RockMyAmadeus

That's a really good question.

I had restoration work done on this poor book: ...and it came back like this: It was amazing!

One more time: your insulting and inaccurate personal opinions and critiques of other members, regardless of how valid you believe them to be, are inappropriate, unwelcome, and have no place here. They serve only to provoke conflict. I am asking you again: for your sake, for my sake, and for the board's sake, please keep your personal opinions about others to yourself and disengage. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

....and that difference is absolutely astonishing. Even when the Marvel SA keys were on their relentless march to the stratosphere, the gap between high grade and not high grade widened. Now...for the first time in comics history...that gap is narrowing. And not just with isolated examples; lower grade prices for these books have narrowed the gap for many books...AF #15, FF #1, TOS #39....it's thoroughly unprecedented. The highest grades are no longer accessible to anyone but millionaires (whereas, in 1988, you could buy a high grade AF #15 for less than the price of a nice used car...$2000-$2500 or so, now they're the price of a decent house in NY, LA, or SF), and we've reached the tipping point between available supply and the demand we see....and there's enough supply to see these trends on a regular, and more importantly, data-rich basis. This would have happened with Golden Age, had there been the supply available...but it never has been. GA keys have been done in by their own scarcity. But books like AF #15, Hulk #1, Hulk #181...regardless of their populations relative to each other, are in supply abundant enough to drive the market insane. There are EIGHTEEN copies of Hulk #1 for sale on eBay right now. RIGHT NOW. As of this very moment. You got the money, you can own a copy of Hulk #1, in grades between .5 and 6.0, right now, just a click away. A copy can be in your hands in literally a day or so, anywhere in the world. There are FORTY SEVEN copies of AF #15 for sale, right now on eBay alone. Have there been 18 copies of Action #1 sold in the last 5 years, in any venue, in any format...? Have there been 47 sales in the last 20 years...? No matter how much I want to, now matter how much money I have, I probably couldn't buy five copies of Action #1 right now. Or Tec #27. Or Pep #22. Or Suspense Comics #3. AF #15? Piece of cake. All it takes is money, and I could probably have one in each grade from 8.5 to 9.6 in a week or so. Say I'm a billionaire, and offer $5,000,000 for a 9.6. Am I really going to have that hard a time obtaining one of the 4 that are on the census (always, of course, assuming that actually represents four unique copies.) Would I even have to offer $5M, or would $2M make it happen? You think the BSDs don't know where these slabs are, and how to find them? Of course they do. So, the abundance of available copies keeps those books in front of people's eyes, and keeps the flame of desire burning brightly, no less than that Christmas train set in the dept. store window, running day and night, did when you walked by with your mom as a kid. Every time you see it, it lights those neurons in your brain, and you "gotta have it." And as the prices of high grade copies has long since left the "new car" range for the "new house" range...and not just anywhere, but in the wealthiest areas in the world...now people scramble just to get ANY copy, because the tipping point of demand vs. available supply has been passed. And that is something that has never happened in comics history before. It COULD have happened...and WOULD have happened in the 90s...for Golden Age, if GA existed in any sort of real supply. By the way...the same thing is happening in coins, too. People, no longer able to afford a nice example, or even a decent example, are now spending $$$ for problem coins, just to own one.

Hey, price has been reduced to $35! You know...$35 to fill out my invoices...which can get realllllly laborious....isn't a bad deal!

Until a few days ago, I'd never seen nor heard of your posts.....(snip) Spoilered, so as not to disrupt this thread.

Well...with all those people getting books stabbed these days, I dunno... PS. That's the first post of yours I've ever liked.

I totally understand your issue, but I disagree. I think it's magnificent that that book survived in 9.8 all these years, and then has an authentic Stan sig on it. Before SS, I would have completely agreed with you. Since SS, though, which provides a mechanism of 99% surety that that book was signed by Stan...I love it. Creators sign their original art all the time...and by definition, only one piece exists. I appreciate, probably more than most, the total and completely random chance that a book survives in that grade from then until now. It's almost miraculous. Frankly, I think the people who get original art signed "to them" are guilty of a far, far worse crime. I've seen multiple pieces signed to collectors, who are mere caretakers of these pieces, like all of us, which I think is gross and disgusting...like this one: Who is this "John" guy, and why is he getting OA signed to him? Did he have anything to do with creating this piece, or is he just some guy who happened to own that page at one point?

For a real eye opener as to the seriousness and extent of the late 90s crash, check out what Overstreet did with all the values...of almost everything....between the 1997 and 1998 OPGs, in grades below "NM." Part of that was a long overdue correction on the difference between really high grade and everything else...but mostly, it was because the speculators ran for the hills. Interestingly enough...for the first time in the history of comics, that gap in value between really high grade and "everything else"....which widened from the 30s until the 10s...is now CLOSING, which is one of the factors which has made this market unprecedented. See Hulk #181. What does that mean...? Part of it is what valiantman said: lots of people giving up on owning a high grade copy, and shunning the common low grade copies, to obtain ANY copy, just to own a copy. This signals that, at least for the really key material, condition no longer is the divider between sought after and ignored, as it was for all of comics history previous. Here are some numbers for Hulk #181: 2009 high sale 9.8 = $26,501, high sale 8.0 = $1,043, a price differential of 25.4:1 2009 high sale 9.8 = $26,501, high sale 4.0 = $250, a price differential of 106:1 2018 high sale 9.8 = $27,739 (so far), high sale 8.0 = $5,100, a price differential of 5.4 2018 high sale 9.8 = $27,739, high sale 4.0 = $3500, a price differential of 7.9 Those price differential differences are absolutely astonishing.

