alexgross.com

looked like all the certificates of authenticity were from PGX. how are they still allowed to keep their doors open? shocking they havent yet been sued out of business. 

8 hours ago, zhamlau said:

You know, 39k for a 5.5 with no chipping seems like a steal to me. It had  eye appeal yeah, but still it was a solid copy. That might have been a mistake to let that go.

i agree totally with this, if i had 40k lying around i certainly would have bid on it. it's hard to believe this wont be a 50-60k book within a few years, at most. 

1 hour ago, SC22 said:

ComicLink:

CGC 7.5 sold for 130 000$

CGC 5.5 (beet up top right corner) sold for 39 111$.

in spite of the down market for mid lower grade copies, still a shockingly low price for a nice 5.5. this market has changed in a hurry. and what an enormous spread between 5.5 and 7.5.

5 hours ago, CheeseFrog said:

That's all that I have for this morning, folks... next post should have first Hammerhead, death of Gwen, death of Gob, first Punisher, etc...

Thanks again for the patronage!

 

when will the next post be? do you have a schedule?

i'm making a couple of limited edition prints featuring before and after images of marvel heroes (and villains), and the latest incarnation of harley quinn. all images were painted over antique photos. please click the links below for more info. thanks for looking--

http://www.alexgross.com/store/prints/harley-quinn.html

http://www.alexgross.com/store/prints/marvel-heroes.html

not a superhero movie, but 'war for the planet of the apes' was awfully shmaltzy and stupid, after the first two were so good. yet all the reviews were glowing and called it the best of the three. could not disagree more. plus, there's no war. 

On 11/16/2017 at 11:41 AM, 10¢ John (formerly Gopher John) said:

 

Are there any other collectors that are turned off by the "investor" point of view, or is it just me.

 

 

all commodities/ collectibles have both collectors and investors, and there's naturally alot of overlap. i have collected coins purely for the investment angle, really don't care about them for any other reason. i wanted to move into comics because i love them and have always loved them. i buy raw comics that i want to enjoy reading, and i buy graded, entombed key comics both to own them and for the investment value. i'm not sure why a pure collector would ever buy a slab, since it prevents reading the comic book. i remember when i got my first slab, how disappointing it was to realize i could never look at that book. but at the end of the day, i can buy any book raw if i want to read it. the keys are mostly all reprinted somewhere, so i can read those without having to get a raw copy, and be happy with my entombed books too as investments. i'm not turned off by investors in comics, because i think most of them, like me, also love comics first and foremost. 

i said they dont have to because we are all bidding and buying the books in their auctions. you say you would not bid on a book without a back cover scan, but you're clearly in the minority of comic buyers. if no one bids, then they'll be alot more motivated to make changes. obviously it's double the time spent, so why would they spend money to do it if their business model seems to be working just fine? ( i totally agree with you that they should and find it super annoying)

ebay long ago demonstrated (to me anyway) that they don't give a *&$% about shill bidding. i've written them numerous times when the evidence was as plain as this, and absolutely no response, and the seller/shiller continue. the only accounts they mess with are the ones they fear are costing them their commission, like folks who make deals outside of the bay. 

isn't baltimore comic-con supposed to be great for the comic collectors and low on all the other non comic stuff? 

because they dont have to. simple as that. that being said, when i have emailed them about a particular book, they have emailed me the scan of the back. 

you'd have done even better if you bought bitcoin a year or two ago. up 1000% YTD and way more over two or three years. but it's not as fun as comics. neither is the stock market. although it's fun when you make some money, so you can buy more comics! 

8 minutes ago, Marwood & I said:

A 6.0 Pence copy just sold on Heritage for 27K with BP 

 

6.0 Cents copy for 45K with BP:

i thought bp meant either brittle pages or british petroleum, but neither seems to apply to these books. 

5 hours ago, Glassman10 said:

: They really need the money and the auction houses offer cash advances whereas no one else does that. Pretty major motivator. The auction house does fine regardless of how much the client gets burned. 

 

sure, this must be true some of the time. but does everyone with an AF15 suddenly need the money now? it's highly unlikely that they all need the money now. collectors saw the price of this book explode awhile back and thought about it for awhile, and then decided to cash in. except now the market is falling. why they would still choose to 'cash in' now that the book seems to be worth less than 3 months ago is the question i have. they can't all suddenly need the money, come on. if this were the case there would have been just as many books on online auctions last year, which there weren't. there isn't a sudden recession that none of us is aware of. i would guess that soon we'll see supply taper off as collectors clue in that the book has been slumping of late. at least i hope so. 

a nice hulk 1 4.0 sold for 11k today on heritage, down from the 12.5k two months ago on comiclink for similar books with no MC and good page quality. wish i had more cash in the bank, seems that now is the time to buy. 

well, this turned out to be a big nothing i guess. disappointing. 

16 hours ago, lou_fine said:

Definitely no record setting prices on any of these AF 15's in this auction here.

I guess it certainly doesn't help when you have a whole slew of them in various condition grades one after the other in the exact same auction.  Definitely not the best selling situation for the consignors of these copies here.    

i've been wondering about that strategy. it seems that sometimes having 2 or even 3 copies of a book can be beneficial, in that an interested party might end up bidding on a lower grade copy in case they don't win the higher one. however everyone lately seems to be going WAAAY overboard and having 5, 6 and 7 copies of AF15 that are all close in grades, in the same auction. this can only be interpreted as greed by the auction houses/ sites. it obviously hurts pricing, as we're seeing. i suppose it's all gravy for the auction sites, but when will the consignors realize that the market is oversaturated and stop consigning their books? 

love to see better pics of number 4 if possible 

7 hours ago, ickwinzs said:

I got my AF 15 back from CCS and CGC today got a small grade bump from a 3.0 to a 3.5! I am very happy with the result.

congrats! pics please--

6 hours ago, World Devourer said:

Now here's a question. Will comics from the SA still hold their value?

FF#1 will be 76 years old. 

I believe several factors will come in play, but would like to hear from others first.

nah, they will all plummet. sell them all to me now at 75% discounted price so you don't lose out later. thanks. 

good luck and please keep us posted on how it pans out. 

Just now, Dark Knight said:

I have a complete copy

love to see that! 

i got my first hulk181 three years ago. scored a 9.0WP for $2100 cash. everyone then was saying its a popular book but pricey. ha, now i wish i had got ten of them at that price. just recently got an 8.5WP for a good bit more than i paid for my 9.0 then, and i expect that trend to continue for the foreseeable future! 

13 minutes ago, ChasingKingKirby said:

Any interest in the remaining books?

it would be great to have an update post with what remains. i see several books that don't say sold but later in the thread someone said i'll take it. thanks--