Michael Browning

And a few others I've found lately. Nothing nearly as cool as the Deathstroke 58 or the Nightmares on Elm Street. BTW, one of my local shop owners knows this thread exists and now is pricing the newsstand variants a lot higher. 

Here are a few newsstands I found in some long boxes I bought.

Some of the hardest comics to find in shops are the SoMuchFun, Inc. reprints. I think most dealers don't have a clue as to what they are. The few that I've found over the years since I discovered the line and interviewed the owner of SoMuchFun for CBG have been in dollar boxes (mainly because most are in VG or worse condition). I pick them up whenever I find them but I haven't found that many. The best one I found was a VG GI Joe 63 for 50 cents. I ended up selling it for $135.

49 minutes ago, vodou said:

Blah blah blah.

You brought this tale to the Board, nobody forced you to, perhaps you were expecting sympathy? Collecting* is always personal and relationships often form on the basis of a single good-for-all-involved transaction. Run roughshod over that all you want but don't be surprised when some collectors find that attitude and your actions impersonal and disagreeable.

By your own admission you experienced a liquidity event that you lacked preparation for. You figured wrong (duh).

Private property rights works both ways. Just as you can do whatever you want with your property, so can the rest of us. And some of us, reading a story like yours, will do business with just about anybody but now not you. It's not like there's only one buyer (you) out there for most of this stuff. Actions have consequences.

But I mean...you probably already know all this consequences stuff having run similarly roughshod all over Comicart-L for years.

*as opposed to dealing

As far as I know, I have never had any dealings with you, but I knew from your previous response that you had a personal vendetta against me and you prove that by your statement above. Like I have said about you and others who hid behind a screen name, I just wish that would put your real name up on here or on Comicart-L. Whatever your problem is with me, please, feel free to contact me via PM on here or at greatonefrommatewan@yahoo.com and lets talk about it.

18 hours ago, vodou said:

This is all about liquidity management. By going balls to the wall more than once (just in your story) you set yourself up to contradict whatever "long, long time" conversation you had with the previous owner. Maybe this was a one-off circumstance of really poor coincidence and you are otherwise not ever (or at least often) in the position of "spent everything I had" and "getting hit with some pretty hefty bills" or maybe...it's how you manage your money, a habit of poor liquidity management.

Buy what you can afford only after you've paid yourself (i.e. personal savings and investment) and you would only ever find yourself in that situation you describe once in a blue moon when absolutely everything in your life is going wrong (get fired, car craps out, wife walks, stock market crashes - all in the same week!) It maybe can happen, but it doesn't happen often.

I manage my money just fine and don't need a lesson on "liquidity management".  There's no contradiction in my "long, long time" conversation I had with the previous owner. I wanted it for a long, long time. When I got it, I really figured I'd keep it for as long of a time. But, that didn't happen. He got mad and I apologized and then he sent me ranting emails about how I'd destroyed the "relationship" he was hoping to build with me. One purchase does not create a "relationship", nor was I expecting it to.

When I sell a piece, I don't ask that the buyer give me first option on buying it back. It's his to do with as he pleases. If he sells it, then that's his business. After it leaves my hands and the transaction is completed with the previous owner, what happens to the art next is no business of his or anyone else's. If I go buy a toy at Target and then pop it on eBay and resell it, I don't owe Target a "first option to buy it back".

It didn't bother me one bit that the guy who bought it from me sold it to someone else and made a profit.

If I buy something today that I've been searching for for years and it arrives in the mail next week and I like it then, that doesn't mean it's going to be permanent in my collection and that I won't want something else even more; if I want, I can sell it the very next day for whatever reason. None of this stuff is truly permanent and, barring it gets destroyed in a fire or something, it will all end up in someone else's hands down the road.

11 minutes ago, Hey Kids, Comics! said:

Extended one issue? Heck, it only went two more after that!

Yeah, I got those last two issues and, surprisingly, they were delivered in NM condition. Somewhere in a box at my parents house is all my old subscription sleeves, which were brown paper wrappers that were wrapped around the comics.

3 hours ago, Hey Kids, Comics! said:

How is that possible?!? There had to be many more printed than there were subscriptions. Issues made it to shops and presumably newsstands. Comichron estimates approximately 10k issues sold through Diamond alone. 

At the time, I got a note that 58 had been allocated and I would not be receiving a replacement. I do remember that clearly since I was so disappointed that I wasn't going to get the full run I wanted. I'm thinking I got a random issue of something else -- or they extended my subscription one issue.

