The_Man_Of_Steel

My thoughts exactly!!

I would stretch the money out over a period of time, and purchase the books I want and like. I would fill holes in runs, extend runs (of titles such as ASM vol. 1 for example), and purchase a few slabbed bronze keys in high grade (such as ASM 119 (Hulk app), 120 (Hulk app), 121, 122). I would purchase ALL Gil Kane ASM books that are valued at less than $100. I would also purchase a run of Uncanny X-Men starting with issue 144 - 400+. I would purchase a complete high grade run of the Simpson's comics, and a complete high grade run of the Marvel Star Wars title. I would also use some of the money to purchase Mylites and acid-free backer boards, and acid free boxes. I could go on, and on with books and titles, but I think you get the point.

Welcome to the two star poster club! Ok, if everyone will start by giving the others in the group, your name first. Hi everyone, my name is The_Man_Of_Steel, and I"m a two star poster , my star rating began long ago, with the "haters" of the board ...

Oh really? Let's see a list. No really, I would like to check these fanboy boards out. It sounds to me like you could care less about what other collector's at THIS messageboard are interested in! Hmmm...maybe your right, it's all about business around here. Well, that and a little neighbor Jones envy.

"Signs, Signs, everywhere signs....can't you read the sign?" Too true, I appreciate threads about grading etc. as much as the next guy, but I've pondered more than once, about why more threads are not devoted to comic book characters, storylines, writers, artists, titles, etc. P.S. - The Jim Lee Visionaries volume is awesome!! Just so you know (if you didn't already) it collects ALL of his Uncanny X-Men work. He sure could draw a mean Wolverine, and a sexy Psylocke!

I thought I would give an update to what I reported a couple of months ago in this thread: "According to Jan. 9th 2003 CGC census 1,177 copies of Incredible Hulk 181 have been graded. What percentage is 1,177 out of 202,592? Of the 1,177 CGC graded copies 407 of them grade 9.0 or higher. The VAST MAJORITY of total copies printed/sold have yet to graded by CGC." The numbers are raising, according to March 12, 2003 the CGC cencus show a total of 1,243 copies, and 421 copies grade 9.0 and higher. From comparing these two reports, in the past month 66 copies have been graded, and 14 of them have graded 9.0 and higher. IMO, it would be interesting to look at the number of submissions year by year for Incredible Hulk 181.

Here is a "bump" for Maury a new poster seeking grading defect definitions. If you want the latest and greatest definitons check out the OverStreet Guide to Grading. You can find it at Buy.com or Amazon.com for considerably less than retail price.

Wow!! Those presses look impressive!! If you don't mind, I have a few pressing questions to ask. 1.) How much damage would those babies do to a person's wallet? 2.) Which would be less expensive or in poorman's terms...cheaper? 3.) Is one more effective than the other? or are there advantages and disadvantages to for of them? 4.) and finally...Where would a person purchase one of these presses? Thanks in advance for you infromative answers!

...unless that book were the first issue of X-Men the 2nd Series. We should burn every copy of that book we get our hands on!

Interesting Bug, I remember shooting hordes of those ugly bastards in the game DOOM.

Justice League, that's a great idea!! IMO, a newly updated Superman moivie is loooong past due. The old movie is great, but technically it's dated by today's standards. Probably the older folks could "get by" without an update, and to them nothing will ever surpass Christopher Reeves performance, but for a new generation of Superman fans, I think it should be done faithfully to the post-Crisis version of Superman in the vein of John Byrne's original vision for Superman. IMO, it's time that Batman be restored to his former movie status (I'm referring to the sucess of the 1989 movie). I'm keeping my fingers crossed with the upcoming HULK movie. I'm looking forward to the CG, because it should make the movie appear seemless. I would like to see a well done Iron Man movie. IMO, ol' shellhead is one of the most realistic Super-Heroes of them all. Tony Stark doesn't have any superpowers, all his power comes from the suit he invented. Iron Man can be an interesting character. I enjoyed reading the "Heroes Reborn" Iron Man books, and IMO, Whilice Portico did Iron Man justice with his highly detailed renderings. How about a solo Wolverine movie?

