VegasJeff

I think this staining (or browning) is caused by long term storage in humid climates and/or cheap poly bags with boards.

I just noticed there is no price on the cover. Is that how you tell the difference?

I'd say 1.0. According to my grading notes on specific defects, a 1.0 can have an entire back cover missing or 1/4 of front cover missing. It would drop to 0.5 if there are large chunks missing on both covers or if there are also large chunks missing from interior pages.

This would be 9.6 tops. In my personal notes on grading comics, I have noted the flaw on a 9.8 should be almost invisible. A corner tear up to 1/16" would drop it to a 9.6. I think someone said it best earlier in this thread that if the flaw is visible in a scan it's probably 9.6 or less.

So I'm curious how this IG thing works. How do I search for a book on there?

Was the old well made from? I'm curious if the problem was the Mylar...

Wow! So how did they ship $80k worth of books to your friends house? Did he at least have to sign for them? I hope they weren't left out by UPS to get rained on. Also, I thought CGC had a limit to the value of books you can send in which is $3k right?

Time for a necrobump here! So according to Wikipedia, Lexan absorbs UV light so maybe a good use for this would be for those select comics that are put on display and then put a sheet in the front to absorb UV light and a sheet in the back.

And you lived?!?! Suprised you didn't get impaled by one of those pieces of metal. And how much does a long box weigh anyways? Surprised you didn't get crushed either. Well, it might explain a few things now.

Just to clarify, Manga means Japanese comics. Anime means Japanese cartoons. Japan is where it originated but it's possible you could see something made in the same style from another Asian country or even America here. Mange/Anime has been really popular here on the West Coast especially among the Asian community. Not to burst anyone's bubble, but Manga like Comics has also been experiencing a decrease in sales compared to years ago. ComicConnoisseur made some good reco's above. Lone Wolf & Cub and Akira are definitely classics. If you haven't seen the Anime for Akira put that on your list. Two more classics I can recommend that I have in my collection are Golgo 13 and Old Boy. I also picked up Star Trek which I think is cool to see in Manga form. I really like the Manga digest format, but I believe some of them are just reprints from magazines in Japan. The only Japanese Anime I've gotten into recently is One Punch Man. You can watch it on Netflix right now. Check it out.

Spooncomic I'm curious where this high humidity place is that you live. What city/country are you in? I grew up in ultra-humid Central Florida where it would reach 100% humidity and rain every day in the summer. I currently live in Las Vegas where it is ultra dry and it is usually around low 20% humidity. So I've seen both extremes and can offer a lot of insight in regards to preserving collectibles. I see you have done a lot to improve the situation which is really good. I think your biggest problem was keeping stuff on the floor. Many comics have been ruined by being stored directly on the floor. Getting the silica is a pro preservation technique for humid or closed environments. The only thing I might be leary of is the closed air tight plastic box. One one hand, they are good to protect stuff from bugs, dust, mold spores, etc. But on the other hand, they could cause an issue because of condensation in a humid environment. If your house is climate controlled and stays relatively cool I don't think it will be an issue. However, I think it will become an issue if you ever move this box into say a storage bin or somewhere that is not climate controlled. The silica will help in regards to that but I don't know what the limits of Silica are. Something to think about. I've never had an issue myself from humidity with comics being stored in poly bags. I still own Action Comics#600 which I bought as a kid nearly 30 years ago in Florida. It was one of the first comics that I bought in a comic store. It was kept in a poly bag with backing board for the first 5 years or so. Then I switched out the poly bags to mylar. So that comic is currently sitting in the same mylar I put it in 25 years ago. The mylar is still crystal clear and the comic still looks really good.

Spooncomic where were you storing your comics? I would also be concerned about potential health issues if mold spores are that big of an issue.

Does anyone have an idea when direct editions started to become more plentiful than newstand editions? Might be an opportunity in picking up early direct editions.

This is crazy! Makes me wonder what the best way to ship an item over $750 internationally is to avoid this signature problem with Paypal. Maybe we need to stick to using FedEx or UPS despite the crazy high cost?

