RockMyAmadeus

Sold!

Batman #366 - $140 Batman #491 - $125 Batman #492 - $175 Batman #493 - $125 Batman #497 - $175 Batman #499 - $100 Batman Chronicles #4 (this is the only 9.8 SS) - $200 Batman/Maxx #1 Convention Edition - $100 Batman/Maxx #1 Jim Lee Convention - $100 Booster Gold #1 - $350 SOLD! Cable #1 - $150 Captain America #282 2nd - $175 Captain America #286 - $250 Captain America #288 - $175 Captain America #323 - $200 SOLD! Captain America #366 - $90 Catwoman #1 - $200 SOLD! Catwoman #44 (Hughes covers start) - $150 Catwoman #53 - $125 Classic X-Men #1 - $300 Conan #1 - $125 Conan #248 - $175 Contest of Champions #1 - $250 Crimson #2 Holochrome - $100 Dark Tower Gunslinger Born #1 variant - $150 Dark Tower Gunslinger Born #2 sketch - $150 Dark Tower Gunslinger Born #3 sketch - $150 Dark Tower Gunslinger Born #4 sketch - $150 Dark Tower Gunslinger Born #6 sketch - $125 Dark Tower Gunslinger Born #7 - $125 Dark Tower The Long Road Home #1 Sketch - $125 Darkchylde Legacy #1 Adams variant - $100 Darkchylde Legacy #2 Adams variant - $90 Dawn 1/2 "Hey Kids, Comics!" variant - $150 Dawn: Three Tiers #1 Limited - $250 Daredevil #241 (perfect to add McFarlane!) - $175

The rules: Free US shipping on everything, Int'l gets a $10 credit against actual cost. Payment by Paypal. Open to anyone unless I have you on ignore. Slabs are returnable for 30 days...none of this "no returns on slabs" nonsense...BUT...every package is insured and packaged well, so barring damage or a mistake on my part, you'll have to cover shipping both ways if you just don't like it. I want you to be satisfied, not disappointed. Assume all books pressed. That about covers it. All American Men of War #85 (3rd highest graded copy, only SS copy) - $500 All American Men of War #100 (Grey tone cover, only SS copy) - $250 Our Army At War #103 - $250 Showcase #28 - $250

La Rules: Free US shipping on everything, Int'l gets a $10 credit against actual cost. Payment by Paypal. Open to anyone unless I have you on ignore. Slabs are returnable for 30 days...none of this "no returns on slabs" nonsense...BUT...every package is insured and packaged well, so barring damage or a mistake on my part, you'll have to cover shipping both ways if you just don't like it. I want you to be satisfied, not disappointed. Assume all books pressed. That about covers it. Action Comics Annual #1 (Art Adams Batman!) - $125 SOLD! Amazing Spiderman #293 - $125 SOLD! Amazing Spiderman #400 - $250 Amazing Spiderman Annual #21 - $250 Amazing Spiderman Annual #22 - $300 Archer & Armstrong #0 Gold - $1400 Aria 1 Sketch - $125 Aria #1 Speckle Holofoil - $125 Aria 1 Variant - $125 Aria/Angela #1 Anacleto Holofoil - $125 Aria/Angela #1 Jones Holofoil - $125 Aria/Angela #1 Portacio Holofoil - $150 Aria/Angela #1 Quesada Holofoil - $150 Aria Blanc & Noir #1 DF - $125 Aria Preview Gold Foil Linen #1 - $150 Jay Anacleto Aria Sketchbook #1 - $125 Jay Anacleto Aria Sketchbook #1 Variant - $150 Jay Anacleto Aria Sketchbook #1 Gold Linen - $200 Aria The Soul Market #1 DF Gold (1 of 1 on census) - $150 Astro City #2 - $140 Astro City #6 - $175 Authority #1 Adams Var - $125 Avengers Annual #10 - $275

Without getting into it too much, I suspect the above is not even remotely true. I wouldn't claim to know the ins and outs of work-for-hire contracts from the 60s, but I don't believe this is how it works....at all. Nether Stan nor Jack owned the characters, regardless of who claimed credit...Marvel did, which means Goodman did, under whatever shell companies Goodman was using at the time, until he sold the company to Cadence in 1968. And none of this was news to Jack, who had been working for Goodman off and on since 1940. I'm pretty sure that whoever "claims credit" is functionally meaningless to who actually owned the copyright IF the work was contractual work-for-hire (and it was.) Again, not a lawyer, but I believe the above statement is flat out wrong. From the US Copyright office: "Copyright law protects a work from the time it is created in a fixed form. From the moment it is set in a print or electronic manuscript, a sound recording, a computer software program, or other such concrete medium, the copyright becomes the property of the author who created it. Only the author or those deriving rights from the author can rightfully claim copyright. There is, however, an exception to this principle: “works made for hire.” If a work is made for hire, an employer is considered the author even if an employee actually created the work. The employer can be a firm, an organization, or an individual" https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf (emphasis added)

Added a whole bunch of nifty stuff, including many of my duplicates from my X-Men #94-143 CGC 9.8 quest! Check 'em out!

So THAT'S where all the beautiful Batmans went!

Sure. Lots of debate as to the extent of Stan's involvement. My comment was meant to be casual, not a definitive statement of Stan's contributions.

