The Less Blob

I like the vulnerability. Who is she supposed to be looking at? This is Hughes being more creative than just sticking some cleavage in our face.

But you're not spending a ton of money maintain a buying advertisement, i hope? I guess it is something you need to have a huge inventory and a lot of high end stuff to be effective with?

I have a question, I don't own the book (yet), but is the Catwoman pictured on the cover Selina or someone who has been working in her place? (I read the description on MCS and it sounds like someone other than Selina was catwoman at the time?). Anyway, this is one of my favorite covers of his .. yes, not a cleavage pic, it isn't always about the cleavage...

Why is 70 hard to find (other than the many copies on ebay?). He had been doing the covers for like 3 years then, you'd think people would be socking them away. There are nearly 100 CGC 9.8s. It is a great cover, don't get me wrong. Do you mean finding in cheap boxes in the wild? Yeah, I can see that, it would have jumped out on the rack and not wound up in overstock, I'd think (you'd say the same about Tec 880, yet I did..) Seems to me some of these have cooled off a bit. Maybe time for me to buy!

I guess it is price wise. I thought Catwoman 51 might be there as that is probably my favorite of the Hughes covers, although there are a bunch of second favorites.

I take that back.. Thor 339 is 1/84? It definitely ushered in the copper age and should be treated as the top key of the era.

Once upon a time some folks considered 1980 to be the start of copper (I honestly think if you look at an OPG from the 90s it says that), basically saying copper was the 80s.. now it has been pushed to 84/85 ... to a cynical elderly person like myself this was a dealer inspired move to allow more books to be called "bronze" ... It seems to me events in 1980 ushered in a new era more than 84/85, which had some big stuff, sure. in 1980 you had NTT #1, which was yuuuge, dark phoenix, also yuuuge, the direct market maybe equaling the newsstand market, etc. also, untold legends of batman was the first mini series described as a "mini" (krypton was the first real one in 1979, but i don't think it used that word). 1980 also followed 1979, in which marvel had its own implosion of cancellations, much like DC's in 1978. 1981 had some big events, like miller taking over writing daredevil, byrne taking over FF, the end of the byrne x-men run, etc. that really changed the feel of comics. it seems absurd to think of 1982/83 premium format books like Camelot 3000, Ronin, Omega Men, Dreadstar, etc. to be bronze age, or a mini like contest of champions or ASM 238.. which ushered in Spidey's main copper nemesis. I know, this has been debated ad nauseum here before.

well, marvel and DC produced plenty of minis before then ... at least unintentionally ... plenty of titles that didn't go past 4 - 6 issues!

you just click auction for format, but as someone else said, if you start a fresh listing they put in auction and you have to change it to fixed.

I suppose if I knew they were going to sell pretty quickly it would be ok, particularly if I could list 10 copies at once or whatever. It is different selling $2, $3, $5 or whatever books here because people usually buy more than one thing to spread out shipping costs. It is the packing and shipping a single book that kills me. A couple of years ago Aweanorder was talking about books he did quick $5 flips on he paid $1 for on amazon and how it made sense for him. At the time that did not sound worth it, but he seemed to be inferring he had a system where it worked for him. I suppose if you can use stock images that makes it easier.

I am ok with $10 listings, though they may sell for $8 after offers. I hope someone buys multiple items

Yeah, but outside of minis and story arcs I don't think you get full value that way unless someone happens to want all 5 books. People seem to be looking for specific things and MAY not be willing to pay extra for books beyond their goal.

If you do enough volume I think it may be adviseable to file as a business and pay that tax rate. That creates a whole other set of issues though, which we've touched on in other threads, and warrant discussion with a tax professional.

Is you website the xcollectibles in your profile? I don't see anything for sale, just an ad to buy comics? That seems like pretty expensive at $500/mo. How are you ever going to become blazing bob and retire from your day job if you don't list stuff there? also, it looks like someone else got that name on facebook and other places?

It seems that if you dilly dallied in selling them you might have done really well, just not flipping them in april.

definitely. unless you have a steady flow of high dollar books and a warehouse of good stuff acquired at 70s and 80s prices I cannot fathom how folks here could replicate the upper middle class / middle age paycheck most of us here make (I know I am generalizing, my apologies). Selling $120K a year in books seems like a ton of books and what kind of profit margin can expected after a true accounting of costs? 25-50%?

yeah, if you can find them, that's great. although kind of hard to be sure how they're going to grade them outside of a cgc case.

