alexgross.com

okay i am not a video game collector, i am a comic collector. but my son who is 8 is obsessed with them. and as a former atari 2600 and intellivision owner back in the 70s and 80s, i totally appreciate the collectibility and nostalgia angle in collecting graded older games, just like comics. but when we saw this in the current heritage auction catalogue, i was a bit gobsmacked. it's graded by another company, but it received a 10, which heritage describes as a "very rare" grade for a game from this era (5 years ago). please tell me why i am not a smart person for thinking this is ridiculous, since the game is in a plastic case. are we not grading the game based on a 5 cent plastic case? the paper artwork inside the case on my son's identical game is just as perfect as this one. it's the case itself that gets dings or scratches on it once opened, or apparently even unopened. this game is already at 1k. ?!? clearly the grading companies are betting that there are collectors who love the idea of collecting absolutely perfect 10 graded games, much like with comics. but at least with comics, we are talking about the book itself, not a cheap little plastic case. seems like a purely manufactured market for something otherwise completely not collectible in any special way.

maybe 8-9 months ago there was a book i wanted on a dealers website. it was overpriced and i offered an over-market price but lower than ask. dealer politely told me he was into it for more than that and so passed. fast forward to 2 months ago, i check the site, and the book is now 32% cheaper than before. so i bought it. it must be very tough to be a dealer in times like these. when markets are up, (2021) if you price right, you can make a killing. but most folks need cash flow too, so unless they can live now on what they made a year and a half ago, they must lower prices sometimes past what they paid for books. i'm not a dealer but i have had to do that too this year on several books to raise cash to fund a purchase. some dealers slowly come down to reality, some faster than others. with all of the online selling competition these days, that process seems like it ought to be quicker. but re-pricing hundreds or thousands of books is a time consuming process. it's understandable if the sticker price is out of date. hopefully the good guys are open to market realities and willing to talk pricing at shows.

i do also prefer better page quality than C/OW fyi

if it presents well that sounds like a good price to me considering a 3.5 sold for 36k in january. if its faded or ugly then pass. on the other hand, if there is more bad economic news and we enter a real recession, or if china invades taiwan and it causes a worldwide recession, then prices may fall further. but i would only buy now if you are willing to hold for 2-4 years. things could be slow for quite awhile. no one knows the future but several smart economists seem to think that it will be years before things might look rosy again.

yes it thinks that all my read messages are new, unread messages. they all seem to be there, where i left them. but i have already read them over the years. avatars at least appear normal now on ipad. thanks mike-

every time i log in it says i have 73 unread messages. and yes all the icons are smushed on ipad. @CGC Mike

all three B's are written differently, especially the one on this lovely asm14. i doubt that it is related to either of those other books as far as an original collection goes. granted, i'm no handwriting expert.

yes its all about the kids. my 8 yr old and his 2 friends all enjoyed it as well. i found it derivative and boring, and basically a 90 min commercial for all the mario games. but its not for me or my generation.

just did a huge deal with robert and could not be happier. book was packed in 5 boxes! bulletproof. robert doesn't have many kudos here but seems to have done plenty of deals. definitely a great seller!

i finally picked up the last key book in my ditko spidey white page collection (not including my af15 which is owwp) from @machone79 and it's a great looking copy! very stoked to have all the big books in this run now, and with the white pages to boot. i don't normally care for the cva stickers but i can see why this book got one.

my first slab was a cgc 6.5 asm14 from comiclink. it had a very rusty staple that was not disclosed in the auction and i was too rookie to read the notes. i always disliked the book because of the rust. years later i upgraded and sold it for about what i had paid. immediately after, the book doubled in price, probably thanks to me.

how wazzit?

@jbud73 great report, thanks for that! as you mentioned hearing, terry's show was almost 2 months prior to wonder con and it absolutely obviates the need for this show. so many good dealers were at that show. i spent 1k to come in for that one and it was basically worth it. thats the show to plan a trip around, on the west coast. as you also mentioned, so many dealers at cons now, including some of my favorite guys, still have 2021 pricing. of course sales will be slow if you're pretending that prices are still at all time highs. i saw it at terrys show and i've seen it at many others over the years. during down markets, those dealers who are willing to adjust pricing dynamically with the market are the ones that will do some business, even when things are slow.

if that's true then i'm going on the record now as saying we're in big, big trouble.

have a nice time and please post some pics of the show. always enjoyed attending this one in years past. but as the cal comic con just happened 2 months ago, its too soon for some of us to travel back there. i'm also curious if the more tenuous economic outlook now compared to two months ago will negatively affect buying considering that most dealers will probably still have older prices on their books.

i would not be surprised if af15 values start to move upwards again as we enter a true recession any time now. if it's an enormous crash we experience, then perhaps not. but i can't see it declining any more than it has since it's 2021 peaks. it's just too desirable. and there are plenty of well funded collectors who know to buy when everyone else is selling. especially on the better presenting copies.

i just finished the show. wow. when i started, i thought, 'do i really need yet another zombie show?' but pedro pascal is so compelling, the writing is so strong, and the storylines are not predictable, with the exception of episode 7. i got more and more into it as it went along. very happy that someone made a show as good as this one. i look forward to another season.

when the recession is over, obviously.

i agree that its not super hard to find WP on hulk1 though i would not use the word common. i disagree that WP copies are not worth much premium over any other page quality copy, all other things (presentation) being equal. many collectors only want wp copies and will pay a good deal more for them, esp on key books, regardless of difficulty in obtaining one.

just saw this today with my kid. after seeing just how much it copies from into the spider-verse visually, i get the coded language referenced above. but i dont think mixing the look of 3d animation with the jerky, comic-book type stuff that spider-verse did so well works very well here. but expect more of it from sony and maybe from other companies too.

JOKER 2: FOLIE A DEUX is a cool name. (madness for two) my alternative suggestion for a title is JOKER 2: SAISIE D"ARGENT (CASH GRAB)

its clearly an enhanced scan. the over saturated label is a dead giveaway. no book has colors like that because they are so saturated in this scan that they would not even be printable. similar to what @Gotham Kidsaid.

was wondering if anyone attended this show and would love more pics. it doesnt help i guess that this thread is in the wrong spot. i know it was supposed to be about OA but since there appears to be no thread in the comic events section, this is it.

feels a bit deceptive regardless. just another way for someone to get clicks. plus SPOILER ALERT * SPOILER ALERT * SPOILER ALERT * isnt scarlet witch muerte?