced selection of backstock issues. I live in Columbus OH and there's a shop here 99% of collectors have probably never heard of that is 1000 times better. Someone as big as midtown shouldn't be getting blown away by a tiny stand alone shop. Sure midtown has stuff online and blah blah blah, but I the actual location is a comic STORE. I want to go in and see interesting books, not boring drek that I can (but don't want to) see anywhere. I'm so annoyed just thinking about that shop. Anyway, during that same trip I did also go to the Joseph Koch warehouse which was infinitely more interesting and better. That was a place for an actual collector to go. Midtown was a place for someone to buy a Deadpool bobblehead or for someone who knows nothing about comics to wander in and severely overpay for a common back issue.

Haha I won't wait another 2 years for the reveal, but once 10 people guess, in this thread or the other, I'll give the answer.

Heyyyyyyyy, you referenced my long forgotten Avg #1 signature thread! I forgot about that. The funny thing is nobody was willing to participate in my lineup to guess which of the 10 pics were verified signatures. I guess I might as well come clean... Out of the 10, 9 of them were verified and 1 was my unwitnessed signed copy. I did that for poops and giggles because I knew it was easy to say "oh that signature is obviously fake" when the viewer KNEW it was unverified, but much more difficult to put one's money where one's mouth is and actually pick out which one looked legit out of a lineup. I was hoping at least one person would play along, but oh well. It amused me at the time at least.