The Less Blob

The shop closest to my office closed in March. It was one of those places where folk congregated and BSed. The owner wasn't trying to scam anyone and the prices were not crazy and sometimes there were some good deals there. A Midtown Comics location is not too far, but it isn't the same. The next closest "old school" shop is a bit of a schlep and, as a result, is not somewhere I'd go during lunch and BS. While I have you guys I feel like it has taken something out of my affection for the hobby since losing that place. I know many of you despise shops (presumably due to cruddy owners) and make a big point about not having been in one for years, but I feel a bit of a loss. Oh well.

Why is MKF all that culturally significant? I suppose he is an Asian character who got a relatively long lived series, but he is not close to being Marvel's first Asian superhero (was that Sunfire or someone else?) Yes, China is a bigger market than japan, but...

I am not necessarily in that boat. I can get interested in a character later. Black Adam seems cool. I never collected Jonah Hex. MKF? I dunno, fans of the series say it was well done. I have a bunch of them and have never gotten around to reading them. But the series got cancelled 35 years ago and the character barely got revisited since then. I guess Bruce Lee spy just doesn't interest folks. I find it amazing because the character had TWO marvel titles going at once way back when in a world where captain America, thor, and iron man only had one each (granted, they were in avengers too).

Cgc 6.0 is usually a handsome, presentable book?

Newly arrived Facebook collectors have no clue, buy a bunch of "mint" books, slab them, are horrified upon receipt of cgc grades, leave hobby..

Newly arrived Facebook collectors have no clue, buy a bunch of "mint" books, slab them, are horrified upon receipt of cgc grades, leave hobby..

I could not get 25% of guide for raw 9.0-9.2 copies of sme 15 not long ago.

To have a "decent" enough income for all these $1-5K books you need to be making like $250-300K a year. Did these folks all show up recently? When I was making that kind of money (adjusted for inflation 20 years ago) a $1K book was a huuuge purchase. Hindsight being 20/20 in 2000 I should have plopped down $20K on as many slabbed AF 15s as I could buy with it. I understand the money is there. I just don't get $1,000 for an eternals 1 or $90K for the Blade book. I can understanding scraping together $5K for an AF 15 or something. That's a centerpiece.

Where is the money coming from?

Mass delusion?

That is the most valuable kind of Stan Lee signature. All my ravage 2099s are signed there.

I would put a Stan Lee signature over the CT.

Obviously it is your collection and you want to present and store things in a way that makes you happy and mylars are snazzy, but I just see tossing $50 or whatever in grading fees.

Why risk wrecking a not so expensive book to get it from a 7.5 to an 8? Nuts.

No, this is what is on the facebook marketplace: Distance shot of 12 mid-grade 80s and 90s drek comics. "WHOLESALE INVESTMENT PRICE! I don't know much about comics, but these are very rare and in mint condition. Asking price $200. Get these before some smart investor does."

Moral of the story is don't crack your books of of slabs?

I suppose this is a good time and we can have a stinky stretch, but I looked at returns investing a lump sum from 1990 forward and only found a few years under 8%. I put into my 401k from late 1998-early 2004 and it sat after that. I have more than 3x what I put in. (I have been 85% out of the market since September though, which hasn't done much for me).

I always liked blade and punisher as a kid in the 70s. Never occurred to me to hunt down boxes of 1st apps. I liked wolverine as soon as I was familiar with him, but 181 was already expensive.

Men wore suits more back then. Just part of your daily uniform.

Is the 7.5 due to that splotch on the gun? Books looks really really sharp

Are you calculating plopping down $1000 on 8/20/99 and stepping away or putting in $1000 a month during that 20 year period? OK, I checked, you just plugged in a single investment in August 1999, near the peak of the bubble. Not a continuous flow of money each month, which would have gotten you much more like 9-10% a year. Plopping all your money in in 1999 or 2000 would not have been great, agreed.] So, basically, other than 1999-2001, the average schmo just buying an S&P 500 index would have gotten better returns, for the most part, than Madoff's fictional steady 8%.

Yeah, I never understood the Madoff mess. His fake returns were not that great. The S&P 500, with dividend reinvestment, has done better than that over the last 35 years, I believe (not accounting for taxes), even with a few crashes thrown in, assuming you are putting in a certain amount each month. Not so much if you started putting in right before the 2000 crash. Timing is important. Luck is too. If you had plopped all your money down on it in May 2000 you would have not done that well the last nearly 20 years. (Dividend reinvestment is crucial though.)

So you get points by liking and reacting to other peoples' posts? sounds silly.

I wasn't buying them for potential movies, I just couldnt pass on Kirby.

I always bought devil dino and Eternals 1 if I saw them at $1 or less, but might have passed at $2. Penny wise pound foolish.