andyborehol

Kelly has been co-hosting with Ryan Seacrest ever since Michael Strahan left for “Good Morning America.”

On 3/29/2023 at 10:27 AM, Kromak said:

Many "Paquito" Mexican publications on Heritage right now, each with one page of Action Comics n°1, as a few other foreign stuff:

https://www.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?N=0+793+794+791+792+1893+1577+2088&Ntk=SI_Titles-Desc&Nty=1&Ntt=paquito&limitTo=all&ic=homepage-search-A-K-071316

 

So if I’m understanding correctly, those “Paquito” issues have one page of Action Comics #1 on the back cover, and CGC actually put most of them into the slabs backwards so that the AC1 page and the grade can be seen together? That doesn’t sit quite right with me…seems like yet another example of CGC breaking its own standards just to try to inflate market value.

On 3/24/2023 at 5:42 PM, littledoom said:

How'd you get that many?

Lol, I can’t give away all of my secrets, but in this case these all came in one single lot purchase on a certain auction website that has a name with 4-letters that rhymes with “we pay.”

On 3/13/2023 at 3:32 PM, Happyfarm said:

Great books! I translated the second Danish edition of Miller's Wolverine many years later. The second edition has the same cover as the US # 1. Notice that they removed the crossbow on the cover of the first Danish edition.

Seeing that Hulk with the first Wolverine also makes me feel all nostalgic, as I remember buying that as a kid and wondering who the heck this 'Ulvemanden' was. Back then I really had no idea who the X-Men were, as they didn't have their own series here at that time. They'd been briefly published here in 1973-74 as X-Mændene but I was merely an infant then, and then they were re-introduced in 1984 as Projekt X. Here's a beat up copy of one of the X-Mændene.

 

I love all of the background info, thanks! “X-Mændene” seems to be the literal translation of “X-men”…any idea why they made the change to “Projekt X?” Do you think that it was just a marketing decision, or does “X-Mændene” sound odd in the context of the language?

In honor of all of these books from Denmark, here’s my entire Danish collection:

Last but not least, this comic includes Incredible Hulk #179, 180 & 181. Interestingly, Wolverine was originally referred to as “Ulvemanden” which translates to “The Wolf Man” (according to Google Translate). Since then he has been “Jærven”, which is a more accurate translation of “Wolverine.”

On 2/23/2023 at 12:18 AM, jnicholas1976 said:

HEY, ON THE BRIGHT SIDE.... 

SHOW ME YOUR SPAWN #5 NEWSIE. FORGET THE STORY I TELL. I SHOWED MINE....SHOW ME YOURS?

I would go get one on eBay, but I hear that some sellers are out there canceling bids if they don’t think that they’ll get enough money from you.

On 2/20/2023 at 9:59 PM, OtherEric said:

I once found a comic with a Todd McFarlane signature on the first page in the... I think it was a 40 cent bin, actually.  Unfortunately, it was Spitfire & the Troubleshooters #4, not a Spider-Man issue.

Isn’t that the first comic McFarlane penciled for Marvel? Not a bad book to have with his signature…

Cool set! I remember having all of those on my giant wishlist back when raw copies of each were selling in the $15-$25 range and thinking “meh, I’ll eventually find a cheap deal on a full set.” Then I went and bought a bunch of Peter Panzerfaust, Rat Queens and Great Pacific back issues, secure in the knowledge that those would skyrocket in value. 

On 2/20/2023 at 10:29 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

That new avengers 11 is really a striking cover with the colors. Sincerly with having found it, a kudos!

was it in the wild?

Yep! $15 at my LCS, which is about what the direct edition in similar condition goes for these days.

On 2/20/2023 at 10:40 AM, ThothAmon said:

Do any of you Mr. Wizards feel it’s worth getting most modern newsstands graded? Assuming potential NM+ grades of course. 
 

So anytime someone asks if something is “worth getting graded” I assume what they’re really asking whether getting it graded would increase the resale value. I think that the resale value of a modern newsstand key would absolutely go up if it were slabbed in high grade.

