jimbo_7071

People who CPR scarce books often send in the labels so that the old copies are removed from the census. Those sellers have a vested interest in not having excess copies show up in the census; the scarcity adds to the value. For common, modern books, people might not bother sending in the labels, but for scarcer GA books they often do. You'll often see the old grade disappear from the census when the new grade appears.

One thing that you could do is to track the number of copies of a key—such as Tec 27—over time. Plot how many copies of Tec 27 were in the census on 1/1/2003, 1/1/2004, 1/1/2005, etc. and then fit a curve to the data. If your theory that a large percentage of the mega keys have already been slabbed, then I would expect to see the slope of the curve flattening out over time as the number of raw copies available for slabbing started to dry up. I don't think that that data is readily available, but I think that you could mine the CGC message boards for it. I would probably exclude 2001–2002 because a) CGC was very new and unknown to many collectors and b) most of the copies that were circulating in the market were probably slabbed within a short span of time in those early years.

Criminal operating by dark of night to criminals operating by dark of night.

Steel flying through the air to rubber flying through the air.

Even with the mega-keys I think that there are far more ungraded copies out there than graded copies. After all, collecting is a hobby that attracts hoarders. Don't think for a single second that there weren't guys out there hoarding keys back when they were still affordable. Many of those older collectors may have collections that are "finished," and those collectors might not even have much awareness about slabbing, the CGC census, etc. Others may not want to pay to slab books that they're not ready to sell; slabbing keys is expensive. It would be an interesting experiment to see how many copies of, say, Tec 27 would pop up if CGC were to offer free slabbing of that issue in all grades.

You may be right. The vast majority of GA books are locked away raw in private collections.

I would say that if there are x graded, then there are at least 5x–10x ungraded.

Man brandishing a rifle held by the barrel against an ape to ape brandishing a rifle held by the barrel against a man.

Wearing of animal skins to wearing of animal skins.

Ragged dress to ragged shirt; rope to rope belt.

Bars to Bars.

Does Absorbene damage a comic in any way, such as by reducing the gloss or making the staples rust? I've heard it mentioned many times, but I know very little about it.

I think the only comic I've seen that made me cringe more was the Tec 31 with the big rat chew threw the middle. That one was almost enough to give me nightmares. This one just makes me gently weep.

This Captain America Comics #37 that I saw online made my heart hurt. Is there a point at which a comic book should just be given a proper funeral and recycled?

May to June.

Going out to eat isn't a necessity. I've gone out to eat maybe 5 times in the past year (and never spent more than $20 or $25, including taxes and the tip). I buy groceries: potatoes, sacks of flour, lentils, onions, tomatoes, etc. I rarely buy anything pre-packaged. I spend about $200 per month on groceries for myself. For many years before I saved up for a down payment on a house, I rented rooms—small ones. The times I rented an apartment or condo, I always had at least one roommate.

The problem is that parents nowadays want to be their kids' "friends" and won't force them to take responsibility for anything. I moved away from home permanently at 23, and even that was considered old back in the 90s. (I had been away at college on and off for several years before that.)

L. B. Cole cover featuring primary colors to L. B. Cole cover featuring primary colors.

Creatures of the water to creatures of the air.

That's nice page quality on the Chicago copy. That book was on my want list for years, and I could never find one with OW/W or white pages. I gave up after a while.

How many licks does it take to get to the comic book center of a CGC slab?

Fully submerged live men to partially submerged dead man.

I don't think anyone thinks about prices quite as much as you do, Dean. After all, these are comic books, not stock futures.

I remember that sale now that you mention it. That was just plain bizarre. I don't think it will come anywhere close, but inexperienced bidders might look at that previous sale and not realize what an outlier it was, and that could influence the bidding. That's what often happens. I noticed a couple of times where books sold for sky-high prices ONLY because they were Okajima camp books, and then the price of non-pedigree copies skyrocketed. There's an inexperienced bidder born every minute.

I received this one today. It was my first comic book purchase of 2023. (Does anyone know who the the cover artist was?)