Get Marwood & I

I bit the bullet and ordered 5 copies and they are lovely and clean with faultless spines. Here's one: At less than a couple of pounds each, if I sent them to CGC and they came back as 9.4/6's, I could make a buck. Pound, sorry. That's probably what others did, hence the sudden glut of high grades in slabs. Likely too late now for me, though. By the time I got them back, assuming I was still alive, the money making boat would have almost certainly have sailed. I've always been rubbish at making money on comics though, so I'm not overly troubled.

Nice. A cents copy with white pages sold for $2,040 at the end of 2021. It'll be interesting to see how this OWP pence copy fares. Notwithstanding everything I've said, in auctions it all depends who's looking, on the day. Maybe some other members who have access to GPA will be able to add more on comparable sales for X-Men of this era.

I summarise the differences here Bayo:

As an aside, here's a high level table I put together a while back which shows the seven US publishers and the years that their UK Price Variants exist (by cover date). As you can see, only Marvel had a consistent pence run (give or take a few gaps) from 1960, when UK Price Variants first appeared, to their demise in 1982 (the result of dual pricing). Click on it to make it bigger:

Hello Bayowolf, I got a notification from Robot's linking of my thread, so thought I'd chip in. My two-penneth, heh heh, is that it depends on the book. For Marvel, if the book is a key, a desirable issue, then I'm seeing pence copies compete very favourably lately. It's hard to give a broad opinion across the piece because prices are so volatile now anyway, but the days of pence copies being the poor cousin, worth 50% or so less, seem to be well and truly over. Which is good and just, I think. Keys and important issues are approaching parity now, but non-keys are still lagging a little behind for obvious reasons. There are some recent examples of pence copies actually selling for more than the highest cents equivalent sale - WWBN #32 being one that springs to mind, and an ASM #1, if I recall correctly - and all the first appearances are on fire, it seems. Probably why there are so few of them! That was a joke. The print ratio for Marvel in the 1960's is not known - well, to me, at least - but the accepted rule of thumb seems to be between 2 and 10%, so the pence copies are comparatively scarce on that basis. In my experience, the earlier the book, the harder it is to find as a pence copy in any great number. You can imagine therefore that, as word gets around, and there is more interest in sky-rocketing comic prices, that the pence copies would start to pick up as collectors see them as a favourable extension to collecting. And that is what I think is now happening. I've done my best here and elsewhere to promote the fullest understanding of what pence copies actually are, notably that they are first printings and therefore have equal status. I seem to have had a hand in getting CGC to call them 'UK Price Variants' too, as opposed to the horribly misleading 'UK Edition'. Maybe that has helped a bit, as word gets around and false perceptions are slowly corrected. Hope that helps - by all means post an example of the books you have in mind and we'll take a punt on comparative current value.

I thought I'd share this article from this week's Times, which reprints Tom Baker's 'A Life in The Day' from 1978. I always knew Tom had his demons, and this is a good insight into them from a time which, to me, still seems like the recent past but which is - was, in fact, another world. Which is appropriate I suppose, for a Time Lord.

@Malacoda Rich? Whaddaya think.

Nicely done Steven

Seems anything is possible now, doesn't it. One spell from Strange, a bit of multi-versing, and Bob's your uncle.

Sorry, Reggie, the phone rang. Yes, the well done emotional stuff is always powerful. I liked Garfield and Stone, I thought their Peter/Gwen relationship was lovely. But I didn't like either of his films overall and thought both Electro and Lizard were poorly executed. And both films had such bad music, which is unforgivable. Yes, that was some feat, to do that and you have to take your hat off to someone who can put a film together with all those components. I think that was one of my issues though, now I dwell on it - the over abundance of characters. There's some fun to be had having Ock, Gobby, Electro and Sandman in your flat, with Lizard downstairs in the van, for sure. But in a way, I felt it sort of disrespected them, reducing them to that. Lizard and Sandman were especially pointless and added little. So again, it was a fun spectacle in a throwaway Marvel Team-Up / What If sort of way but, just like the comics, it wasn't a core 'Amazing Spider-Man' story. I did laugh though when Ock said his name and the three kids laughed.

What did you think?

