ExNihilo

Congrats on the sale and thanks to the buyer, I can sleep easy now instead of thinking "should I buy it? should I buy it?" Heckuva deal.

Part of me wouldn't be surprised if the book sold via PM on condition of a pic already. $9k on that book right now seems like a great deal. Hope it sells soon so I can stop running cost/benefit and risk analyses in my head when comparing to traditional investments. :P

it's crazy that i'm sitting here thinking about how this would be a better investment opportunity than my FB shares the last 3 months.

I have been a loyal sub member/customer at my LCS for nearly 25 years now (asides for the 4 years I was away for college). I have never ordered pull list books from online because I thought the discounts wouldn't be enough to cover shipping costs. I probably also wanted to have the ability to pick up my books weekly and what not. But a while back, my LCS closed one of its 2 locations. What was once a 5 minute drive on local roads to pick up books was now a 20 minute drive on the freeway. As a result, I stopped picking up books weekly after work on Wednesdays and now pick up books monthly on Saturday (to avoid traffic). With some titles now being released twice monthly, and with a slew of one shots and tie ins and events, I picked up 40 books last month. Needless to say, the cost is getting up there. In lieu of the DCBS thread, I decided to take a closer look at the prices and boy was I stunned. 40-50% discount on all titles (I currently sub to)? $0.50 for mylites and fullbacks? That's a lot of money saved each month. Of course the downside is waiting 2 months after release to read a title so i'll constantly be behind. And it won't be as easy picking up titles that might catch my attention. But I could of course still just hop into my LCS to pick up any books if I see something advertised or posted on a comic forum (cough these boards cough). Which leads me back to my LCS. Like I said, I've been shopping there for 25 years so I feel some sort of loyalty to them. They're a business and do what they need to do to stay in business. And unfortunately, that's at odds with what's best for me...saving money by buying elsewhere. But you always hear about how you should support local businesses. And there's always this push to support local comic shops. I mean, they even have a Local Comic Shop Day. So yeah, I'm a bit confused and conflicted. If I make a list of pros/cons, the scale unanimously tilts in favor of setting up a pull/order list on DCBS. And despite that, my heart still tugs towards the LCS. So I'm curious, many of you must be in the same situation. What are your thoughts? Where do you primarily get your monthly pull list order from?

It'd still be original. It's not like he's photocopying them. He's just merely drawing a second copy which would have subtle differences from the first.

On the small Billy's, the shelves are height adjustable. On the large Billy (the tall bookcase), the shelves are adjustable with the exception of the middle shelf. This is to ensure the bookcase retains some rigidity.

yeah, they're just basically upcharging so people can buy a guaranteed cover without having to buy 20 blind bags and risk not getting the book they're interested in. It's kinda like buying Magic or baseball cards in that sense.

My understanding is that all blind bags look the same. There are 15 books which come in 4 varieties: a) trade color b) virgin color c) trade b/w d) virgin b/w. In total, there are 60 unique books in the bags. What the ratio is for the different varieties (if there is one) I'm not sure.

What I meant is that it's not a guarantee to increase the value of a comic. There are mountains of books by great artists whose value has barely been affected. Superman Unchained #1 with an amazing cover by Jim Lee had a cover price of $4.99 and yet I see it on eBay for $2.99. For whatever reason, when I was responding to your post, I was thinking you were making a connection between cover art and book values. But reading back, I see that wasn't the case at all. Instead I combined the topic of your post along with someone further back and the end result was a misunderstanding on my part.

Yeah, but he says he sees "Received" on the submissions page. It's my understanding that when CGC receives books/forms, the book is confirmed and filed away while the form is documented within the CGC computer system. If the book was lost in transit, it would never appear in CGC's submission system at all.

I also think that the lenticular action on these was just not that good. They're sloppy, it's difficult to hold them at any angle to get the complete cover of either version. At least that's my experience with the handful that I picked up. The initial DC lenticular "3D" covers sold well in part because they looked GREAT! These, not so much.  I think a lot of the stories were simply unmemorable. Thanos #13 being the standout as (previously mentioned) included the 1st appearance of the Cosmic Ghost Rider. But otherwise from a story perspective, there was nothing to potentially drive up market value which is probably a greater reason why these books are selling for below cover price. Good cover art doesn't equate to higher market value. As for the quality of the lenticulars themselves, I agree that for whatever reason, the execution was poor. If you look at the Batman/Flash lenticulars for the Button storyline, they were well done. But even a simple cover like Spider-Gwen wasn't pulled off well. For many of the other covers, I think the art was just too busy to lend itself well to the lenticular treatment.

But in this case, the "Received" tracking OP is seeing is on the CGC submissions page which indicates that it has been received and entered into the system by CGC. At this point, it isn't a case of the USPS losing a package. Why it doesn't appear as delivered though on the USPS page is an oddity.

How much are those bagged books worth? X-Force #1? Spider-Man #1? X-Ecutioner's Song? It seems the only bagged book of any value is Superman #75 Platinum Edition. Otherwise it turns out it doesn't matter whether the book remained in the bag or was removed. In either case, they're still $1 bin books.

