jimbo_7071

We are Family - Sister Sledge

Don't Stand So Close to Me - The Police

I've wondered how he goes about locating collections to consign. Maybe one of his techniques is to buy an item from someone on eBay in order to acquire that person's phone number for cold-calling purposes.

Do you mean Greg Jortner? What kinds of questions was he asking? I'm just curious. Can I assume they went beyond, "Have you thought about consigning any books?"?

Lola - The Kinks

From Atta to a dog who deserves an "Atta Boy" . . .

Heat of the Moment - Asia

In Too Deep - Sum 41

Breathless - Jerry Lee Lewis

Arachnid to insect . . .

Jumbo #156

From ghost to spectre and from "Death is a Dream" to "Death's Highway."

I don't even care whether my comics appreciate in value; I just don't want to buy comics and then have them lose all of their value. I'm sure most of my comics will be sold by my heirs, not by me, but I still don't like the idea of (potentially) squandering money. I'm not convinced that the recent high prices on sci-fi, horror, and books from second-tier publishers will hold, and those are the kinds of books towards which I tend to gravitate.

Patty O'Day to Maximilian O'Leary.

Creeping horror to crawling evil...

Regarding the funding of comic books with stocks, I more or less did just that. After losing quite a bit of equity in 2008 and getting most of it back in 2009/2010, I basically cashed out and bought comic books. I guess I figured that if there was nothing safe to invest in, I might as well keep my money in something I enjoyed. One thing I would want to know in order to assess the health of the GA market is, how old is the average collector now vs. 10 years ago vs. 20 years ago? If the collector base is aging, then the robust GA market that we see now has an expiration date. I know that some younger collectors are entering the hobby, but I don't know how many. I'm 43, and offhand I'd say that most of the GA collectors I know are older than I am.

I had a mixed bag, but mostly mid—high grade GA, including Bats and Tecs. No key books but some Joker covers. I'm pretty sure about the year. My only outlet for books was local dealers in the Detroit area; things may have been better elsewhere.

I will have to trust lou_fine on the overall picture, but I sold many of my GA books in '95 for substantially less than I had paid for them in the late 80s, so I didn't witness the market going ballistic at that time. One dealer told me he was sitting on a million dollars worth of inventory that he couldn't move.

I was so busy last year, I'm not sure whether I bought a single comic book. I'm actually even busier now, but I have decided to try to make time for collecting again. As a kid, I always wanted to collect the Mr. Mind saga in Captain Marvel Adventures, so I may try to start putting that run together this year. I want to read the books, so I'll have to limit myself to raw copies, but I don't want absolute beaters. I'm thinking 5.0—7.0. Any higher in grade and I wouldn't want to read them; any lower, they'd be falling apart in my hands.

Yet another red dress in peril . . .

Embraced by a man to embraced by a plant.

Really big hand to really big hand.

I submitted a couple of file copies to CGC a few years ago, and they added the notation without asking for proof. The next time I submitted a file copy, they did not note it on the label and did not contact me to ask for more information. None of the file copies I submitted were marked, and I had no proof beyond the word of whatever dealers the books came from. File Copies don't command a premium, so I didnt really care whether they made the notation on the label.

My goal is to start buying again after being too busy over the past year. I've been browsing through auction results, though, and I've been kind of shocked by the prices some books have been fetching. I'm honestly not sure whether it's worth it to me to own books at the current price levels.