jimbo_7071

Anxious girl to relaxed girl.

What sort of grade is he looking for? If he's willing to accept a raw low-grade copy, then the options become more plentiful. The high-grade material tends to make its way to the auction houses or the high-volume dealers on eBay who take consignments.

Many buyers have stated publicly that they think the books they bought were graded accurately—but what they state publicly and what they privately believe may not be the same. I have also noticed that many of the board members here have eagle eyes and managed to snag the small percentage of books that were deserving of the stated grades (or were at least very close). The buyers of many of the more loosely graded books remain anonymous. If I look at books posted by board members, I see many books where the grades are on the money or one increment off. However, if I start look at Promise books on the HA site randomly, I might have to look at 50 books before I can find one where I agree with the grade. In general, it seems like the earliest-graded Promise books were the most loosely graded, but that's a subjective impression without any systematic analysis.

I guess that's true if you're paying attention. I have gone months (or possibly years) at a time without bidding on Heritage. I have always known about the buyer's premium, but I can remember times when I was bidding when I thought that the amount that I was seeing already included the buyer's premium (which was 19% at the time; I'm not sure when they increased it to 20%). There was too much noise on the screen, and the display was changing too fast. That kind of mistake isn't going to happen to me now that I'm familiar with bidding on the site, but I'm sure it still happens to first-time bidders.

There have been a ton of these books sold (or offered) on Heritage and eBay over the past couple of years. Does anyone know who had them signed? I have no interest in them. Fortunately, many of the books were lower grade, but some were not. (It makes me sad to see any high-grade GA book defaced with an autograph.) Ken Bald does not strike me as a artist whose autograph—or covers—would be particularly sought after. I'm just curious who had all of these books signed. (So many of them were offered at the same time that I'm guessing one collector is responsible for most of them.) Was Ken signing books for free at some event? If someone paid for all of those autographs, that's really surprising.

Some of the early variants of books were incidental; not a gimmick. For instance, there were 25¢ and 30¢ variants of some books that were published around the time prices were increasing (or possibly because some copies were meant to be sold In Canada). There were Gold Key and Whitman variants of books based on where the books were sold. The publishing companies weren't deliberately creating variants in order to sell multiple issues of the same book to collectors. Now variants are a gimmick—publishing companies are trying to manufacture collectability. To me, variants became tiresome as soon as that started.

It could be some of each. I remember when the Mystery Tales books were selling for stratospheric prices a few years ago. No one could believe the prices that were being paid; everyone thought that the buyer had to be nuts. Turned out he was dying. That was an eye-opener for me. I try to remind myself that any time I'm bidding on a book, I could be bidding against someone who really doesn't care about paying a reasonable price.

FIFY

Or they're clicking the bid button like crazy and don't even notice when the bidding increments change from $50 to $100 to $250 to $500. It's called bipolar disorder.

This would be a fun one to put in a girl's room. (I have no affiliation with this seller; there are several copies on eBay.)

Fox Phantom Lady to Ajax Phantom Lady.

Anything over $1,500 incurs $65 in shipping for 1–3 books. Up to 3 books totaling less than $1,500 is $50 to ship. That is why I have de-prioritized CLink as a source compared to Heritage, CConnect, and MyComicShop. I bought a few books there this go round, but seeing the shipping on my invoice reminded me why I haven't been buying much from them. These were my pick ups.

I think 20 years is too short of a time frame, but I think it will get much flatter over the next 40 years. Buying comics off the rack and having them be a significant part of the average boy's childhood was a moment in time. Once the Boomers and Gen-Xers are, gone, comics will fade. The oldest Gen X-ers are just starting to become empty nesters with a decent amount of discretionary income, though, so comics still have some good years left.

That's nuts. It's almost twice what I paid for this copy of #146, which cost $775 in 2019. (And it was a Sunday-night eBay auction with quite a few bidders, so it isn't like it flew under the radar.)

I didn't even know that CGC hosted autograph sessions for actors. It's too bad they didn't make Jack of All Trades into a comic book; I always thought that show was funny. (I don't think I've seen BC in too much else; I don't watch a ton of TV.)

If this were a Promise book, there's a 50/50 chance CGC would call this a bindery chip and give the book a 9.4 or above. (It's on eBay now and only has a single bid at $300 if you want to snag it.)

Were the carriers the ones who creased the books? I'm thinking that folding and creasing a book have have depended on whether it was going through a mail slot or into a larger box. In general, mailboxes on rural routes were probably much larger than boxes and slots found in cities. It would be interesting to look into whether subscription copies from urban areas were more likely to be creased. (In really rural areas, some people probably still had to pick up their mail at the post office back then.) It's also possible that carriers were creasing the books at the post office while sorting the mail, in which case it might simply have been a carrier preference whether to crease a book. That could have also depended on what kind of boxes the carrier had on his route. A carrier with many mail slots on his route might have gotten into the habit of tightly creasing magazines in order to put them through slots easily.

Did you put in multiple bids in the last ten seconds, or was there a third person sniping, too? I'm just curious.

I stopped buying comics off the stands in the late 80s. Was $6.95 a normal cover price for a comic in the 90s?? That would have been a massive price increase from the 80s. Even the independents I used to buy, like Cerebus and Flaming Carrot, were under $2, I think.

Are you sure that Dell subscription books were creased in that era? I've owned several WDC&S subscription copies. None were 9.4s, but none had a subscription crease. I'm thinking that they may have been mailed flat if not consistently then at least reasonably often.

Why the sad-faced reaction, @sfcityduck? The insane prices seen on HA for some of those books over the past few years won't be repeated anywhere else, I wouldn't think. I see that someone paid $2,880 for a 9.4 copy back in 2018—almost impossible to fathom considering how common those post WWII issues are. (I won't be surprised if somebody tries to flip it on HA.)

Yes, it ended at $669.

I picked this one up on CLink last night. I only have one Christmas cover in my entire GA collection, so I've been wanting to add another for a while, and I figured this one was as good as any.

Boot across the jaw to boot planted on the head and gun stock across the neck.

I'm not sure what a Pre-Marvel tear is, either . . . the GA's version of Marvel chipping? It may have a similar cause, such as a dull blade. I've seen that exact kind of tearing referred to as "printer's tears" on other books. Your Wonder 13 has some other issues, but I have seen books busted all the way down to 7.5 for printer's tears that are comparable to the ones on the Tec 167. I don't remember ever seeing a book with tears that bad land in the 9s in the pre-Promise era.