mcduckz

So, at current bid, this book has passed the Batman #1 in 9.4 Heritage sold earlier this year and, I think, makes it the most expensive comic book Heritage has ever sold.

Agreed... this was where I was thinking before the new movie trailer dropped and I'm still there. I think I agree with Aman619 above... the folks bidding on this won't be swayed by very recent movie news and speculation. The fact is, this was already going to be a $4MM+ book.

New Spidey trailer just officially dropped. Might as well tack another $1M on whatever your guess is. Also expect ASM 14s to shoot up some more

Took me a while to do it, but I finally broke down earlier this year and shipped off a bunch of my Sandman books to CGC for grading. I've had the entire run of 75 issues (+ the special) since buying them new from my LCS when they released. Pretty happy with the grades considering I bought them fresh and have stored them/carried them around/occasionally reread them over the past 30-some odd years. Thinking I might upgrade my copy of issue 8 to a 9.8 before pricing gets even crazier when the show trailers start.

That will seem cheap if Marvel ever announces an Alpha Flight show or movie as all the non-comic people flock in and buy them up. Then it will come out and everyone will remember no one cares a whole lot about Alpha Flight and it will drop like a rock.

Yep... everyone keeps saying correction, but the reality is the net difference over year end 2020 is still 2x or more for many keys

^ this

It definitely did. We had 2 copies from my father's estate and sold both just before the movie came out. I monitored pricing on it for about a year afterward and there was a pretty significant crash after the movie came out.

Laugh all you like but 41k for IH180 and $72k for GSX1 definitely puts IH181 approaching $200k within possibility whether anyone thinks those prices are reasonable or not. We won't know until another IH181 comes up for sale. Regardless, I bet the next one really sells for 6 figures

don't disagree with your premise. People want to slot GR as a second tier character but there are plenty of fans and his first appearance has been high demand for a long time. And the rarity of this book in 9.8 is legendary. How long before another one comes to market? Does $264K draw another out now or is it another 5 years before we see one offered for sale. Not to mention, when you get into this rarified price range many sales are private, not on CLink or eBay or HA. No way to know what they may trade for off the grid if one came up that way.

It's all perspective... people spending 6+ figures on comic books probably don't blink an eye at that purchase. Personally, my "true" market are good potential first appearances in the 4-figure range. That is higher than some could afford and lower than others would spend, but my goal is to have the first appearances of all my favorite characters (the ones I don't already have of course). At this point, I have accepted that means I won't get most SA ones, but plenty of BA are still in reach. Probably true, but on the plus side it is a pretty rare book in 9.8. If anything Ghost Rider related gets announced for the MCU, a quarter of a million may be the right range. Though, hard to move north of that when you can get copies of A-list characters in mid grade for that money. Agree completely... I think this has been true in most collector markets. Have seen rapid increases in comics, sports cards & memorabilia, coins, not sports cards, CCGs, etc. It seems a correction must come but I really think prices will still say significantly higher than they were on Jan 1. People who are spending this crazy cash will just sit on stuff until they can get some decent money back out of it.

Some serious high prices being set at Heritage today... ASM 129 9.8 white = $40,800 GSX1 9.8 OW/W = $72,000 Hulk 180 9.8 white = $40,800 O_O makes me wonder where 181 would land MS5 9.8 white = $264,000 !!!!!! holy carp! Tomb 10 9.8 white = $28,800 pretty big money for a B/C character Not sure the market really has cooled off for super high grade books yet

A small fraction? That probably remains to be seen. This sale will set a precedent for some grades on this book which is notoriously hard to find in high grade. I could easily see a 9.6 selling for the price of luxury SUV at this point.

ah... this kind of "hype of the moment" book is tiring. So many surges in demand are off hype related to a show, rumor about a movie, etc. and driven by folks who are fans of those things but never ever picked up a comic book. Most of these books have and continue to be insignificant events and C-level characters at best to fans who have been in the hobby for ages. It's all good for the hobby, I guess, just gets crazy to keep up with every thing going on.

Not sure where you are getting that. There were not very many graded copies to start with and there are still a ton of ungraded ones out there. What is suddenly special about Thor 245?

Often, they don't have the same value. Not all 9.8s sell for the same price. If two books sitting side-by-side and one had a defect and the other did not, chances are the unflawed one would be priced higher because it has higher eye appeal. CGC decided long ago not to count against printing defects like this. It's no different than SA store stamps or other accepted flaws. Many would argue a store stamp is the same as writing on a cover, but the store stamp is acceptable because that was how things were done. What would be ruinous is to change policy now after they have already established a standard they have used for the last 20+ years. I think a lot of folks forget prior to Copper Age, the books rarely were perfect. You find all kind of ink defects, off center wraps, skewed wraps, misplaced staples, non-white pages from the publisher, etc. which have nothing to do with the actual book grade. Most of that was deemed acceptable long before CGC formalized the grading process.

A lot of books that spiked are selling back down to reality now. Most are selling notably higher than they were at the start of the year but a bit lower than peaks of a month or so ago. I think there may be some exceptions in the 9.8 books.

That's not a moisture mark, it is an ink defect from the printing process and is not considered a grade altering flaw by CGC because it occurred as part of printing process. Lots of BA books have these. Unsightly? Yes. Grade altering? No.

probably should have kept that one. Had a 9.6 copy I sold a few years ago (long before MK was even a rumor for MCU). Fortunately I kept my WWbN 32 and 33. Spotlight and Premiere were largely overlooked for years and had lots of key firsts or solo stories. Glad to see them getting the attention deserved. The Deathlok run by Perez is great.

For GA/SA/BA, it will be the same you already know. Key first appearances of popular characters and those notoriously hard to get in high grade. Some key event/creator/artist books. CA/MA... I think this is where it will get interesting because a lot depends on the next few rounds of movies, shows, and stories in current runs. People will be nostalgic for what they enjoyed as a kid. Even with high availability, I expect certain high grade copies of first appearances to move up. IH181 proves that supply doesn't necessarily limit value if the character is popular enough. Books in this realm are NM98, Batman Adv 12, possible XM266 if Gambit ever gets quality representation on the screen, UF4, Nyx4, and potentially any Young Avengers firsts if Disney moves the way it looks like they are trying to. So hard to gauge these things, but my money is always on characters more so than artists because the characters transcend generations better than artist popularity. But, hey, I'm not expert... just a guy who loves and has collected comic books for 4 decades. :P

I've always felt this book was a bit underrated. Maybe folks are starting to feel like Alpha Flight characters are going to make their way into some future MCU features.

Glad I held onto all 75 issues and all high grade. One of my favorite books by one of my favorite writers. Glad to see it is finally getting more attention even if it took a Netflix deal to spur it along

LOL... I've had decades to perfect my craft. If only I had more capital to invest, I'd already be retired.

There is a high degree of accuracy to this. It is why despite there being a lot of them in 9.8, first appearances of Venom, Harley Quinn, and Deadpool will eventually hit a level of inexplicable demand like we see in BA keys now. You can gauge that future nostalgia by what kids are eating up now. If you can go to a con, keep an eye on the tee shirts and cosplays that are in abundance. That is the next wave of nostalgia personified

Truth... he's a rock star over there. Makes me feel lucky when I catch him at a show in the US and the line is only a few people deep.