Use more of these things in your sentences: . , It will be easier on our eyes.

If you're buying purely for a flip, is the 50 cent/$1 box book that seems to be a good $5 seller worth it to you? I don't like messing around with $5 books on ebay, too time consuming, and nobody here wants to pay $5 for most $5 books, but that doesn't stop me from sometimes buying stuff like this. Today's $5 book has $10 potential.... With that said, when factoring in the cost of shipping, it is amazing to me how many folks seem to be willing to pay $9-12 total for what feels to me like $2 or less books, but I suppose folks in some places do not want to shlep around for stuff. I ask because the other day I bought a few copies of a book i already have and I know it is like a $5 seller and said "what the heck I'll get a few more for 50 cents" ... On an unrelated note i am quite happy that the shop in question actually understands NY sales taxes ... the 50 cent books are not taxed because they are all under their original cover price ... Basically, for NY at least, ebay is collecting a lot of sales tax on cheap comic sales that should not be taxed (although the shipping is taxable, which is so irritating), but tell that to ebay...I don't know about other states

I honestly do not remember what was in those grab bags, which is good, because I probably did give something away that is worth something now. Ditto for the donations to goodwill. The problem with the ebay grab bags I sold is that I would provide a list of each book in the lot, the grade, and OPG value so that the buyer could see my thought process for the lot. So my mistakes are burned into my memories having written them down and scanned the lists! Anyway, the list with grades worked out pretty well in terms of buyer satisfaction.

Someone did good on this lot: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-5-Vintage-1950s-Comic-Books-Romances-True-Love-Eerie-Rough-Condition-/233859961059?hash=item367323d0e3%3Ag%3AFa4AAOSwhMBgAN1X&nma=true&si=BZbpsjZvXBDBh7scMVfgI%2BAabNw%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 The buyer already has $100 in bids on two of the books in the lot. Not a bad pickup for $5 + $9 shipping.

I donate to good will. Yeah, it isn't purely being nice, as i take $2 a piece tax deduction. I donated some nice books to a charity raffle for my son's middle school, got my LCS to write up an appraisal so that the lucky winner would have an idea of their winnings... it wound up being won by one of my son's friends... like $200 in mcfarlane spideys. and a while back I put together grab bags of comics I thought would hit a good 8 - 12 year old sweet spot for kids living in a shelter.. stuffed like 20 magazine bags with as many age appropriate comics as would fit.

Is Herb Trimpe art supposed to command a premium? He was a nice guy, but never considered a star, a journeyman who worked on some big books, like Dave Cockrum. While I get why the book should be worth something as the first american comic appearance, it is like the one billionth overall comic appearance if you count japanese godzilla manga that has been published since the mid 50s. It's not like we don't consider the British comic version as Judge Dredd's first, Captain Britain's first, V for Vendetta...Or is Manga viewed a different species of sequential art?

crazy, something that was probably thrown out and/or given away by a lot of shops once no longer current. my old LCS would often given them away or just eventually toss them. i would not even see them in the 3 for $2 box. I was always tempted to take them home, but figured they take up space...

It makes sense to me to sell stuff that has jumped a lot, but there's plenty of stuff that has cooled off or is in waiting I wouldn't. There are deadpool books that were nice $10-$25 sellers that are $5 now. Thanos stuff is mehh ... as is a lot of cosmic stuff. A lot of my black panther stuff from the 70s doesn't seem to have much urgency to sell right now. There are DC books like these I assume... I don't think the hysteria has moved war or horror any outside a few wrightson or adam covers, the kirby new gods stuff is ho hum outside the keyest keys. And your sort of run filler SA and BA is still sitting there, no mad rush on that, it didn't go up. Yes, some of these books are suddenly desireable and the 5th appearance of whatever or some cross over nobody ever cared about, but a lot of it has not been touched by the recent hysteria. I don't see any reason to sell the $2-6 books though, nor do I really have the energy or inclination when there is so much other krap that is suddenly worth $10+.