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On 11/14/2023 at 9:39 AM, jsilverjanet said:

for all the talk here, I'm curious how many actually go to the movies regularly

or is this how everyone hates modern comics but hasn't purchased a comic in over 20 years?

 

i go to many marvel and dc movies with my now 9 year old son. saw flash, saw antman quantumverse, even saw eternals together. neither of us had an iota of interest in marvels after seeing the preview (nor did i prior to seeing it).

per the WSJ today:

CIS insures your books in your possesion, on their way to you, and on their way from you. there are certain signature requirements depending on book value and carrier but they insure them both ways. i have had my policy for several years now. i've never made a claim but some boardies have stated that they have received payment when they made a loss claim.  website is www.collectinsure.com and no i dont work for them. 

the number of pinched corners i've seen in the last decade, like this tragic one, upcoming on CL, is too high to count. i'm not an engineer and do not know how best to solve this. but i will never buy a book like this, a former 9.4 now brought down to maybe an 8.5 on a good day. 

On 10/31/2023 at 7:48 AM, Robot Man said:

Yes, prices on a lot of stuff has dropped. Sadly. Not on what I collect.

But, what I have seen and heard from comic dealers is that people are being a lot more selective as to what they buy.

This is a major reason why prices are dropping. Dealers are having to get real and dropping their prices to move books. Smart buyers with cash hold all the cards.

This year is almost over. This is also the time of year when collectible sales drop off. Will be interesting to see what 2024 brings…

yes. people are way more selective now. i certainly am. this is a result of an unstable economy, huge interest rate increases, global events, and the erratic stock market. no one i know, except one very wealthy person, is buying tons of comics now, or any other luxury items. 

agree that holiday time is always the slow time. the bigger question is why would things turn around come spring, if these underlying economic issues have not brightened by then. people who can neither sell nor by a home right now, thanks to fed interest rate policy, are probably not buying comics.

i loathe the gloom and doom panicky types always predicting a comics crash here on the boards. thats not me, and i beleive that the core comic collecting base is a very solid one. it will turn around at some point. but i cannot see why that would be next year, unfortunately, though i very much hope that it will be.

On 10/29/2023 at 1:46 AM, Bosco685 said:

I wonder if what Marvel Studios is assuming is each of the Lady Marvel MCU characters has a dedicated fanbase. So by bringing the three together, maybe they all show up to support the movie.

oh, is there a captain marvel movie coming out? 

i like hemsworth thor. taika did a great job with him in ragnarok bringing in more comedy while still making a kick butt superhero adventure. of course then he went overboard on the silliness in the next one.

i'd love to see thor v silver surfer a la SS4 in a movie. of course loki was involved in the original story, so they would probably need to come up with some new backstory. but it would be a neat way to finally introduce the surfer into the mcu, which seems very overdue. 

i also use CIS although i have never had to make a claim. but several members have attested that they do pay claims. they cover your books at home, in a bank box, and during shipping too as long as a signature is required. 

On 10/24/2023 at 2:59 AM, Bosco685 said:

 

this would be outstanding news if true. tom holland spider-man is the last great marvel comics superhero that appeals to a wide audience base. both my 9 year old son and my 55 year old self love him and all his spider-man films. one more for the road-

On 10/22/2023 at 8:52 PM, MatterEaterLad said:

I see this all the time. Big auction houses bringing in hefty prices while virtually the same book sells at almost the same time for 20% less on eBay. But WOW, that's a huge difference. In related news, I've been picking up bargains on eBay for the past month. Big buyers giving up on that site?

i certainly have not used feebay for a long time. perhaps i should since there seem to be deals, and their policies dramatically favor the buyers, and screw the sellers. this was quite a deal- 

@CGC Mike

On 10/22/2023 at 5:57 AM, blazingbob said:

Why do you assume that the book is "consigned" and not owned by the auction house?  If owned every shill bid is money in their pocket if owned.  

precisely. as i said yesterday, an auction house owned by a major comic book dealer is a conflict of interest. depending on the structure of the two businesses, it may even be totally kosher for metro to bid on and buy books in cc auctions. although having access to our bids is almost surely not kosher.

perhaps some of you think the former employee on here who alleged that metro shills most or all of cc's stuff was just disgrunled. ok.

i've had this exact scenario on HA so unfortunately if you think this is real, and i do, it does not appear exclusive to cc. and when blazing bob chimes in, i find it well worth listening to.

On 10/17/2023 at 5:02 AM, blazingbob said:

I wish posters would stop bad mouthing a show just because there are NO pictures or commentary.  If you are looking for some "real" information talk to someone who you know very well that did or does the show and base their impression on what they are looking for.    

