mcduckz

Thanks for the input. The stain was what I was wondering about. Upon second look, I think the bend would come out as it is on the top white edge of the back cover. no color break, crease or tear. Question now is how much would that small stain hinder the grade. Minus these two defects it would easily be a 9.8. Right now it is 9.0. I feel like the stain is really dragging it down but am not too familiar with how much that typically affects the grade. As is, I'm leaning toward not regrading. Was mostly considering it because I have a second group I'm prepping for submission now and it would be easy to include.

Here are some pics. The stain was so faint without flash, I took a second pic with flash just so you can see it better. It is that very light discoloration at the corner.

So... cash in now?

Got a book back recently graded at CGC 9.0 with these notes... Grader Notes: small bend top of back cover small, light stain left top of back cover The stain is so light I missed it. The bend is questionable. It may or may not press out so I don't want to count on that. But the bend alone would probably only bump it from 9.8 to 9.6. I am just unfamiliar with how the stain removal works. So, the questions... 1. Will press/clean service remove the very light small stain? 2. Do I send the book back in existing case or do I need to jailbreak it and resend it raw? 3. If the clean removes the stain, does it still come back blue label or as green label? Sorry if this sounds basic. I've been collecting and grading for decades, but only out of my personal collection and I've never resubmitted or had to deal with cleaning issues before, only light bends/creases.

Understood... got this confused with the other sale on eBay that was listed at $38k or obo and the obo was also $28K from what I've heard.

Where are you pulling that 20% estimate from? On top of sale price, it is just state tax, shipping cost, and insurance (if buyer requests it). Probably closer to 10% than 20%

Nice! I have a newsstand copy off at CGC now that should come back a 9.6 or 9.8. I'm guessing that is since the She-Hulk series announcement.

Some interesting stories here. The reality is if we did not regret selling/trading/losing books, there would be no hobby. The value in any collectible is based on nostalgia. If everyone had kept every favorite book or never regretted parted parting ways with them, there would be a lot more supply and much slower increases in value, driven only by new collectors joining the hobby. Anyway, in my case, I acquired a CGC 9.4 Marvel Spotlight #5 from my dad, who had purchased it off the newsstand. I sold it for $900 because I needed the money for college. It's one book I've always wanted to reacquire. Been waiting to find and win one at auction in same or higher condition and it always just kept creeping up beyond my available funds at the time. Now, I'd probably need to sacrifice another book or two to fund getting one, but never say never.

It's definitely nice to see a big uptick in value, but collectors own these books because of passion for the hobby, the characters, etc. and are probably in this for the long haul anyway. Only speculators would panic over this kind of short-term volatility. I picked up the nicest copy I could afford several years ago... a CGC 9.4 with white pages. Set me back about $1K and I don't anticipate it leaving my collection anytime soon.

By the same logic, I'm very interested to see where the 9.8 Werewolf by Night 32 on ComicLink will end this week. It's a notoriously hard book to get in high grade and is already at $45K as of today with 2 days of bidding left. If Hulk 181 truly is THE book to have for BA, then it should lead both GSX and WbN32.

I sold a MS5 CGC 9.4 ages ago (circa 2009) for $700. More recently wishing I had waited on selling my SME15 CGC 9.8 a few more months.

But that sale is from February. Since then we've had at least two GSX #1 CGC9.8 sell for $60K+. I cannot imagine a Hulk 181 in similar condition would sell for less at this point. It's has to be hovering near the 6-figure mark now. Will be interesting to see when the next one sells. The 9.6s have been creeping up quickly. Basically selling for 2x now what they were selling for at the end of 2020.

Sold mine last year for about 1/2 of that. Can't complain since I had cover price + cost to grade in it, but still. I wonder how much of that increase is due to movie and how much is due to surge in BA prices since the beginning of the year.

Lot of talk about recent bronze age prices, movie announcements and "is there manipulation?". The answer to the last question is "yes, there is always some manipulation". And yes, properties being put into high budget shows and tv series raises awareness and interest in those titles. But, the other factor I don't see being discussed here are the age of these books. I realize bronze age were produced in larger numbers but high grade copies aren't exactly common either. The fact is some of these key first appearances and other issues are now hitting 40 years old or more. Wasn't there a similar acceleration of prices when GA books hit 30-40 (think the ramp up in prices during the 80s or SA (mid to late 90s prices)? So maybe it is happening with BA too and it just took a little longer to arrive. The higher print runs are probably more than offset by higher number of collectors both in the US and internationally. I feel many of the BA keys are much safer bets than a lot of the modern keys that are abundant in CGC 9.8. Thoughts?