mec3437

After sifting through pages of bullcrap to see a few things of interest, it's a good topic. I will usually slab a book if I intend to sell it or if it is of a higher value. I prefer to do that because it can give any potential buyer some peace of mind for a grade and restoration check. It gives me peace of mind for the aforementioned reasons plus it will be better protected. I'm not a big fan of CGC's newer slabs, but I understand why people like them. They are are sturdy, but they feel a little too heavy to me. I can't speak to signed books, as I'm not a fan of signatures, but doesn't Erik Larsen just say and do things now to get noticed? I liked some of his ASM run back in the day, but I can't understand his porno cover to Savage Dragon. Maybe it's because I haven't paid attention to him since I was a kid, so I might be out of the loop.

Some of the Star Wars titles I've read were fairly engaging. I liked the Punisher series that had started in 2014 or so, but was then derailed by Secret Wars.

I've never ordered from them because I've heard the horror stories. However, my buddy order from them and the only way he got a response was after filing a fraudulent charge complaint with his credit card company. I advise people to avoid them because it is easier than attempting to work with them.

I'm slowly transitioning away from the GSP for the reason that it limits the amount of international buyers that I have. The majority of my international sales are to Canada and the UK. If I remove GSP, and go with a calculated rate, then I do limit where I ship to. I stick to CAN, UK, GER, AUS and NZ as I'm confident in their postal systems, and USPS 1st Class International does offer tracking/delivery confirmation with those countries. I used to be a big fan of GSP, until I realized how it actually hit the consumer. It gets expensive at times to ship a book. I think the USPS quotes 1st Class Int'l to Canada as $14 or $18, and it gets up to $24 or so for western Europe. It really isn't a lot of extra work. The customs form prints right out with the label. I just fill it out, print, sign, drop it off at the post office. I'm not always a fan of USPS prices, and I can't control it, but I try to figure how it costs me $24 to ship to the UK, when Royal Mail Int'l Tracked & Signed on books to me is like £9 ($11 roughly). I haven't had any issues with shipping to those countries, and am considering dropping GSP. I don't really sell any high value items, so maybe it isn't as big a deal. On a side note, my dad and brother worked/work for the USPS and they recommended not shipping to Italy of all places because of the issues with their postal service (only shipped there one time through GSP, no issue), and they mention that the old Soviet bloc can be hit & miss.

@Get Marwood & I that is great news! I might have a few to submit!

I got back from a deployment last year, so I've had to go back and re-read some of the series that I missed out while playing in the sandbox. So, at this moment, I've finished Transformers: Till All Are One. I still have two or three other TF series to get through, along with Darth Vader vol 2, Star Wars, Doctor Aphra, and a few other indy titles. I'll do a binge read of a series though to get caught up. For me, I've found that works best, and then I can use a wiki or something to remember key points.

I saw that post. I was trying to figure it out, then I'm like just move on.

I lost my butt on X-Factor books when the Apocalypse movie wasn't very good. That's the one of the few times that I played the speculation game. I took my lumps and moved on. The only book that I'm really looking at right now is Thor #134. Not sure if it will go up, but it might. I have a few copies and they were cheap, so I'm not fretting it.

I frequent three store with regularity in my area (SW Ohio, into Northern Kentucky). I stop in to some of the other stores as well, just not as frequently. Anyways, I can say that I very much enjoy go to the local stores to find books. I enjoy talking with the owners and employees, they send me emails or texts to say if they got something in that I might be interested in, and sometimes I even get to check out the back room for books that they may not have space on the display wall for. I also don't have a problem buying raw, key books from them. I know that it's mind boggling that someone would pay for a raw book in this day and age. I got hit with restoration on a Batman 189 that I purchased from an LCS. When I brought it to the owner's attention he was upset with himself for not catching the color touch (he has a giant magnifying glass, black lights, etc, his eyes are old now), he bought the book back, covered my grading costs, and shipping fees. I don't mind buying graded books online, but I don't feel a need to buy every key over a couple hundred dollars in a slab. There are sellers I like online (Bob Storms, Incognito Comics UK, etc), but I get a more personal treatment at the LCS. I try to help them out by referring friends to their stores when they come in from out of town. I hope my experiences are more the rule than the exception.

I think that would be sufficient. I've noticed it on Canadian and Australian priced books as well. They're labeled as "(insert country) Edition". It's somewhat misleading, since UK, CAN, and AUS priced books are first prints. I know AUS priced books have different distribution months on them (New Mutants 98 being the big example used May vs Feb with February still being in the index of the AUS variant). In any case, it's essentially just a variant. First print, different monetary value.

My personal opinion is that they should be listed as UK price variants on slab labels, but I don't pump enough money into CGC to make that happen.

There was supposed to be some appearance in a film or TV show. I bought one a few years ago and saw a few recently that were much higher than what I remember paying.

Cigarettes were amazing.

I'd prefer to save the extra $5 per book.

74/100

Xenu, Living Eraser, Jimmy Carter

@Hollywood1892, don't mind him. Some of the members here get worked up about things like kids playing on their lawns, 8 track tapes, and rock n' roll.

There is a store owner in Cincinnati who tried that a few years ago. He used different color labels to denote condition, then encased the books in a comic skin-style case, shrink wrapped the case and slapped a silly price on it. For all intents and purposes, no collector with a halfway functioning brain thought these were legitimately graded books. Some examples that I can remember. X-Factor #6 for $400, X-Factor #24 for $250, and New Mutants #16 for $175. Some of these books may have graded out to a 9.4 but most were not. As Kav stated, just because something has a high price tag on it does not mean it will sell.

I did. It's a blessing and a curse to live 10 minutes from it.