shadroch

From Overstreet "Distributor stripes: Color brushed or sprayed on the edges of comic book stacks by the distributor/wholesaler to code them for expediant exchange at the sales racks. Distributor stripes are not considered defects" While normal distributor stripes are not defects, your book has a good deal of overspray and would be knocked down. I think it would get more than a 4.0 VG, but I'm not certain how badly CGC punishs that. I could see it as a raw 6.0, no problem.

That type of ink is not from the printing process, its related to an unsold copy that credit was given back. The inking was there to mark the comic, similar to when they used to manually cut the top third of the comic off. Same scenerio, different year of print. Thats not correct. The marks were put on so drivers could idenify their companies product when taking returns from stores.

Thats a distributor mark, but there is no way of knowing if that book was sold off a newstand and comes from a persons collection or was a return. There is no evidence to say the book should have been destroyed.

When most dealers sell you a book, it's high grade. When you try to sell back the same book, it isn't. Learn this and you won't be disappointed.

The obvious solution is to buy more 100 pagers. Bags aside, you can use magazine boxes for the wider books.

DeFalco and Kalish both told me at different times the list was over two hundred people. now, 201 is over 200, as is 500, so I don't know the higher end, just that it was over 200. I've heard that under the Goodman/Lee regime, boxes were sent out to kids, but that doesn't seem to have continued thru DeFalcos reign. Around 1998, I had a neighbor who worked for Marvel as an accountant and he got free copies but they were not stamped in any way. Were your friends copies stamped "complimentry"

Office copies, and review copies. Marvel used to have a free circulation list of well over two hundred back in the DeFalco era. At one point, every Marvel employee could get a copy of every book, and they would also send out packages of books to writers and artists that they were cultivating. Advance review copies were B&W photocopies, as the books were on sale within a day of being printed. When longtime DC employee E. Nelson Bridwell died, his collection included thousands of Marvels with similar stamps so Marvel might have been sending comp copies across town, or perhaps Bridwell did some horsetrading with his Marvel buddies. I've got a couple of dozen myself. Some from Carole Kalish, or Lou Banks or Tom DeFalco and some I bought when Bridwells collection was sold by Phil Levine.

Not that there is anything wrong with it.

Relatively speaking, that is harsh. And almost all of that is non-mainstream stuff, like Tarzan, Turok, Lone Ranger, etc. Fun stuff to collect Tim. And after all, at its core, the hobby is really about fun. The dollars stuff gets so mundane and stressful when introduced. Totally agree, Bill, although when I was spending money, it was for stuff that I genuinely liked and collected. I`ve never bought comics for pure investment purposes. Mainly, my point was to show how much the various shady goings on in our hobby have caused me to retreat from the hobby. Have they caused you you to retreat from the hobby or caused you to stop investing in comic books? It's not the same thing.

None of which changes the simple fact that if Supa knows that Ewert is selling under another name on CL, he should provide the information. Sitting around whistling " I know a secret" gets old pretty fast. Either Supa cares about his fellow collectors or he doesn't.

I really doubt he's using his name. What steps would you suggest CL does to keep him from consigning? Should they get a photo id from every consigner? What is to keep JE from submitting books to CGC under a different name? How do we know he is not here selling on our boards? If anyone knows he is operating under different names, why isn't this shared?

Interesting article.

I guess different people reacted differently to the different series. I had an Army Reserve unit( 423rd MP brigagade of the 77th ARCOM) located yards from my store, and a Marine Detachment about a mile away. Many service members came in to pick up copies of The Nam due to the extensive publicity but most dropped it after a few issues. A much smaller number picked up Veitnam Journal, and another comic called In Country, but they seemed more enthused by them. I haven't read either in years, though I did recently read the first Nam story in Savage Tales.

It started pretty well but died a slow death and really jumped the shark with The Punisher appearences, iirc. A much better read was Apples "Vietnam Journal", but getting that run can be a challange.

Why is this thread not pinned?

There is an interesting story behind these different price fonts. At a Distributors meeting, a Marvel suit made a throwaway statement that Marvel would reprint any book if they had an order for X amount of sales. I believe it was either 10,000 or 20,000. Anyways, New England Comics approachs Marvel with an offer to buy the entire print run if they will do these three issues. GI Joe 2 was a very hot book, approaching the $100 mark at the time. A Marvel suit agrees to this, without consulting with Carol Kalish, the head of Marvel's Direct Marketing. The first she or anyone hears of this is a fullpage ad in The Buyers guide where NEC is selling them for $20 a three pack. Store owners and distributors go nuts, and Marvel does another run offering them to distributors at their regular discount. So one of those is a second print, the other is a third print. NEC which thought it had a huge score with its thousands of multipacks instead took a huge hit as the market was flooded with them. Anyone know what year the reprint was from based on the New England ads? As I recall, it was around 1986 or 1987.

There is an interesting story behind these different price fonts. At a Distributors meeting, a Marvel suit made a throwaway statement that Marvel would reprint any book if they had an order for X amount of sales. I believe it was either 10,000 or 20,000. Anyways, New England Comics approachs Marvel with an offer to buy the entire print run if they will do these three issues. GI Joe 2 was a very hot book, approaching the $100 mark at the time. A Marvel suit agrees to this, without consulting with Carol Kalish, the head of Marvel's Direct Marketing. The first she or anyone hears of this is a fullpage ad in The Buyers guide where NEC is selling them for $20 a three pack. Store owners and distributors go nuts, and Marvel does another run offering them to distributors at their regular discount. So one of those is a second print, the other is a third print. NEC which thought it had a huge score with its thousands of multipacks instead took a huge hit as the market was flooded with them.

I used clothspins in my store for awhile, and stole the idea from a place in Queens called The Memory Bank. Back then, hardly anyone used boards and you'd just tape the bag so there was enough space above the book to pinch the pin. Key was having high ceilings.

They didn't stamp the books they wholesaled, as far as I remember.I never bought anything from them retail. Store stamps are kind of rare on Bronze Age books, much more common on SA stuff.

They were huge in the 1980s. I bought thousands of back issues from them for my stores.

Are the Star Chase variants really going for multiples of the others?

A baseball playe that was succesful at bat 43% of the time would be a gazillionaire. How many zeros is that? a Gazillion is a brazillion brazillions.

A baseball playe that was succesful at bat 43% of the time would be a gazillionaire.

At a flea market today, I saw a bunch of what looked to be undistributed Marvels from the late 70s, early 80s. There were about 50 and there was a piece of paper on top of the pile that said $3. I looked thru and saw some X-men 119, 121, and some Spideys in the 180--200 range. I started to pull out a few books and asked the guy if he'd cut a deal if I bought a couple. He replied no, thats a lot of books for $3 and I can't go any lower. I ended up with 43 books for $3. A few stalls down, the seller saw me with the comics and mentioned how nobody buys comics anymore. I asked if he had any and he said yes, but not in that nice shape. He went in the van and came out with some beat up 12 cent DC comics- Batman, Flash,Blackhawk and such. Wanted two dollars each but I got the lot of 14 for $15. Picked up a few Conan paperbacks with Frazetta covers for $2 each. Not a bad hour and a half.

bump