The Less Blob

We get into a lot of dumb accidents here in 'Murica and love to have health issues, but what's the deal with Germany? Too much beer drinking during lunch results in a lot work accidents?

Ant Man was generally a 47th tier character, but thanks to Paul Rudd** he is a big movie name. Nobody reads the comics though. The main super cool part of it is that it, along with FF 1 and 2 are the only post-hero 10 cent Marvels (putting aside the Yellow Claw books which are relevant now that Jimmy Woo is relevant) I bought a few of the early TTA appearances thinking his first movie appearance would help, but I didn't see a lot of a bounce. Possibly because it isn't the same Ant Man. ** My wife generally despises super hero movies. But for some reason with Rudd playing Ant Man she did not mind watching a bit of the movies. Interesting.

I sold a Stan Lee signed Scottie Young variant here for like $15 right before he died. I was pretty sure it was legit as someone working at the CGC booth gave it to my son at a NYCC like 9 years ago when he got lost and terrified and they called me to tell me they had him. It has a chunk missing from the cover or back I think, but I feel pretty comfortable CGC people weren't playing with forgeries. He asked me to sell it because he wanted to money for something (probably a video game). I never could have imagined the market for this stuff as Stan spent most of his later years signing stuff, it seems, I figured they didn't have a ton of upside, especially uncertified. but these seem sort of certified.

The first comics i can remember buying were all back issues or books my older brother bought, so I don't have an "off the rack" story. My first comic off the rack was years later, Thor 280, just because I had 35 cents and the cover seemed cool. I wish I had bought the X-Men for that month instead...

the books with the stickers ought to have a COA? i wonder if someone got a hold of a bunch of extra stickers?

Anyway, I'd like to own that book. How much I am willing to pay, I am not sure. With moderns and the 9.8 or bust mentality, if the book explodes due to a good movie, I wonder if a 9.4 will move as proportionally given there aren't that many of these? I have #2 in 9.8. funny cover. chainsaw with big bulging eyeballs. who thinks of this stuff?

there are several up for sale right now. "truly hard grade" is awfully hard to tell from a scan, although i suppose some people are really good at it. I've seen enough CGC 8.5 and 9.0s that look just as good, it is hard to know if you have a nice 9.4+ or a nice 8.5-9.0. They're all nice looking books on a computer screen

yeah, i was watching that, it looked like a nice copy, I just can't bring myself to pay that much for a raw copy. if it turns out to be an 8.5 or 9.0 you haven't done yourself any favors. it doesn't help that there are 2 other obscure books claiming 1st app status too

Healthcare in the USA is expensive (to the patient), for the most part, for middle income and above folks who are not retirees. Some employers subsidize insurance premiums, but that is getting less and less. If you are poor (Medicaid) or retired (Medicare), it is basically socialized medicine (although Medicare is a bit tricky in that if you are going to use a lot of care you will have a lot of deductables, so most retirees pay $200-250 a month for an insurance policy that covers the deductables, but if you are a very healthy 65 year old, you may decide not to). If you are a poor enough retiree you don't need to. And we also have a socialized medicine program for children up through middle class/lower upper middle class (2 kids the income cap would be around $100,000, for example). Over 50% of medical care in the USA is paid via government. I teach an intro class on Medicare and Medicaid law. I am far from an expert in the field, but I have a good grasp of the issues. Anyway, I'm just stating the state of the law, not pressing political opinions, so I hope I don't get a warning.

I am perplexed that some of the issues even below 50 are still $5 or less. But since I looked at prices a week ago I do seem an upward trend even on run filler books. Both my kids (9 and 15) love it. Indeed, the 9 year old wanted to watch it before Falcon/WS. But yes, at the end of the day (and both read the comic online, or at least some of it, or youtube videos summarizing it), even if they wanted to collect, they'd probably want keys. The question is, aren't keys sort of evolving a bit on this book? 3 weeks ago I looked up 23 because I have 2 copies and nothing much. Now all the cheap copies were bought up and you can't get it for under $15, with all recent sales there or more, presumably because the character on the cover (voiced by Seth Rogen) is going to have more of a role moving forward. In a way it is nice I never read the comics, even though I had a stack of them, although I knew what this week's episode was going to lay out because it made sense. Ditto with Walking Dead, I read a few non-major issues, so the show is all a surprise. Ditto GOT. So when is the frigging Goon movie coming?

so they took our taxex away? they really are monsters.

Well, Parker would have most likely been on Medicaid or CHIPS in the early 2000s with Ben and May both being retirees on small pensions and an ER visit would not have been a problem. Miles Morales I am not sure about. I think his family is a bit more middle class and they may very well be in some situation with a policy with a $6000 deductable or something. Of course, in the early 2000s the Parker residence in Forest Hills New york might be worth seven figures.

I'm talking raws. $100 seems low end for a nice one recently actually. I own a couple, so I definitely fished them out of dollar boxes. They were in a mutant title box I sorted a long time ago. I looked them up 4 or 5 years ago and saw $7-10ish sales and decided on more aging.

I have thousands of $10-15+ books to sell that were $3-5 books not long ago before I bother with $4 books. Its a matter of limited hours in the day. Tnmt don't need to be keys to be double digits. Just low print run. Invincible is low print run. Every low print run spawn is double digits. When WD was hot every issue under 100 was double digits. Deadpool 1st series almost was. I know it is crazy in this market, but invincibles selling for $3-5 is too cheap!

Hospital visit in 1963 would have been $2.

With many of these issues still listed at $3-6 I would not be blowing them out just yet. In gonna hold out for double digits on the run filler. The book has 15k print runs, that should happen.

Since when did gambit 1 gold become a $100 book??

Criminey, it is a dollar box, do you guys only buy instant flips? Don't you guys buy books with potential too? (Not directed to the OP, who has his instant flips and potentials) but yikes, I would have been lambasted for my last 50 cent bin dive because 150 out of 180 were not clear instant flips

He took his action 1 money and used it to hoard spotlight 5s

Nic cage has been hoarding all the copies 9.2 and above. He wrecked the movies to drop the price so he could own them all. Now he is worth billions.

I also find pointing to one our two auctions to prove a decline is flawed. Auctions can too easily be jacked up with shill bids. There may not be shilling on a subsequent auction. Any statistician would laugh at your for using a single data point to prove a hypothesis. The next batman 227 is not going to sell for the crazy price because it was just stupid. It won't mean it "burst"

Agreed. People don't seem to understand the word. Bubbles bursting are when Harbinger 1 went from $100+ to $5-10 in a matter of a year or less.

Not unless it is a high grade newsstand maybe. A few auctions have gone triple digits, but most sales are less. It doesn't matter though, he probably has $1000 in books or more there anyway. He cleaned up.

Not all .5s are the same. To someone who is not so concerned about the insides that is a decent copy. I have sold many low grade GA books with disclosed missing pages for their OPG value with the pages.

As in the top 1/4 of the cover missing? I think most folks think a missing centerfold is more attainable. Put it in and send to pgx for grading and maybe they don't catch it. This is a decent looking book. What do 2.0s go for?