I bought a cover earlier this year that I'd wanted for a long, long time. I made the owner an offer not long after he put it up on CAF and he took it. I was so happy to have it. Then, a couple months later, a collector/dealer comes along and offers to buy it from me at a time when I'd spent everything I had and was getting hit with some pretty hefty bills, so, I sold it for barely a break-even price. The collector/dealer then put it up for sale for 3X what he'd given me for it and sold it. The previous owner flipped out on me and sent me numerous emails saying that he thought he was establishing a relationship with me and that it was so dirty of me to use him to get something I always intended to flip. I tried to explain to him that flipping it was never my intention, but that the offer was made at a time when I NEEDED the cash. He never got over the fact that I sold the art after buying it from him, even though I had a very good reason for selling it (along with a lot of other pages and covers that I bought from other dealers and collectors with the intention to keep, but that had to go because I really needed the money at the time). I hate that he got so angry and I apologized, but he never would accept my apologies. 

On 9/27/2017 at 1:51 PM, jaeldubyoo said:

For me it was an acquired taste. I wasn't into Miller's DD until I read an article in the Comics Journal. By the time I got into it, it was already up to #170 and I had to scramble around to get back issues. I remember paying $20.00 for #158.

Ha! I paid $35 and it was the first copy I'd ever seen for sale. I, too, came to DD late in the Miller run, but at the point that I thought he was really hitting full speed -- with DD 185. I thought his storytelling over those last few issues was brilliant and far and above anything else on the stands at the time. Those last few issues still stand out as one of my favorite runs of any comic. I ended up buying those last seven issues off the spinner rack and from a drug store newsstand and loved each and every issue. I still have my original copies. The issues before that, however, were hard to track down. I was so glad when the Visionaries trade paperbacks were released in the early 2000s, so I could read everything all over again in just a few sittings. I bought the omnibuses, but they were actually so unwieldy that I sold them (for high premiums at the time because they were the only printings) and bought the newer versions of the Visionaries trade paperbacks.

1 hour ago, fastballspecial said:

I have found at least one copy of each except 58 that book is in a small pile of books that elude me.

 

I had a subscription to Deathstroke that lasted to the end and when #58 was supposed to arrive, they sent me a copy of something else because #58 had been allocated and not enough were printed to fill subscriptions. I have never seen a copy in person anywhere for sale -- and I've looked.

29 minutes ago, Philflound said:

I agree, but again there are none available.

Most Veronicas are hard to find, especially any with bikini covers. The Betty 8, however, will be one that people look for for years to come just because of that very detailed cover.

On 10/7/2017 at 11:10 PM, Philflound said:

It's funny that people honed in on the Betty #8, but the Veronica #171 is pretty much nowhere to be found. The few I saw sold on Ebay went rather cheap, but were probably snatched up quickly because the sellers didn't know what they had. I'd guess this book should be a minimum of $10.

The reason everyone honed in on Betty #8 is because of the way Betty is drawn and all that is shown on the cover of an Archie comic. The Veronica is quite tame compared to The Betty.

Just now, fastballspecial said:

Just posted these because only copies I have ever found. 

Yeah, I can honestly say that in the thousands of longboxes from the 1990s-2000s I've looked through, I've never seen those.

11 hours ago, Jimbo749 said:

Interesting... I just saw a handful of the NOW Green Hornet books at the LCS over the weekend, have to pick them up next time. I did find The Twilight Zone 3-D Special (still bagged with glasses) in a dollar bin. 

Would one of those NOW Terminator #1's be for sale?

Heck yeah. I don't intend to keep any of this stuff. I've said it before, but anyone who wants any of these Image -- and NOW -- newsstands can PM me and I'll let them go.

I found a Splittin' Image #2 newsstand in a long box today, along with a Spawn 5 and WildCATS 2 and 3. I'd say the Splittin' Image #2 is very rare. Anyone ever found a Stupid #1 newsstand from Image?

I don't think the NOW Comics newsstand editions are all that rare. I interviewed Tony Caputo several years ago for a Back Issue Magazine article on Green Hornet and, from what I can remember, NOW had a very healthy newsstand distribution.

Just going through some random long boxes of stuff, I found two Terminator #1 newsstands, a Married ... with Children #1 newsstand and a few others. I don't think these are all that rare. NOWs are getting harder and harder to find in dollar boxes - especially in good shape, though. I rarely see Fright Nights and some of those early issues of Ralph Snart are impossible to find. And try putting together a set of all the NOW Green Hornets, including the miniseries. That can be tough if you're trying to do it by buying out of comic shops.

