shadroch

Admittedly, I don't set up very often but in the couple dozen times I have in recent years I've yet to have anyone ask if a particular book was pressed or not. I'm not sure how many outside this forum know or care much about pressing.

This Stan Lee fellow sounds like quite the cad. No wonder he had to change his name. Imagine if Julie Schwartz had been Goodmans relative.

That's not my experience, whatsoever. Except for a few overpriced consignment items, I find their prices very fair. The buying prices are pretty low, but give you a great idea of what books are popular and which are fodder.

Mycomicshop lists just about every comic, both in their sale section and their buying section. It's particularly handy when you check prices of runs.

Three works well, as does four. A sheet of plywood between level 3 and 4 helps. Just remember the book you need will inevitably be on the bottom.

Superman closely resembles a tricky former President. Has anyone picked up one of the Kirby Care packages his Grandson is selling? They sound good but after getting burned on the Stan Lee boxes, I'm leery.

No. You assume that's why they exist. Yet you also argue that the margins were too small to make gaming the system worthwhile. In 1975, many Americans made under $10,000 a year. My sister's first job paid $98.40 a week, before taxes. Pulling in an extra $500 would have been huge to her for a couple hours work.

Credit spends just like cash. Do you think newsstand distributors, who handle literally tons of returns were checking in returns? Most newsstands simply ripped the top of the cover and returned that. Distributors didn't waste money and gas picking up the leftovers. Many distributors, including Imperial, accepted affidavits that stated you destroyed the book and wouldn't sell it.

On the coupon, the address is American Seed Company, Dept 632. Each book should have a separate dept number per ad.

When attempting to replace a cover or a cut coupon, the department number of the ad is all important. The same seed ad will appear dozens of times, but the department number is a quality control issue. A few years ago, I was selling a high dollar DC when it was pointed out that the back cover ad had a different department number than it should. Someone had done a very good job slicing the back cover on, but once you knew it was wrong, it was obvious. It fooled me because I never thought to check department numbers before. I'm sure most collectors know this, but hopefully some newcomer learns a bit.

On Long Island, and I assume elsewhere, jobbers distributed Westerns products. Not that I bought much from them, but a company called Viking was the local Nassau jobber. Whereas I could buy most comics wholesale from Imperial News,for 16.6 cents each when books were a quarter, Viking sold multipacks for about forty cents that were priced at 74 cents. While Western may not have returned books, there is no reason to think the people who brought from them didn't. I'd guess many stores had accounts with Imperial for comics, newspapers and magazines while also having an account with Viking for coloring books, paperback books and the like. Someone could buy 100 Marvel three packs from Viking for about $40, open them and return them to Imperial for almost $50. That doesn't sound like much but minimum wage was $2.30 or so at the time. In 1978, I would buy a huge collection of some 800 books, all 15-25 cent Marvels. My Mom, of all people, remarked that I should turn in the books I didn't want to Imperial for the 16 cents they offered on a return rather than sell them for a dime each like I was doing. When I explained that all returns were accompanied by an affidavit certifying every book returned was purchased from Imperial, she understood why that was wrong. So while Western may not have returned books, there is no reason to think books sold by Western weren't returned by their clients.

One can have all those skills, but if you don't bother taking the book out of the bag, things happen.

First time I got burned, I blamed the seller. After that, I have only myself to blame. If only there had been a way for a buyer to closely examine the book..........

A little personal responsibility goes a long way. Was the seller wrong? Yes, but he offered a refund which was declined, and offered $200 which was accepted.

Do you need a loupe to see a centerfold is detached? If I'm spending money on a big Timely, I'm counting pages.

Heroes World was a distributor and I believe Marvel had a most favored contract with all its distributors getting equal deals. Of course Marvel ended up buying Heroes World years later but in the mid 70s Heroes World was a chain of some dozen shops and a mid level distributor. I recall one prominent Long Island shop quitting Heroes World when they started distributing diamond boxes, insisting that history would value them less than real newsstand copies.

Once again, these ads are from Heroes World. They are not overstock Marvel had. They are products a business bought and is selling. It is a paid advertisement, not a house ad.

Let's flip the situation. Suppose the book you bought came back in a blue label and the book you traded came back in a purple or green label. How would you handle it? This all could have been avoided if you took the time to examine the book. Is there a dollar amount below which you don't examine a book before buying? I understand it's a minority opinion here but you bought an expensive raw book without doing any due diligence, were unhappy when you did check it out and accepted a $200 settlement. Don't be surprised if the CC company sees the settlement as final. If you are going to slab a book, discuss the dealers policy on refunds for a book that comes back green or purple.

If the idea is to organize them in order to make it easier to dispose of them, just do it by value. Something like over $250, over $100, over $25, over $10.Anything under $10, just organize by company. You will do better if you have five boxes of super premium, ten premium, twenty above average boxes, fifty boxes of decent stuff and fifty of than if you have 140 boxes of runs. Take Daredevil, as an example. There are maybe a dozen issues a dealer really cares about. The less work a dealer has to do ,the more he is willing to pay.

Heroes World /The Superhero Shop was owned and operated by Ivan Snyder, who was Marvels Head of Merchandising in his day job.

In the mid 1980s, both of my distributors had empty Marvel multibags for sale. I believe they were about $5 per hundred. The idea behind them was to bundle excess stock and sell it off premises.

My box is rounding into shape, but isnt fit to be mentioned in the same thread as Greggy.

Was it in black and white or color?

Did they find an 11 yet?

No need to be jealous, bro.