I've bought and shipped all over the world. Probably most remote place for me would be the Canary Islands. I had to look them up to see if they were covered by Paypal and I learned they are since they are considered part of Spain. Furthest place would have to be Australia. One thing I also like to collect is Australian Lunar Coins.

Perhaps RockMyAmadeus will have some solid data on this. In the meantime, I did come across some info that before Archie was relaunched in 2015, the digests were selling about 4x the number of the regular sized comics. The distribution of the regular size comics was roughly around 10,000 copies an issue or so at that time.

For Magic, the most valuable cards were from the first few sets and expansions, because they contained the most powerful cards in the game (many which would not be produced later) and also because there simply was not enough Magic cards to meet demand when they first came out in the Early 90's. You probably could find a website out there that tells you how to determine which series a card is from. I got a multi-row box of them sitting in my storage bin that I will go through at some point.

Kudos to the OP for starting this thread. I was thinking of starting a similar one based on what I've been seeing. According to trends I've been seeing in comic book sales data, my analysis indicates that within 40 years new comic books (at least in their paper format) will cease being made (and perhaps as soon as 20 years if trends accelerate). I'm sure this won't be a surprise to many who have also noticed declining sales. This also does not answer the question if the comic industry will survive the leap to digital online based comics. That discussion would probably be best saved for another thread. So to have a better understanding of why this is happening, we need to do a root cause analysis of the situation. If we go back to the beginning of comic books, we must remember they were created as a cheap form of disposable entertainment. When I first started reading comics in the late 80's as a kid there were simply not many alternatives for entertainment. Perhaps an hour or two of cartoons in the afternoon on 2 or 3 channels, play video games (if you could afford them), listen to the radio or cassettes, read a book (boring for most kids), there was no internet, not much else besides going outdoors. Now fast forward to today, while comics books have gotten more expensive, there is an almost limitless supply of free (or nearly free) alternative forms of entertainment that are also more convenient such as netflix, youtube, free downloadable games on your smartphone, websites, etc. plus we know have the ability to download digital versions of books instantly. That is one of the key reasons why books/magazines/comics have been in a downward spiral. I don't believe digital sales will make up the the difference. I'm also under the impression that the format we are used to will die as it was designed for the limitations and cost of paper and it doesn't transition all that well to digital compared to other stuff.

That cover has got nice eye appeal. I'd buy it just for that. My recommendation is to get it slabbed.

What's the estimated value of the book in this condition?

I've seen foxing many times and to me too it was originally also a mystery. I should mention, I grew up in the ultra-humid parts of Florida and now I live in the ultra-dry desert of Las Vegas. I have also heard recently that foxing is caused by a mold or fungus. As a kid, I can tell you, I saw so many types of mold and fungus in Florida. I do recall, seeing mold growing on paper products with a heavier dot like pattern similar to foxing that I have seen on books. Usually, the stuff that had that sort of mold pattern were paper products that were left outside and got rained upon and were wet (say like a newspaper left by the side of the road). In Central Florida, it is not uncommon for it to rain everyday in the summer. I've also seen mold seemingly grow out of the air on wooden walls indoors that were kept dry. It seems in super humid places that their just must be microscopic pieces of mold floating through the air. Next time I see something with foxing, I'm gonna take a much closer look with a magnifying glass to see if it matches what I remember and I'll give you my final opinion.

What book did you get back?

I don't get Howard The Duck. I started reading comics in the late 80's and never knew about Howard until more recently. To me the character just seems out of place compared to the rest of the characters in the Marvel Universe. Without reading any of the comics, so it's hard for me to criticize, it almost seems as if Howard is just a more adult version knock off of Daffy Duck. Now, I thought Looney Tunes were awesome as a kid but back here in the year 2017 it seems like those characters are for the most part dead too. I will admit though I did like Howard's line in Guardians of the Galaxy.

1 code sent. 4 left.

I might be in trouble. I stumbled upon this thread and I might soon have a new collecting addiction thanks to this thread! I've known of that crazy expensive Star Wars 35 cent variant for a long time but did not know there were so many others. Mind you I did not grow up in the 70's. Without reading through the whole thread, I saw it mentioned these were sold in test markets. Where were all of these test markets? Also, is there a master list of all the variants? I clicked on a link a few pages back but it was dead...