Glassman10

It was inevitable I think. I suppose it depends on how much time you have left. I plan to be buried with all my remotes when I cross the river styx. Extra batteries are in the final with instructions. You just can't assume anything. I very recently came into a mint 79 Mazda RX7 that has been garaged since 1982. Really Sweet. It gives me a lot more pleasure than reading a comic at this point. I suspect that's heresy. I could take the JIM's with me. If you have the coin, apparently the boats man has the space.

well doubling your money isn't all that satisfying if you bought it off the rack.

You might be right. I have a pony tail with everything on top too and I'm past 70.

Bob Storms was the one who did the amazing job. Over the last 18 months or so, I've been paying a lot of attention as to how he positions the enormous variety of high quality comics he has consigned to him. I think just storing that many High Value books would give me the willies. When he told me what he was going to ask for my AF 15, I nearly went through the floor in disbelief. When we got the collection out to sell after it sat for close to 50 years, I actually thought that it might be worth $3K. We certainly had offers to take all that stress off of our hands early on but persistent reaching out and listening led me ultimately to Storms. God what an education I got from sitting with him for those two days going through this pile. Maybe someday the JIM and such will have value but not as long as Loki falls for cardboard cutouts.

How can you not love a comic where the hero fools the villain with a carboard cut out of himself? ( Thor and Loki in one of the early JIM) . while having more money from waiting to sell the AF15 would be nice, it's crazy making to try to think that way. The really crazy stuff is newly minted "collectors" are trying to calculate value increase on stuff printed six months ago. Once you hit your '70's, gaining a broader perspective on where one has been is not a bad approach.

At the risk of sticking numbers out there, Bob Storms sold an AF15 for 55K in 2017 . It was way outside the norm for the time. It's price was not surpassed anytime in the interim for a 5.0 although I don't pay a lot of attention to that at this point. A lot of my point was that indeed, lower grades had been coming up in the same time period ( 3.5-4.5 ) but the 5.0, not so much. The other area of curiosity is the 6.0- 6.5 range. No doubt the book is climbing and having one going at auction for 2.3 million raises the perceived value on most any copy. I'll be really interested to see what the 5.0 does in the near future.

I don't think the mid range AF15's have moved all that much over the last four years although I think they will do so eventually. Lower end has done pretty well. Part of this auction raises the tide around all boats. The JIM and thor never have been a financial best seller but I really like the drawing and inking. Hela has remained a showstopper. The headgear is always better than Queen Elizabeth's.

the naivete of being young doing that is indeed priceless. My walk through town with a five dollar bill every month to the bus station. It did not occur for a second that these things would ever have real monetary value. The value then was in the printed comic. I remember my AF15 was worth $80 dollars I was told. Stopping collecting since they went up to 20 cents. Priceless. I'm glad I kept my JIM and Thor.

I get that. Would you accept bitcoins as payment?

Undoubtedly so but a few posts back it was pointed out that it could be paid for by parking funny money as the payment. We already have a commodity that is peculiar to say the least- a comic book. Then, add on a grading system for value establishment, observe a change in a grade rating, dink with the census on other high value 9.4 books since their numbers just went down and the general values of lots of other comics in which the rising tide affects all boats and you have what smells to me like it's ripe for manipulation.

Somehow, I'm waiting for the equivalent of the 1918 Black Sox Scandal. Lots of money, lots of temptation. Lots of manipulation possible. It continues to strike me that grading shifts from time to time almost imperceptibly but when you start cracking open cases and regrading and it has a profound affect on the census, money really talks. I certainly don't profess to be some insider on how this all goes, but it just doesn't feel quite right. I don't think it will happen right here but temptation is a real thing.

what I see is the mid range books staying fairly stable but the lower end ones shooting up, particularly in the AF15. The move from when I sold my 5.0 in 2017 to the price in 2021 hasn't been anywhere near as meteoric as the rises seen in the 2.5-4.0. X men certainly seems like it's in a " new car fever" sort of thing. AF15 never made sense from a rarity standpoint, it was just something everyone felt they had to have. X men 1 is not a comic I know the rarity of. It certainly is hot. I don't regret selling my whole collection. It just seemed like nothing really good would come from hanging on to it. I gave away an X man 4 during the process as well. That bus box was a peculiar find.

I apologize for the misread on my part. I note an AF15 just posted there for $175K as well in a 7.0

Bob Storms just listed an 8.5 for , I believe $850K. I think that's remarkable given where the comic was four years ago.

Mine sold for 50K in 2017. A 5.0 That was the top of the market then.

No, but it sounds you were motivated by stuff that was different than I looked for. I mean, Porn on a school bus? Also, I think the ccmma is in the wrong place in the evaluation of the gold, but still a lot of money. Also, keep in mind, when I sold the AF15, I gave away a copy of Avengers 4 since it had a tear in the cover I never did like Vibranium...

One of the things I did wind up with from that were all the Punch magazines cartoons from the late30's- early 40's. Not a single copy of AC1 one though.

Oh, there was plenty left for the family and generous donations to major charitable groups. I sort of hate to say this, but he forgot it was there. That's hard to imagine I know, but it was true. It would have made a splash on American Pickers I suppose.

4.0

1.5- 1.8

assuming the back cover and the contents to not have major surprise issues, likely a 4.0 -4.5

I am still about but not here frequently. After selling my collection I am spending more time on the grading board. I don't sense the price of a mid grade AF15 is really moving much from when I sold mine but I don't look all that hard. My only remaining books are JIM and Thor with a smattering of Dr Strange. None worth all that much. But I will tell a new hard to believe story: A lifetime friend of mine passed away last year and the property was to be sold. He was a very wealthy man and quite the collector of many things. Much was auctioned yet it still left enough detritus to fill 3 30 yard dumpsters. The pressure was on to get all of his unwanted stuff gone before closure on the house was to take place. Helping out was overwhelming. Gradually, no one was looking in the boxes anymore as the clock ran. It was truly day after day. The pickers had been here and go tnamy things but still, the boxes in the barn. So, as dumpster three was filling up, my frined's son was bringing out box after box and there was one wrapped in twine with a small "save" written on it. So the son decides maybe open it? Inside the box were seven cigar boxes. On opening the first box, what pops out but a pre-Columbian artifact made of solid gold. There were seven cigar boxes and each had a figurine. The total amount of 24ct gold in the seven? Seven pounds. It all went off to an auction house . That's a lot of gold and it beats the snot out of my story of finding the AF15 in the school bus. Apparently, my friend was known as a source for an easy check for stuff of this nature, but, how do you forget about seven pounds of gold. It left us all wondering what we might have missed. No AF15's though. Really and truly.

well, OK, the upper left corner is kind of beaten up down to the somewhat rusty staple. The stain in brown also contains some creasing by the First issue block. Down by the iceball guy is another set of either crease r a combo of creasing tearing of notable length. In general, the book is nibbled all around, not badly but noticeably. It has an aged look. It's not good enough for a 7.0 ever in my mind but I think it to be a bit better than ,many 4.5's I've seen. It's a nice book and the owner will be glad to have it. Still a 5.0

6.0. It's the spine ticks.

3.0