I tried to avoid most of the hype and reviews, so I'm not sure Reggie. I'm easily moved, and I loved seeing all the old film cast again. I liked that, and there were a few tears here and there when they arrived. Tom Holland and Zendaya won me over, in the end. There was some fabulous 'Spidey' scenes - I thought him and MJ swinging through the city at the start was really good, and the most realistic portrayal of that most basic of Spidey tropes so far. It was a bit like a mad What If story, with everything thrown in. I thought Willem showed everyone how to act a bit, and whilst it was cool to see all the villains together, it felt a little superficial at times. Some of the banter was good, but ultimately there were no big shocks and I thought there was a lack of a strong story and emotional grist. I think maybe I'm just too old for all this now. I have an image of Spidey in my mind, based largely on the first 180 issues of ASM. I thought the first two Maguire films, for their faults, were the closest portrayal I've seen of the story of the Spidey I grew up with. I know we have to move on, but they had heart and much stronger characterisation. You can have all the spectacle in the world, but if there is no strong story underpinning it all, it can feel a little throwaway. I found the first hour bordering on flimsy, but it picked up when May died and the boys showed up. In a way, I just wanted to skip back to Maguire, and have a proper Goblin kills MJ finale (I was sorry not to see Kirsten turn up for some dual-MJ banter). Nice to see Molina again as Doc Ock, but contrast how he carried the whole second Maguire film - here, just a bit part. And I still have yet to see a fight scene as cleverly choreographed as that Doc Ock fight on the train in SM2. Everything since has been, all too often, an indefinable blur. So it was a fun film and I enjoyed it. Much to commend it. But an overall absence of emotional power, for me. And being a purist, all the technology, the Stark stuff, the constant sharing the limelight with other heroes, and the traditional character changes just makes this a good Spider-Man film, for me. Just not 'my' Spider-Man.

I know. I'm one of them...

Well, that was fun

I enjoyed your contributions to the forum very much, Paq, and whilst I am sorry to see you go, I completely understand why you would reach the decision you have. The love of comics is a wonderful thing - please don't let your experience here taint that. Good luck in all you do.

https://boards.cgccomics.com/topic/411880-marvel-uk-price-variants/?do=findComment&comment=10521388

I did, yes. It's buried somewhere in this thread. I posted about it on the rare comics blog too, as I recall. Something about which copy was the mistake. I'll have a look about.

Woo-hoo! Thar she blows!

Stop using them.

Drag isn't it. Two big multi-million dollar companies, and both have let you down. One by placing an arguably unique book in a damaged holder, which is supposed to be 'crystal clear', the other by seemingly misrepresenting that damage and then taking an age to ship it after auction. CGC is sorry for the waiting times and cite the huge submission volumes as the cause - and yet add to that volume with near-daily celebrity signings. Heritage have total control over the amount of books they put up for auction. They should tailor the number to their resources ability to process them but prefer to punt out more than they can handle. In both cases, they have your money long before you get the product. Makes you wonder why we bother with either of them really, doesn't it?

That's grim, especially on a book that CGC would expect to have a lot of public exposure and prominence. The marks are very clear there, set against the green of the title. CGC grade millions of comics and you wonder sometimes just how bad the QC problems are. This thread, of course, focusses the issues but for all we know 999 out of 1,000 customers may be happy if not delighted with their books (although the waiting time to get them back must be hard to live with). Regardless of how low the failure rate may actually be though, when things go wrong, it's a disaster for the customer. If CGC put things right quickly and efficiently, with apologies and - God forbid - maybe some free credit as compensation - then we would all likely think more favourably of them and there would be less criticism. It's when they try and pass off production failures as 'normal or 'acceptable' that gets my goat. And the relentless touting for more business sits uncomfortably with the ever extending waiting times, for me. I'd be interested to see how CGC respond if you contact them about this Artboy - do let us know if you do. In the meantime, I'm still holding off submitting my valuable books predominantly due to the long waiting times to get them back but also out of fear that I - like you - will be one of the unlucky ones that get a faulty case or, worse still, a damaged comic.

Oh dear. I don't see those marks in the scan on Heritage? Could it have been scratched by them during packing?

I've got my ticket for tomorrow Reggie @Spider-Variant

Even worse when the books missed would otherwise be the highest graded...