Tier (also list FastTrack where applicable): Modern S/S TAT as of Receipt Date: 92 Business Days (62 at CCS, 30 at CGC) Number of books: 9 Received CCS: 8/7 At CCS: n/aReceived CGC: 9/17 Verified: TBD Graded: TBD Shipped/Safe: TBD Received (by owner): TBD Tier (also list FastTrack where applicable): Economy TAT as of Receipt Date: 46 Business Days Number of books: 3 Received CCS: n/a At CCS: n/a Received CGC: 9/7 Verified: 10/11 Graded: TBD Shipped/Safe: TBD Received (by owner): TBD Tier (also list FastTrack where applicable): Modern S/S TAT as of Receipt Date: 28 Business Days Number of books: 2 Received CCS: n/a At CCS: n/a Received CGC: 9/6 Verified: 9/25 Graded: 10/1 Grading/QC: 10/10Shipped/Safe: 10/22 (Originally marked Shipped/Safe on 10/12. Delay in shipping due to FedEx being marked as shipping provider. CGC no longer ships via FedEx to my state. Had to call and clear things up) Received (by owner): TBD Total TAT: 27 business days @ CGC (33 business days due to shipping delay)

I just checked my submissions and my books in "Received" have no links. Received means the books are with CGC. If it's prefaced with CCS, then it means the books are with CCS. Everything checks back normal as far as I can tell.

Ironic this post should pop up now considering I just saw this on reddit yesterday.

Ex: "I know you are, but what am I?"

First off, a little tact goes a long way towards establishing a meaningful dialogue on the issue. Devolving into aggressive and argumentative tones is a surefire to way to get sidetracked or to kill a conversation altogether. That said, welcome to the boards. (Oh, and as for the discussion at hand regarding Newton Rings, I believe CGC's primary purpose is certification (and in the case of CGC SS, authentication). Newton rings are an issue, but more so to some than others. I personally don't care as much. So long as the case effectively protects my high value books (something that could admittedly be accomplished with mylites for less money) and CGC is a trusted source to certify/authenticate my books, that's all that really matters to me. I get that some people view it like a picture frame (and no one's gonna buy a picture frame that doesn't clearly showcase what's behind the glass). But, to each their own.)

Never lost a book from CGC, but it seems some books have been stolen while being sent via FedEx so I was thinking of instances like that where insurance would be necessary. As for value, even if you only paid cover price at time of release, what is the estimated FMV today? I suppose no one is a professional grader so whatever the customer determines the value to be should suffice so long as it is reasonable.

Personally it's a matter of insurance value. If you submit a $400 book via Modern, it will only be insured up to $200. Granted, if CGC deems it should be part of a higher tier, then they'll just charge you the difference. So you gotta ask yourself, if it's insured for only $200 and USPS or FedEx loses the package and only offers your $200 compensation, is that okay with you?

The answer to that is a resounding no. The creator or publisher still owns all rights to that character. I have an original piece penciled by Ron Lim and wanted to shrink it down and print a postcard sized copy to leave on my desk and Kinko's wouldn't do it due to copyright laws. Regarding the subject of OP's post, as an owner of several said prints (including the Batman 50 cover/splash), I personally like it as it allows me to own and showcase art that I like. I would obviously prefer the uniqueness of the original art, but I am in no position financially to spend $10k+ on those pieces. The high quality giclee prints and what not definitely fill a niche in the market and for that I'm appreciative.

Yeah, unfortunately, the 4.6 isn't the score the media outlets run with when referencing RT.

Anyone who wants to see it fail (outside of misguided Lady Gaga fans) likely just want to see the property under Marvel Studios control again based on their opinion of the trailers. (At least, that's my position). Had the trailers looked promising, I'd be all for it, but the trailers looked abysmal. Don't get me wrong, I love Venom (the character, have yet to see the movie), and I love Tom Hardy. But I have little faith in Sony's vision for the franchise/shared universe based on the slate of movies they wish to release. Compare that against Logan which had great trailers from the get-go. I don't think many people were rooting against it pre and post-release. Which leads me to believe the hate for Venom isn't predicated on people wanting it under Marvel's control, but more about it just sincerely having a trailer. I view it like a sports team. I love the Chicago Bulls, but I don't think the team has the pieces or coaching staff to be meaningful so long as they're around. Am I wrong to wish the team would go 10-72 just so ownership will finally fire Hoiberg? And so we can position ourselves for the best chance at a 1st pick in the lottery? Sometimes, you love something so much you realize that, like a phoenix, in order for it to rise to something greater, it first needs to burn to ash.

The media has been quoting Cinemascore for a while. No individual movie is going to put RT in the grave or Cinemascore on the map. Frankly, I still believe Metacritic to be the most "accurate" grading system since it actually takes an average of scores.

Murphy's Law. As soon as I post my dissatisfaction with USPS's tracking, the book arrives. I should have complained sooner.