MAR1979

As long as demand maintains so too will price. However with so many copies in high grade it won't take much of a demand drop to change that. Then again I could say same thing about Infinity Gauntlet 1 and Amazing Spider-Man 300 and Killing Joke #1 and Dark Knight 1, etc. Guess what I'm attempting to convey is Supply and Demand 101 eventually will reign supreme Although "a market can remain irrational longer than many can remain solvent" - to paraphrase Wilde.

I was going to write 9.6 then I saw grading was completed. But 9.8 was not out of the question as the quality of the pics were not so good Congrats on the 9.8. #361 back in the day was a heavily ordered and hyped book. Not usual in that situation for a book to actually live up it's alleged at the time potential.

They are in Texas, the buyer is is stuck with it. Between their policy's and shill bidding from the house is legal in Texas one has to be prepared to pay their max amount of their bid for every item and more importantly eat the loss if said item has some flaws never mentioned in the auctions description. -----------------

Also in Collectibles like Trading Cards, Comic Art, Boxed Video Games condition is KING. With OCA condition is an afterthought. Thus no room for the alleged WATA / Haspel brand of nepotistic fix-is-in manipulation. i would not be surprised if an investigation led to numerous counts of outright fraud - for now we'll just say alleged fraud. Of course with Comic Art there is the OCA dealer merry-go-round If you are one of Goldin's or Cohen's buddies there is money to be made, if you are not then you will play the part of the rube.

Perhaps. Also possible that "The Promise Collection" has a hint of alleged nepotistic impropriety.

It was not accurate. Simple stuff like the way Marston met Peter was depicted was fiction. They played it very loose with accuracy to make it entertaining (Hollywoodization) but the way the film portrays the history is nowhere close to gospel. I do agree not truly a straw-man so I've edited the post.

Huh? If you were to research the 3 people you will find nearly all the chain of events never occurred anywhere near the manner they were portrayed nor even in the correct chronological order. Including the way the 3 first met. Again very entertaining and well done film that merely weaves a story around non-fiction people and events in a wholly fictionalized manner. I've not read the book perhaps that was more true to the actual history? Regardless of fact or fiction still a great movie.

Enjoyable movie, I really liked it, however its nearly all Hollywood fiction based on actual people.

Same thing happened in Trading Cards with the 1986 Fleer Jordan earlier this year as a prime example of Alleged fraud and market manipulation. Of course what is not often mentioned is nearly all dealers and majority of collectors seem to condone this type of fraud and manipulation. Dealers OK makes sense logically, but for collectors its a strange Stockholm syndrome variation. Case in point nearly every collector I have spoke to knows how crooked (insert name of well large state auction house or Banned northwest eBay entity here) are, not to mention (insert name name a left or right coast warm state grading firm here) but continue to do business with them unabated and often will defend them to the hilt. If the bulk collectors stayed away the schemes would have minimal success, if not failure, but those behind the scenes know that ain't ever going to happen. Earlier in this topic there was mention of OCA shenanigans going on, no surprise.. Anyone have a link or willing to provide info. Here is one of those posts.

The last Major con I attended in Oct 2019 i heard dealers say the same thing over and over regarding raw books; "Get it pressed and you will have 9.6 or 9.8" . Heard one of them say that about a book missing a small piece of cover approx half the size of dime, and the potential customer agreeing - seriously. Some dealer's I'm sure make a fair amount of bank selling to "rubes" and the "greedy".. I'd really like to see a guide out there with before and after of what can and cannot be solved by CSS pressing. If some of the mystery was removed it might encourage more folks to give it a go.

Yeah it's gamble alright. Since at least up to this point in life I'm not a seller, not sure costs and risk of re-submitting are worth it to me. If it came back with less than a 9.8 I'd have to put it away for 40 years Perhaps 10 years ago i should have revisited the book? I do agree grading more consistent today. Still though I have purchased many new slabs and scratched my head wondering how it garnered a 9.8 which is why I prefer to purchase in person so i can truly view the book. That said anything under $100 I still roll the dice. I will say at 1 place I'm a regular customer if the book does not meet my grade they will take it back but I do have to pay return shipping costs. In today's age of "buy the slab not the book" many dealers have low tolerance for a return. P.S. you still have the Scooby 1?

Nope not born in 1979. Was late teen when ASM 300 came out. But as an OCD-ish collector for few years already I had noticed 2x size issue seemed more condition sensitive. Like Crisis 7,12 and others. My personal line of demarcation as "Kid" or not is 10 months after high school ended. "Child" I consider anything pre 9th grade. These are only my standards for myself when relating a story nothing more than that.