Believe it or not there was a lot of Golden age at the show.  

There was actually some keys that dealers could sell closer to GPA as we work through the Covid price hangover.  

There were actually sweetspots of price points that did very well.

Dumpster divers could actually do well also.

My sales were ok to good,  buying was good.

Traffic was good,  there were definitely some booth placement issues due to a Reed Sales rep leaving.

Load in went surprising well,  I have no idea how load out went since I never base it on how I get out of the show.  

This show is long,  stressful and very very hard work doing.  It is 6 days 15 - 16 hour long days.  

 

thanks for the report! my joke that the show probably didnt take place because no one posted pics is certainly not bad mouthing. its a facetious attempt at encouraging more pics and reports from attendees and dealers. i hope you made some nice purchases there and made some coin too bob.

i'm pretty sure this con did not actually take place since it's now monday night and no one has posted pics of the dealer booths of comics, original art, artists alley, etc. 

On 10/16/2023 at 2:12 PM, VintageComics said:

While I don't fully disagree about downward pressure, this analysis is one sided. 

We ALSO saw a great expansion of wealth over the same period as people got (unnecessary) free printed money, had bills covered for them and also cashed in record Crypto profits etc. 

For example, the US printed and handed out Trillions but we also had nearly $2Trillion in crypto profits cashed in 2 years ago. That was all spread over a segment of the population. 

So while some are hurting others are absolutely not. In every economy there are people making money while others are experiencing misfortune and MANY people came out much more wealthy in 2022.

it's just anecdotal, but every single person i know is doing less well now than a year or two ago. everyone is worried, and no one is spending on luxury items. maybe you hang out with more billionaires than i do, but amongst the upper middle class and middle class people that i know, things are not good. everyone i know who has some money and wants to buy a house is finding it absolutely impossible now with interest rates. home sales have plummeted. and what's worse is that there is no reason for economic optimism on the horizon. 

it hasnt continued to drop in value, esp in the 2 years following the start of this st*pid thread. why cant people let st*pid threads die? 

On 10/14/2023 at 4:06 PM, Bosco685 said:

 

total classic awesome movie. certainly needs NO reboot. but ultimately everything gets remade. sigh. 

On 10/14/2023 at 8:00 AM, dbcn said:

Anyone know if Bill Sienkiewicz is there? He's no longer listed on the website as a guest (he was for a while)

his inst says 2-5 today and tomorrow

On 10/12/2023 at 4:35 PM, Mike Murdock said:

How do folks here feel about de-slabbed books with the label included?  I really want to deslab a bunch of books and get rid of the slabs but wonder how much of a value drop that might lead to.  If you de-slab a mid-grade book like a 6.5 FF50 and keep the label, does it really hurt resale value?

i have an ff48 deslabbed 7.0 that i got here on the boards around 5 years ago. last year i was interested in upgrading an xmen1 4.5 that i own to a nice 5.5 that a local store had. the ff48 value was close to the difference in books with some additional cash. he was open to trading. i showed him the book but he was suspicious of it, even though there is clearly no resto or other issue with it, though it's certainly been pressed, he was ultimately not interested. so, in that case, it certainly would have been better for me had it still been in the slab. 

here on the boards, i notice tons of people trying to sell raw and deslabbed books for gpa. it doesnt often work outside of really hot markets. however there is a strong market for clean raw books. both here and at shows, a great many people want raw, not slabbed books. most of them do not want pressed books though, so if you are not sure whether your books have been pressed or not, you may discover some bad news for later resale value. if your number one priority is resale value, and we are talking SA or BA books worth hundreds or thousands, then i would keep them in the slab. but as @Number 6 said, if you are talking about low value bronze, copper or modern books that are not 9.8, then it probably doesnt matter. 

On 10/12/2023 at 7:40 PM, Buzzetta said:

Picked up the pencils and the inks on blue line pair of pages for the splash in GI Joe 275 by Robert Atkins, inked by his brother.   I don't mind reporting what I paid since I do not sell the artwork I pick up.  He did $600 for the pair. 

The pencil page was / is offered on More Great Art for $500. The inks were not listed so upon seeing them I did not want to break up the set.

As far as pictures, I went live on IG at some point.  I would have to take some stills from the videos.

 

 

lovely artwork pickups for a nice price!

just followed you on inst but you know live videos are not permanent. better to post reels and reg videos for those of us with a life who dont spend all day watching live streams. 

lets see some pics as boardies start attending! and sales reports that are not total BS would be nice too.