Not so very long ago, FF 50 was slightly more desired by the buying public because of the big Surfer image. I’m personally happy to see 49 getting it’s moment in the sun. If the cover had a STARRY black background....and had been the cover to #48....it would have put the book on par with earlier SA first appearances. Can you imagine...? Maybe I should commission someone to do that!

I've said this before...maybe even in this thread...if the cover to #50 (sans Johnny's blurb) had been the cover to #48, #48 would be worth 3-5 times what it is. You get the sense, from the covers, that Stan and Jack were a bit unsure as to who was the real focus of the story. By the time they started work on #50, however, it was obvious. And that was before they started getting feedback about #48. I don't know if Stan's ever said this, but I get the feeling that the Silver Surfer was among the top 3 of his favorite creations...and that's saying something.

Some say love, it is a river, that drowns the tender reed.

Reading is not generally something that kids will do on their own. But...there is nothing that educates people more thoroughly than reading, so actively encouraging your kids to read...and yes, even (most) comics count...and getting them OFF the digital, even for a while, will help your children learn better.

The grade has been approved by the comics code authority.

Discuss.

Oh man. What I wouldn't have given to see Year 3, part 1s for $1. #437 was the very first Batman I ever bought, and #436 was sold OUT. By the time I found one, they were $5 each, and $5 30 years ago wasn't chump change. It took me months to find a copy for "not $5." Those books are pure magic to me. That's why I have about a long box of them.

There's no functional difference between the actual comic inside, and they look the same in a slab, because the polybag can't be slabbed. I count that not as a variant, but a marketing tool...if there's some printed difference I've missed, let me know, but I'm pretty sure there's not.

I don't even have half of the possible 9.8 issues. For fun, the entire set goes like this: Batman #488 #489 #490 #490 2nd #491 #491 2nd #491 3rd #492 #492 2nd #492 3rd #492 Platinum #493 #493 2nd #494 #495 #496 #497 #497 2nd #497 2rd #498 #499 #500 #500 2nd (which is really hilarious, considering how many they printed of both versions of the 1st) Detective Comics #657 #658 #658 2nd #659 #659 2nd #659 3rd #660 #660 2nd #660 3rd (funny, there's no corresponding 3rd for #493) #661 #662 #663 #664 #664 2nd (also an oddball) #665 #666 Plus, if you REALLY want to get technical, Vengeance of Bane #1 and Sword of Azrael #1-4. And all the above have newsstand versions, too, if you REALLY wanted to get insane. Did I miss any? I have almost all of these SSd, but many of the did not end up in a 9.8 label for now. We'll see.

There's about 120. I regret selling mine, even though I got strong prices for them at the time. Guess I'll have to wait.

5.0. Much above that is too rare and too expensive. Much below that, and the books tend towards falling apart.

That is a BEAUTIFUL cover...

Rogue better watch out...that T-Rex is about ready to chomp.

I don't think this is accurate at all. It is well known that Claremont and Cockrum didn't like Wolverine, and wanted to get rid of him. Byrne was the guy who wanted to keep Wolverine around, and who convinced Claremont to do it. I did an analysis several years ago about who appeared on the most on covers from GS #1 to X-Men #200. The winner? Storm. And covers are directed and approved by editors. In fact, for the first 50 covers, Wolverine only appears on 30 of them, and mostly in the background. Storm appears on 42. On the first 10 covers, Storm appears on all of them, while Wolverine only appears on 4. Wolverine was a slow burn...no pun intended...and, despite claims of some, was not the megahit superstar he became until the early/mid 80s (82-83.)

Best post in these threads.

Nobody is saying the census is useless. If that is your takeaway (whoever you might be), you are debating a point that no one is arguing.

Nothing to qualify and I appreciate the jab There was no jab there, and if you see one, I would suggest that you are taking the conversation more seriously than you ought. This is an intellectual exercise, not a personal argument. Obviously. "Meaning" (in census numbers) is also a word that is vague, and means different things to different people. I didn't say you could find no meaning. I said any meaning you find will be, at best, overly broad and not of much use. Not no use...just not much. That's close, but not quite accurate. Buyers paid big money for BA 9.8s (and many other books) because they didn't understand what was really out there. Whether they were aware of the census or not...and some were not...they saw a "9.8 Comic X #Y" and had to own it, because they had never seen one before, and weren't sure if they were going to see one again. It wasn't a question of "accuracy"...it's hard to be inaccurate when you're discussing a handful of copies in any specific grade....it was a question of population, and lack of knowledge about that population. In other words, they lost their money not because the census eventually showed that there were hundreds to thousands...but because those copies became available on the market. Had those hundreds to thousands not been available, had they all been slabbed by collectors with no intention of selling them, with maybe only 5-10 such copies becoming available over the last 10 years, that value would have been sustained. The census, in that case, wouldn't matter one bit. The bigger census numbers get, the more inaccurate it will be. That's simply the nature of such a statistical device. The same thing...almost exactly the same thing...happened in coins in the late 80s and early 90s: people (mis)used the census, not understanding what really existed, and wildly underestimated what was out there, ending up paying ridiculous premiums for high grade coins that turned out to be common in those grades...some of which have still never recovered their highs from that time period, 30 years on. Here's a great article about that: https://www.nationalsilverdollarroundtable.org/the-market-crash-of-‘90/