• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

FSF

Member
  • Posts

    246
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by FSF

  1. Well...no one has to do anything.  ebay sellers and board members here don't "have to" either but they do.  I would think as a function of two things.  One, to give an accurate and as complete a depiction of the item as the seller can (which I think is only fair), and two, to garner more interest.  I for one am the kind of person who doesn't stick to GPA figures if I want an item.  And I will comfortably go over by 20-30% on a book that is not by any means rare and comes up often, if it is an older book and I can discern as much of the presentation as possible.  But I will not even consider buying at a 20% discount if I can't see the back. 

  2. 18 hours ago, NicoV said:

    This painting is from Jota Leal. All his paintings are caricatural, I find them more funny than really interesting... except in the case of this Batman were you can really have a personal interpretation of why he is portrayed this way...

    Some other Batman stuff

    https://jotaleal.com/item.php?work=556#cnt

    https://jotaleal.com/item.php?work=498#cnt

    Thank you for the links.  Very interesting site.  I wish he would do some material in a more straight forward manner as he obviously has a lot of talent. 

     

     

  3. I couldn't agree with you more regarding Pollock.  I can't understand how his "paintings" yield some of the highest prices ever paid, or even one dollar for that matter.  How does hurling the contents of a can of paint onto canvas, without much control of how hit will display on the canvas, constitute art?  It literally seems to me that anyone could basically do that.  Now I may very well be trivializing it some but employing as much objectivity as I possible can, I really think it is just lazy.  Now I get that abstract art is what it is but unlike Picasso, who does it so well with some of his best works, Pollock's material and its popularity is entirely unfathomable to me no matter how hard I try to understand the situation.

  4. 14 minutes ago, comicdonna said:

    Saying virtually all GA books are low grade is a long way from the truth. 

    Fair enough.  I'm by no means an expert, and to be quite honest, I was really thing that there are virtually no high grade GA books which leaves possibly a fair amount of mid grade books as possibilities.   But based on the census totals (being that they are submitting the best books available), I'm not entirely convinced of that. And of course we can debate as to the percentage that defines "virtually all". 

  5. 1 minute ago, VintageComics said:

    Sure, they exist in smaller numbers but that is a different discussion than the one about high grade vs. low grade.

    The highest graded Detective #27 is a 9.2. The nicest Marvel Comics #1 in likely to grade a CGC 9.8. The nicest Cap #1 is a CGC 9.8

    So the argument that GA books are high grade at what a SA book is mid grade at is not really a logical discussion.

    Also, most of the old timers who collect these books will likely also tell you that even if the highest graded copy of a GA book is a VF 4.0, it's still a low or mid-grade book. Being scarce or in limited supply just change it's grade.

    Maybe I'm reading you're post wrong but you seem to be preaching to the choir.  I'm completely in your camp in that regard.  In fact, it seems like you are agreeing with my post that virtually all GA books are low grade.  I never stated that ALL of them were, but "virtually all". 

     

  6. As for trying to define high grade by era, the grade is the grade.  It's either high grade or it isn't.  Where that line gets drawn universally is debatable but the actual grade isn't.

    We don't say that a kid who wasn't born very bright but manage to work very hard to get a 'C' in math somehow got an 'A' because he did the very best s/he could and 'C' was the ceiling of talent.  It's a 'C' no matter who got it.

     

  7. 1 minute ago, VintageComics said:

    There are PLENTY of high grade GA books (some even grade 9.8 or 9.9). They are just tougher to find, but they are out there.

    The recent Jon Berk CC auction had plenty of NM range GA books in it.

    I don't doubt at all that there are high grade GA books to be had.  The census is proof of that. But I have to believe that there are in a tiny minority of all the entire population of GA books that are in existence. 

  8. 1 hour ago, VintageComics said:

    I can show you 7.0 books that look better than some 8.5's - it's going to depend on the book and the defects - that's why I specifically said VF range and not necessarily a particular grade.

    Grade should be irrelevant of era.

    High grade is high grade regardless of how old the book is. If a book is a 5.0 or a 6.0 I consider it mid grade even if it's a Tec #27.

    But being tough in grade, and being a highest grade copy for a tough book (like and early Tec) is an entirely different matter.

     

    As my OP stated, I agree with you that grade is irrelevant of era.  I think the way to look at it is that virtually all modern books are high grade (even if they are "only" 9.0 and no one wants it) and virtually all GA books are low grade.

     

  9. 17 hours ago, Dr Zen said:

    This just came out today.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/07/french-court-orders-return-pisarro-painting-worth-millions-jewish/

     

    A couple spent 800 grand on a Pissarro that had been stolen by the Nazis. A French court ordered that it be returned to the family of the original owner.

     

     

    I've never seen that Pissarro before but man it is beautiful.  I am a fan of his work and that's up there with the very best I've seen.  $800K sounds really cheap, even for 1995, but I'm not an art expert by any means.

  10. Personally, I think today's high prices are temporary and primarily a function of two factors.  One is the comic movie craze.  However, I think that is much more benign than the main factor which is that stocks and real estate have been pushed to way overvalued levels (largely driven by central bank shenanigans and huge increases in government deficits).  The massive amount of paper wealth that has built up has led to all sorts of assets becoming inflated including sports cards, vintage autos, comic books, art, etc.  I haven't sat down and actually done the math but my guess is that you could probably buy every single CGC book for well below 1% of Apple stock's value.  And 1% of Apple is virtually nothing on just Apple's value, let alone the entire stock market capitalization.

    In times like this, I would probably focus on hard to find books that aren't that expensive (even if they did go up in value a lot).  Mainly because they are hard to find.  I would not buy Hulk 181 or AF15 at these lofty levels.  Personally, I'm extremely confident that the next 5-10 years will manifest in a significant asset deflation scenario at some point.  I think it could get really ugly and comic books will be the last thing people will care to buy with their limited amount of funds.

     

  11. 5 hours ago, VintageComics said:

    What sort of books are you looking for?

    High grade, mid grade, low grade?

    I'm looking for VF-NM for Bronze and F-VF for Silver.  I would very much like to buy higher grades than that in CGC holders but I've come to two conclusions. 

    1) I only prefer the new slabs (for their durability and presentation)

    2) I can't stand the new slabs with the Newton rings' issue so until CGC gets its act together on that, I will not buy any slabbed comics unless on those limited occasions where I'm seeing them in hand.

    And quite frankly, I think comics present much better outside the slab.  But of course if one is spending hundreds or thousands on a single comic, I don't want to risk buying raw comics with my limited skills in grading and judging restoration.