Get Marwood & I

There'll be more people looking for them now, due to idiot researchers like me bringing them to wider attention, but with patience you'll get there. Good luck.

Excalibur. Makes a big difference, doesn't it, that 25%.

Always nice to see these old friends. Good luck with the sales nochips

It's always nice to see parity Panto, yes. I just wish it was at a lower overall figure....

Yes, I've bought and sold ASM runs a few times over the years and I suppose a little bit of me thought I'd do it again one day. Not now though. Maybe another Andru run, but nothing much lower. Shame isn't it.

I liked most of it a lot and still find myself thinking about it a week or so later

10K final hammer price on this UKPV just now: Add 25% commission, and that's a lot of money for what looked like a 3.5 to me - and with a rather prominent pen mark. With each successive sale it seems that collecting the early Marvels is moving further and further out of sight for the average collector. AF#15 used to be the one collectors would lament as being out of reach financially. Looks like it has company now. Marvellous in one way, I suppose. Oddly sad in another, I find, as it sort of signals the end of an era. The era when it was obtainable. Who but the most wealthy would set out now to put an ASM run together, I wonder, knowing that the first issue, even in low grade, is now in the new car price range?

That can happen, yes. People are often reluctant to admit their own failings I find. I had a slabbed 9.6 Spidey #179 with MJI sent to me from the US once. That arrived in a jiffy bag, smashed to pieces. When I contacted the seller they said that that had never happened to them before, and implied it was my fault. With some people you can argue your case and they will accept and respond to a logical argument. Others will insist that a slab sent around the world in a jiffy bag should arrive undamaged. You can't reason with people like that. "I've hit windows with a sledge hammer a hundred times and that's the first one that's ever broken".

It's common sense failure on several levels. Not only are they destroying a precious item through a lack of reasonable care, the seller is sabotaging their own sale, almost guaranteeing a return and inviting reputation impacting problems. It's a lose lose.

Damned if you do....

Usual story. Some sixty year old comics are listed on eBay by a seller with a long history of positive feedback. They are immaculate. Nothing pricey, but I collect them and they are immaculate. I win, and send the usual message - "Please pack them well (smiley face)". I add a few suggestions as to what that might mean, being careful not to insult them - they have 100% positive feedback, after all. A week later they arrive loose in a jiffy bag. No cardboard, no bags, no boards. During the journey, the bag has been folded, creased, dented and crushed, entirely as you would expect. The comics, whilst still lovely and clean, are now creased, dented, split and effectively ruined. They survived 60 years, somehow, in a wonderfully preserved state. The seller takes the trouble to sell them. And then proceeds to destroy them. I will never understand why they do that. I will never understand the mind that places paper comics in an unsupported A4 bag, and does not for one second, seemingly, consider the chances of that paper comic arriving at its destination in the same condition. I can only conclude that these people are morons. Utter morons. As are those that leave them the 100% positive feedback that they - inexplicably if this is indicative of their normal packing methods - manage to acquire. Poor comics. You can't be a comic collector of course, and expect never to experience this. It goes with the territory because other people go with the territory. And sometimes, other people cannot be trusted. Because they are morons.

More troubles here Dena:

We try. Shame the OP bailed so soon.

I know all that, I wanted to know if you knew why Charlton faked them for a bit? If that is what they were doing. Number nine, number nine... Nothing nicer than a UK distribution crop circle. "Mum! T&P landed in the garden last night. Left a big nine stamp". "Don't be silly dear. You know it's three stamp this month"

Yes, and it's not even being marketed as the price variant it is. CGC missed it as usual too. It's the way of the world now, this sort of pricing, and it kills the average collector. Well, it did me. Hopefully you'll spot one in the wild for less than a tenth of that price

Yes. We're all trying to forget him....

What was the point of putting them on then Robot, if they were pretend? Do you know or are you guessing? Where've you been anyway? I don't know, you don't ring, you don't write...

See the pictures at the bottom of this journal entry Stronguy:

Philip!

He has a great physicality to his performance I think and, without being unkind, an unfinished look to his face which suits a being prone to constant regeneration. I was nervous at first too. Slowly but surely though, he won me over. I do look at that young man and see the older man within, revelling in the vigour of his rejuvenated body.

Charlton Comics give you more!

On last interesting snippet - you can see by the obliterated signature (Sanho Kim) how the barcode placement in that first month wasn't the layout consideration that it would soon become...

Charlton were the first at a lot of things as it goes Reggie. They beat Marvel (Jan 1982) and DC (Oct 1981) to dual UK/US printed cover pricing (where no separate UK Price Variant exists) by quite a margin: Charlton - April 1973 Not bad for a company using a cereal box printer, eh - the first to realise that you only needed to print one issue type if you put both target prices on it!