Yes and No, that is in some cases that would be true and in other cases it's not true. hehe, that would be funny if it wasn't. I never owned a "major" key, until I purchased that ASM # 129 CGC 8.0. I suppose that when Chuck checked out the Mile High Collection that all those "NM"'s turned out to be "VF"'s, just sitting in stacks for all those years in a basement. Your applying your argument to a collector [me], and NOT a dealer, and that is the weakness of your argument. Just because someone WAS a [bIG] dealer 10 years ago, and has 200+ long boxes in storage, does NOT mean they purchase an OverStreet guide every year to check out the current value of their "investments". They learned just what an "investment" comics were when they went out of the comic business, so they could probably care less about digging through 200+ long boxes to find all their best books to send in to CGC to cash in on their "investment".

Thanks, you should join us at the Comics General board more often, most of us don't bite...that often. Your probably right, but CGC came into the picture after the 90's "fallout". The reason I pointed out [that CGC is relatively new] is because in the 3 years CGC has been around, CGC has not won the heart of EVERY dealer out there. Nor does every comic book collector that has ever collected know about CGC. Also not all collector's feel the need to pay for grading unless they desire to sell their collection. Hulk 181 being the first appearance of Wolverine, and Wolverine being one of Marvel's most popular characters might pursuade a few Wolvie fans to keep their copy(ies) in their collection, and therefore not have it graded by CGC [because they're NOT selling them]. And let's not forget that NOT all collector's feel comfortable about shipping a $1,000 - $4,000 comic book from where they live to Florida, with the confidence that everthing will go well. What might discourage collector's/dealers from submitting? Possibility of damage while in transit to CGC, the lack of CGC grading definitons (unknown grading standards makes it difficult to know what to expect, and makes it impossible to win in a disagreement with the grading [the folks at CGC are smart cookies]), the possibility that it could return with a lower than expected grade, turnaround time, and the possibility of damage while in transit back to them. Yes it's true that USPS insurance is available to cover lost mail, but some books cannot be so easily replaced. For example: What if you paid $300 for a NM copy 10 years ago, purchased $500 of USPS insurance to send it to CGC, the book received a VF/NM 9.0, and either ended up lost or damaged? We both know 9.9 times out of 10 it would cost more than $500 to replace a NM copy of Hulk 181 today. The bottom line here is the risks involved in submitting, are a deterant for some people, and some collector's only submit what they want to sell...and that's only the collecor's that know about CGC. Good point, and I'm sure that's true for many, many, smaller shops. But what about the BIG shops that had TONS of Silver and Bronze books (they did/do exist right?) ? How about bankruptcy? I'm not a law student, so I'm asking, would bankruptcy protect a business from having to sell EVERTHING (including their gems)? If you had the RIGHT amount of the RIGHT books, and were going out of business, would you consider filing bankruptcy? How many of the thousands of comic shops filed for bankruptcy? Even so, the BIG shops could "afford" to sell OTHER books (because they have the stock to do so), while keeping their BEST books. If I had owned a BIG comic shop 10 years ago, and were going out of business, I would try and sell EVERYTHING EXCEPT the best books. If I thought that a fairly valuable book that I had hoarded would have future potential, and I only paid a small fraction (Let's say $30 each) of the value at that time (10 years ago $300), then I think I would sit on the $30 I had invested in each copy and sell other books that looked less promising. Cherry picking my friend, dealers have been doing it for a looooooooooong time. I would try and sell everything but the cherry's. Anyway, the question of how many NM 9.2 and better copies of Hulk 181 that are in existance may not be answered for a long time...IMO I just wanted to bring some more "food for thought" to the table.

Me too. I stopped collecting in 1993, and came back to the hobby this past year (2002). I went for nine years without checking the value of my collection (or buying a guide). To be honest, I didn't even care what they were worth.

I don't know about warehouses, but if what Chuck said in the article that you posted (and I would bet he's right), then literally THOUSANDS of comic shops closed their doors in the mid-later 90's...back when Hulk 181 booked for "only" $300. Maybe they could see the future potential of Hulk 181, held onto the bulk of the best copies, and because they're out of the business/hobby, they havn't purchased much less looked at a guide in 10 years, and they know NOTHING about CGC. I ran into a former collecting friend recently that quit collecting about the same time I did, and he knew nothing about CGC...until I told him. IMO, a few folks are underestimating the fact that CGC has only been in the hobby for 2 years.