However, newsstand copies of common back issues are a different story. Obviously I don’t speak for everyone, but when I work on collecting newsstand runs my primary goal is just to find a copy of every issue, regardless of condition…high grade is preferable, but simple completion of the run is the main goal. With that in mind, I personally wouldn’t pay a premium for a slabbed common newsstand issue — I would much rather buy a raw copy and use the extra money to buy other issues from the run.

Honestly, the same thing applies to any common issue. Slabbing is only going to increase the value if there is a low enough supply of/high enough demand for high-grade copies that someone is willing to shell out extra for a copy that’s already slabbed. This is why you can buy 9.8 slabs of some books for less than the cost of a grading fee.

On 2/11/2023 at 2:06 PM, Corona smith said:

Or someone may have copies of those books and your search is complete. I think we’d all like to see you finish the run. It’s pretty damn impressive. 

That thought has also occurred to me…very well, then! The last two issues that I need are #534.1 (the “point one” issue) and Annual “#1” (from 2006).

So technically I have all of the “normally” numbered issues from 122-544 in hand already, but I won’t feel like the run is complete until I have the annuals & oddballs as well. Needless to say, if anyone has copies of either of those that they’re willing to part with then please send me a DM…willing to pay cash, but I also have 3 long boxes filled with various modern newsstands if you’re interested in trading.

On 2/11/2023 at 9:05 AM, mr_highgrade said:

What are the last two issues? 

I’m hesitant to reveal that for fear that someone following this thread will try to snipe me if/when they pop up for sale online. 

On 2/4/2023 at 9:44 PM, Jesse-Lee said:

Am I crazy, or have there been several newsstand Batman 655’s slabbed in 9.2 posted in this thread recently? They’re great books that are heating up, but the 9.2 slab is weirdly specific thing to keep seeing over and over again.

Thanks for the input! 7.0 is actually significantly better than I was expecting as I’ve never submitted a modern with any type of instantly visible damage like that before. Now I’m actually thinking that it might be worth slabbing before passing it on to the next collector 

On 2/2/2023 at 7:25 PM, gadzukes said:

I submitted this UK GIFT COMICS 1 and I just found out CGC REJECTED IT 

Too thick for the slab I guess.

Dang 

Is that leather binding on the spine?

A little bit of background…I pulled this copy of UF4 out of a dollar bin at an LCS around 2015 or 2016. At the time, this store was putting stickers with their logo and contact info (the type of thing that a lot of stores use for FCBD books) on top of the UPC box on everything in their dollar bin. Needless to say, this was a very unpopular practice and they no longer do it.

At one point I decided to use Un-Du to remove the sticker as I had used it successfully on some less expensive books, but the glue for this sticker proved to be particularly strong so I ended up getting too heavy-handed and pulling up some of the ink from the cover.

I’m probably going to end up selling this raw (with proper disclosures about the damage) but I’m curious as to how people think this type of damage impacts the grade of a modern book.

On 1/30/2023 at 9:43 AM, ADAMANTIUM said:

not 9.8 but 

It is not because green labels were "unavailable", it is because someone took a grade hit with the blue label taking the sig across the book into account, so any 9.8 blue would be more of an anomaly. 

Wow, I figured that the mid-graded blue label 102.5’s may have just taken a grade hit, but I didn’t realize that an unwitnessed sig could still get a blue 9.0 or better. Anyone know what the highest possible Universal grade could be on a signed/unwitnessed book (if submitted today, I mean)?

On 1/28/2023 at 7:11 PM, bellrules said:

Anyone come across these before? Direct editions with the Curtis Circulation stamp. Maybe they didn’t print enough newsstands at the time and this was the work around? 

I’m fairly certain that every direct copy of Spider-Man #16 has the Curtis stamp. The most likely explanation is just that someone goofed up while they were setting up the direct editions for printing and the mistake wasn’t seen as enough of a problem to warrant the cost of pulping and re-printing them. I have definitely seen multiple other examples where the Curtis stamp was printed on the direct edition, but this is the only one that I could remember off-hand: