Venomous72

Not sure where else to ask this as it doesn't need it's own thread, but I am trying to decide between two books that have already gotten hot, I suppose. Budget is between $1500-2000 (basically whatever I can get plus a bit of cash for selling my X-Men 94 5.5) and the books are: Fantastic Four 49, CGC Graded at 4-4.5 or X-Men 4, Graded at a 3 I do want both, but can only pick one. I have a pretty decent X-Men collection already, but X-Men 4 is a minor Grail for me as I would never be able to buy X-Men 1. FF49 is one of my favorite covers and I love Galactus and Surfer and only have one other FF book (Annual 6) So, which do you guys prefer out of the two options? I am struggling to pic.

Not surprised, still happy with my purchase on this one for 2.1 tho

I purchased a 6.5 ASM 129 this week for what looked like a decent price. Checked eBay sold listings, and the same day I bought mine one sold for $1k more 😳 Ebay sellers and buyers are nuts. Instagram has been much better for me.

Yeah that one (IMO) has been undervalued for a while. I think it is probs the Shang Chi hype. I wonder if the prices are similar on eBay, haven’t checked tho.

Lol I bought two books from instagrailz this week. His pricing has been fine for me

I was initially thinking 4 as well

Paid $490 for this a few years ago...lord almighty glad I got it when I did. I remember pacing around my living room convincing myself to pay $500 for a book

I just love red covers. And am very happy to have this one.

Excited to finally get a copy of this one

I need to go back and count what I read in the last couple weeks, but I did House and Powers of X up through X of Swords (House and Powers were great, Swords started fun but was eh). Currently reading the Claremont X run for the first time. Started with 94 and am up to 102 now. Excited for the Byrne stuff to start soon. It is gonna be hard to hit 1k this year but I'm gonna try.

I kinda thought so too but I’m not complaining I guess. The grader notes just list the spine tics, a very light stain on the back, and a ‘small color breaking creases bottom left front cover’. I think it displays well and the colors are great but yeah I guess they don’t take spine tics as seriously as some other defects

CGC holds all the power and all the secrets.

I got this 181 a couple years ago, and I am happy that is it a 7.0 but it almost seems generous to me based on the spine tics. Admittedly the rest of the book looks pretty good with no tears or anything, but I was wondering if spine tics detract less from a grade as opposed to, say, color breaking creases on corners and such?

Been after this one for a long time! Finally pulled the trigger.

Not an uncommon one on these boards, but I never thought I would own this book. Wolverine has been my favorite since I was a kid and I would flip through Wizard Magazine’s Top 10 Heroes and Villains and he was always at the top. I ended up selling my Magic the Gathering cards in 2019 (I played Legacy so they were pricy) and ended up with over $3k in cash, so I said ‘well I guess it’s now or never’ and found this copy for $2.8k. Definitely my number one book.

Today’s mail call!

Alrighty well I have figured this out. just slightly loose staple holes. With a tap tap in one direction you can see them just move a wee bit, which I have on some of my raw books too. You can see the difference here if you compare the top of the staple to the pixels to the right in these two pics. well this was a thrilling adventure. I hope we all learned something today 😅

The staples, from what I can see, seem fine. So I am not sure if this is just kind of loose staple holes, or if the entire inner wrap is detached from the cover. Also, this is very tightly secured within the inner well. There is almost no wiggle room. edit: Ok I just found a raw x-men book I have that does this slightly, so I am guessing this is nothing to worry about

Just got this book, it’s a 9.2. I noticed that if I very lightly tap the top or bottom, the inner pages shift slightly. I just got it today so I can return it if this seems like a big deal. Not sure if this is normal (I am not really seeing this on my other cgc books). it was just graded by the seller within the last few months

Yeah I didn’t see any active rust on it or anything so I wasn’t too concerned. Thanks for checking it out

Oh for sure, I think I forgot to mention it when I first had posted. I mainly wanted to get others opinions that the staple wasn’t rusty while I was still within the return window for the book.

Well it’s slabbed by CGC (blue label 4.0) so I can’t check the centerfold haha. And nothing in the notes about staple shenanigans, so as long as it’s not rusty (which I don’t believe it is, just dirty or oxidized a bit so I wanted some other folks to see it) I’m ok Here are some less zoomed pics

@The Lions Den Ok here is a photo with maybe better light, it’s always hard to get a good shot In the slab. This looks ok to you then?