4 minutes ago, Wolverinex said:

I see a ton of darkhawks too.  Why are the last few issues so rare specifically?  Don't they have the same distribution?

Low print runs on those last issues causes them to be harder to find.

10 hours ago, Fiddy said:

Nice.  I also see one for sale.  Not sure if I'm going to pay that price for the book.

There's a direct sales copy in a set of Bettys on eBay for $95. For that $95 plus shipping, you get almost the entire set. I collect the ever-increasingly harder to find DeCarlo bikini covers (and Cheryl Blossom covers), so that is a comic I had to have for my collection or else I wouldn't have paid so much for it.

3 minutes ago, creaturefan95 said:

Found this yesterday for a buck:

Are these hard to find in the wild? I see lots of Darkhawk, though I rarely see the last few issues.

On 9/9/2017 at 10:39 AM, deadleg said:

Last week was pretty good. Thanks to @faster friendsfor the first three from the left. 

My Comics Journal isn't in gradable shape because I've read that thing to death. It's a gorgeous cover, though.

On 9/8/2017 at 8:34 AM, vodou said:

Yes. I captured all the details from everything I've bought and likewise the (much) fewer times I've sold. Browning has inspired me though, now everything that goes out the door will have the guy before me added (by me), myself, and the guy after me added to (as a courtesy, I'm all about customer service!) I wanna do my part

You misattribute a quote to me. I don't care who owned it before me or who owns its after me. In my opinion, what the OP is proposing is one of the dumbest things I've seen written on here.

6 hours ago, Michaeld said:

Your not interested In who owned it before you Michael. We get it. But what is the harm in others knowing some of the history of their pieces if they are intersted. If it doesn't diminish the value what is the harm?

You're the OP that said it would be written in PEN.

What is so wrong with leaving the art alone and putting all of that info on a card that you can slip inside the bag? (or, if you're so bent on using pen, then put it inside a comic bag before you slip it down into the art sleeve.)

Yes, pen certainly does bleed through and can cause other types of damage. 

I think this is some kind of issue where YOU want to be remembered with the art (50 years from now, you're hoping whoever gets the art will go "Oh wow, not only did Jack Kirby pencil it and Vince Colletta inked it - but MichaelD once held this in his hands and, omigosh, OWNED it, too!") just like the artist, inked, writer, colorist, letterer, editor and, of course, the previous owner. Because we all know that that makes you part of the comic's history, right?

56 minutes ago, Michaeld said:

Does anyone have a page with pen writing on the back that bled through to the front? To be honest I wouldn't do this either. My reason being that I'm paranoid about it decreasing the value. The trouble is I can't think of a reason why it would decrease the value. I would like to know where the piece has been in the past. Comic art is only growing in value. The buying pool is growing. I don't think it is beyond imagination that eventually it will be treated as fine art. Provenance will become important. Is anyone tracking sales? Should we? And how?

So, in the future, you think that someone is going to analyze who has owned page 12 of Dakota North #4 or Ghost Rider #38 page 8? No. The art itself causes it to be worth more and more, not who owned it back in September 1989 and who owned it in May of 1997 and then who owned it in October 2015.

How much art is in black hole collections that will never have any provenance provided to future buyers? When that art becomes available, no one is asking who owned it. Do you think people are going to pay a lot more because the writing on the back includes the names MichaelD and Michael Browning? Some of this art has changed hands so many times since I started collecting 20 years ago and I couldn't care less who owned it before me, as long as it is in my collection.

One more thing while I'm on here, the back of art isn't like the library book cards inside books at the library where you write in your name and it gets a date stamp. If you want that, fill out a card and tuck it neatly into the bag or mylar. It's that simple and doesn't damage the art.

The way the OP is thinking about this is like owning a VW Beetle and putting a bumper sticker on it for every town you drive it through.

7 hours ago, Michaeld said:

I have wondered if it would be a good idea to sign your name in pen (not large but legible) on the back of the art you own with the date of purchase and eventually the date you sold it. The next owner would do the same. This would prove ownership if it is lost and also create a provenance directly on the piece. I don't think it would negatively affect the value and it would be interesting to see who else in your hobby has own your art. I don't see much negative in this. Do you?

Even artists and dealers who used to write in the price of the art on the backs of the pages SEVERAL YEARS AGO didn't sign it in PEN. They signed it lightly in pencil.