alexgross.com

this is a painting i did on an antique cabinet card photo. the before image is also included. "xmen97"

+1

tulip mania was a very brief speculative bubble. OA values have risen pretty consistently for decades, havent they? yes, young people are less into collecting comic books and OA than middle aged and older folks. i'd think both the bigger OA and the bigger key books will have enduring longevity of value due to the cultural impact of comic books like spider-man or batman. more than stamps or even baseball cards, which are a better analogy than stamps. however the sports card market is also not the best analogy either, since sports lovers have many better options for items to collect related to a player, like jerseys, signed balls, etc.

truer words have never been spoken- +1

WSJ has an article today entilted $200 Million ‘Joker’ Sequel Is a Box Office Bust “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the expensive musical starring Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix, hit the wrong note with critics and audiences. pretty much since it was announced as happening, many people seemed to think this movie would bomb, and it appears they were correct. sometimes perfect one-offs don't need a sequel. it still doesn't tarnish the first one, which is a darn good, though very disturbing film.

of course they know what your max bid is, it's their own platform/website. it would be incredible if it were not possible. all three major auction houses have been alleged to do this by insiders and there have been lawsuits brought as well against at least one of them. the story told by @SeniorSurfer is a very very common one with most auction buyers, and it's almost certainly happening on all valuable books. if i can't bid at the last moment, then i don't play. never ever pre-bid. the whole thing is worthy of a major investigation/lawsuit/enormous legal penalty. if that took place however, it would likely damage comics prices in a big way. so i'm not sure i hope for that as someone with a large collection.

i have no idea what the future of the SA market is, but since i have been collecting for about one decade now or a little over, spiderman has consistently performed well. asm1 is a good book as are asm2 and asm3. all the key ditko villain first appearances have done well, post-covid bubble notwithstanding. i personally like 2 and 3 more than issue 1 since there is no important first appearance in issue 1. but all three are great books that will probably remain in demand for as long as people care about silver age books.

i hope the movie is better than this poster. at first i thought this was fan art.

dealers have a tough haul when the market is depressed like it's been since the mid-covid bubble popping. they always tend to be above gpa at shows because of the cost of attending, though some are egregious and others are much more reasonable. in the past when i had money and attended cons, i would slightly overpay for the right book from dealers that worked with me and were reasonable. i appreciate that they have costs associated with attending shows and acquiring collections. and i am willing to pay a bit more for books with white pages. what bugs me most is that when one tries to sell to dealers, which i have done, they use gpa all day long, and offer you something between 60-75% depending on various things. but when you are buying from them, gpa conveniently goes out the window unless there's been an outlier record sale. the few dealers who dont play this nonsense game are the very few that i deal with anymore.

what dots do you need connected? as mudcats noted, all the auction houses have access to your bids on the back end. so if you bid $500, but the current bid level is only at $200, it is almost inevitable that the book will receive a bunch more bids until it is indeed at $500, or you may even be outbid, depending on the value of the book. people who have worked for some of these large auction houses have expounded on these types of practices here and elsewhere, and auction houses have also been sued for related allegations. i will never pre-bid on any books after having an obvious experience with this exact thing at a major auction house. i will only bid right before something ends. even then, many books may have been bumped or shilled up to that price, but at least the auction site won't have had access to my max bid for days in advance. it's all incredibly opaque and none of it encourages one to believe that it is done honestly.

Just had another super smooth transaction with Lou- awesome boardie! Thanks Lou--

my latest pickup...

that is so cool! he's so good as daredevil. great to hear he was nice too, he seems like he would be, but that's probably just because he has an everyman quality to him as an actor. awesome!

finally watched this tonight- i enjoyed it. i thought the first half was more interesting than the second half. certainly not perfect, but i thought it was very well done and i did not get bored. and i thought the realism of all the apes was remarkable. noah is designed to look very much like caesar too. overall happy with it, i hope the next ones will be at least as good. as a big fan of the original series and the first two of the newer reboots, i'm glad to see this franchise not sucking like so many others these days.

havent posted mine in awhile. i have parted with some keys but luckily held onto this one. you dont see tos39 with white pages so often compared to some other keys of this era.