I've been in self imposed ASM 300 exile since late 2000. Every time I see the cover to the book I just want to scream - still do Here is my boring vent: I picked up ASM 300 as a kid the day it hit comic shops in 1988. My local shop must have had 300-400 copies and I gently dug through them until I found a copy that met my very rigid standards. It was pristine (still is) and I purchased a Mylar and board at the same time to protect it as I often did on books that cost what was for me a lot of money. Knowing how difficult it was to find double sized issues in perfect condition I never read my personal copy. In 2000 while culling books for my first CGC submission I gave ASM 300 a then fresh look and as not often happens it was a perfect as I recalled. I figured a 9.9 was possible - something I never thought on any other sub since. When I got the submission back and opened the box, these were days before online grades were available, I was heart broken then angered after seeing a 9.6. Yes CGC was very strict in those early days but I too was a harsh grader. Must have got the CGC grader of death. Today when a book is submitted you can get graders notes not sure if they existed back in 2000. I packed up the book and for the next 21 years tried to forget this kick to my nads by CGC and did not set eyes on it again until today. Looked at through the case with my 12x jewelers loop this morning and all looks perfect. Spine is tight and flat and blemish free, edges are all razor sharp and surface and gloss on both sides appears flawless. Earlier today I compared it to 40 other various CGC 9.8's (all newest CGC label) and this book beat them all, some by a wide margin. I do find a decent amount of CGC 9.8's i purchased the last 5 years (in the newest slabs) would have only been strong 9.6's back in the earliest days. Which is why when I can I try to only purchase in person, "buy the book not the slab" in effect. I gave thought to cracking it out and re-submitting but afraid I'd damage it, also like some collectors I favor the old-school CGC labels or Flips as they are referred to in trading card grading world. Here's a scan, pardon the cut off top+bottom and the redacted barcode. I'd like to say I feel better getting this off my chest but I don't. Oh well...

My comment was pretty much geared at the mid 70's Hanna Charlton's as mentioned in my first sentence but yeah not 100% clear on second sentence. "I had wanted a High grade Hanna-Barbara Charlton, but only to have one as type thing. Other than Scooby the demand is pretty near zero on the Cartoon Charlton's and I don't see that changing. " Yes, Agreed on Underdog same to some degree with the Underdog Gold Key run. Underdog was issued by Charlton 1970/1971 before their product went from low budget to an even more super-cheaper endeavor. I feel the Underdog art was really nice. All Charlton issues I believe were drawn by Frank Johnson of 1970's "Boner's Ark" fame as well as Beetle Bailey "ghost artist" for much of the 1960's

I had wanted a High grade Hanna-Barbara Charlton, but only to have one as type thing. Other than Scooby the demand is pretty near zero on the Cartoon Charlton's and I don't see that changing. After I picked this up I had my High-Grade Hanna Charlton and moved on. Man, Dino is the wrong color, Pebbles and Wilma look as chunky as Fred, these Hanna Charlton's were some cheap stuff. I see mine was https://www.myslabbedcomics.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=6923&GSub=626 @seanfingh please remove from your MySlab gallery - Thanks Man!

removed

You gave the topic a 12 year bump I can say demand is very high for Joe #1 and key issues same with Transformers. In 10 years will they be $5k or more or a few hundred or less. Not sure there is long term viability but my year 2000 self-submitted Joe #1 in original 1st gen CGC slab that i originally picked up raw for $2 in 1998 makes me smile. I was a Joe kid, Transformers never did it for me the same way.

The first 12 months of The 'Nam book were something Special. Issue #7 I feel is one of the best comics of the decade and one of the better comic books issues ever written. Sadly it's mostly forgotten now. The real time aspect while well intended does not work that great in a 17-25 page comic book format. I really wish their idea had been to do say 4 issues per month in effect 1 book covers 1 week. One of the reason i say that is it's not easy to create characters that resonate with the majority of readers, so when Ed Marks left after the first year the book was not the same to myself and many others. Overall like many readers I dropped off the run after around the end of the 2nd year. It was no longer a book I looked forward to reading.. My copy of issue 1, that I picked up as a kid in 1986, was in an early CGC submission of mine back in 2003. Having that exact copy in 9.8w inside an original 1st gen CGC slab to me personally as comics go is "priceless".

Folks I'd like to mention that the Earth II Batman was the Golden Age Batman. Everything's been done and undone and done again near infinitum with DC. I dropped off that treadmill the week before "New 52". I'm still a late 60's through mid 80's (heavy on 78-80) collector but not a new book reader

I see the original Aparo 462 cover art is on CAF - WOW, I'm rather jelly https://www.comicartfans.com/SearchResult.asp?PM=1&txtSearch=adventure+462

No. The actual death is Adventure #462 on page 13 (11th page of story)

Floating/Disembodied heads were very popular on 1970's Comic Covers both Marvel and DC and early-mid 1960's Topps League Leader type cards. I've always found them to be a bit creepy and unsettling. Certainly no selling point for me. However, as DC mostly did in the early 1980's, if neck and or tops of torso are shown the unsettling aspect for me goes away. Example:

Great topic! Yep very difficult to believe a book this significant to Comics History + the Batman legend, and extremely condition sensitive is now overlooked in these days of all things 1st issue or 1st appearance only. Picked up my first copy as child out of a 50 cent section at one of my earliest visits to a comic book shop. It was like finding treasure albeit a sad one given the story content. Cover dated April 1979, indicia dated March-April 1979, the comic was on-sale in Dec 1978. For DC at that time Superman was the top dawg, earlier that year the GA Superman received a Wedding issue, then a big budget motion picture, but the GA Batman was killed off fighting a super-natural based villain My scans are crappy, the condition of the book is not Thanks to Vane for getting this comic my way!

Sorry this happened to you, similar happened to me twice before I completely changed my purchasing paradigm. A saying that is now uttered to the point of cliche "Buy the Comic, not the Label" is something for last 10 years I try to apply to all my purchases. Even if it means many times letting books elude me if I'm not 100% confident they are in the condition I want. I may be wrong but I believe most speculators and the "social media #1 and 1st app crowd" simply buy the label?