Fall, or stagnate. Sure for some. I’m just not buying the scarcity argument. I’m seeing more of a FOMO phenomenon, which the market will ultimately correct. This...fear of missing out. It's what drove the early 90s run up, and what drives it now. "If I don't buy this today, tomorrow it'll be twice as much!!!" And...and this is an estimate, now...with a good 50% or more of the comics buying public having never lived through the early 90s boom and the mid to late 90s hard core crash...they don't have any direct experience with this. The only books that survived the late 90s crash were the keys in high grade, and most of Golden Age, which has always operated as a different market. It's not reflected on GPA, because GPA didn't exist, but Showcase New England...hardly a fly by night operation...ran an auction in mid 2001 on eBay, which contained (almost) every Marvel SA key, some slabbed. The FF #1 was raw, graded VG...sold for $800 and change. Also sold a CGC graded 4.5 AF #15...price? $2700 or thereabouts. Supply and demand can be an issue...there are more people than ever demanding comics right now...but the supply of almost all mainstream comics after 1960 is anything but scarce.

That is absolutely awesome. He wrote the book. I may be the only guy who appreciates that, but I do. If I had stupid money, I'd buy that in a heartbeat.

It's funny cuz it's true....

My FAVORITE.... That, and the ones you poured some sort of small colored plastic pebbles into, and they melted in the oven and made these "stained glass" type ornaments.

Not even slightly. I have actual, genuine discoveries under my belt. Why would anyone be jealous of claims of "discoveries" that are anything but? Good for you, However, that doesn't mean you discovered them. It's kinda like Columbus discovering America...the vikings had known about it for centuries. Getting something listed in the OPG is hardly the same thing as "discovering" them. As well...the MM #1 gold and blues were available, to the public, at SDCC in 1985. MM #1 was a big deal in 1985. No discovery there. No doubt, as a newb, you don't. However, it's pretty extensive. No he can't. 30 and 35 cent variants were listed IN THE GUIDE for nearly two decades before he "supposedly" discovered them. Here, look: That's the 1988 Overstreet Update, #7. See the listing for X-Men #98 and #99? Notice the "30 cent variant" notation...? EUREKA! I discovered them! See? They're right there! And NO, Jon McClure was NOT the "first to research them." He was just the first to make Overstreet aware of their scope. That's not the same thing as DISCOVERING them. Anyone who considers him to have "discovered" them is enabling credit theft. There's tons of stuff in the OPG that isn't listed. That doesn't mean they're undiscovered. When you actually discover books that are not previously known to have existed, get back to me. I have contributed more to these boards than 99% of the people who post here. If you're not aware of that, you're welcome to check out my posts. Until then, if you're going to claim to have "discovered" what many people were already aware of, which means you didn't discover them, then you ought to be prepared to be challenged. Nobody cares who worked at Overstreet for how long. All that matters are the facts.

Again..not at all sure how anyone could "DISCOVER" them when the MOS raffle edition was ANNOUNCED in the MOS mini. I'm pretty sure the first issue. The reason Blind Justice was known was because it was the only TPB of the series until "the real" TPB came out in 1992. I don't doubt that Overstreet didn't know about them. Bob doesn't care about modern books, and the OPG has been behind on that stuff for decades. MM #1 Gold was listed in the OPG in the early 90s; the blue was incorrectly listed as "silver", as you pointed out earlier. But collectors were well aware of these books, even if the OPG was not. I've owned my MOS raffle for a very long time. Same with my Blind Justice TPB. No doubt, they aren't on a lot of people's radar....but that doesn't mean nobody knew about them outside their owners. For anyone to claim credit to "discovering" something, it can't be something that others are already aware of. It's like Jon McClure pretending he "discovered" the 30/35 cent variants. He did not. Not even close. In fact, they'd been appearing, in scattered form, in the OPG for nearly 20 years before he "discovered" them.

Still not sure how you discovered the Man of Steel raffle edition, when there's a postcard insert in MOS announcing it. And the Blind Justice "giveaway" was in 1989, not 1992.

By the way...if anyone reading this has the opportunity, please ASK people like Paul Levitz if he knows how and why this program came about, or if he could direct you to someone who does know. People who are likely to know would be folks like Bruce Bristow, Paul Levitz, Bob Wayne, maybe Bob Rozakis. They may be able to point you in the right direction. They may think it's odd, but maybe not! Heh. Bob Wayne and Bruce Bristow both work for DC... heh.

That's the beauty of Hulk #1 and books like it. Eventually, the market is going to wake up (it already has, to an extent) and realize that restored books aren't toxic, and the slighter the resto, the closer to "universal" value the book should be. Apparently, this particular copy is pretty rough, but if the market will comes to its senses, it will realize that a couple of dots on the spine shouldnt mean a 90% reduction in value. I saw a GORGEOUS Hulk #1 that was perhaps a 6.0....but had dot dot dot along the spine. Nothing horrifying, just a little depressing. But it was otherwise a beautiful copy. I would be thrilled to own a copy like that. It will require CGC to become a bit more descriptive still, but it should be well worth it. A couple of dots of CT shouldn't cost more than perhaps 25%, whereas frankenbooks, where you can't tell what's original and what's recreation, ok...now we're in the 90-95% discount range.

Hi Mike!

You do realise my posts are up thread, right? Why would you even try to make such an easily disproven assertion? My comment was in response to the following statement by you - which I quoted:  Read what I wrote, carefully. It's all there. And I wasn't replying to you. It might help if you took more effort to preserve quote strings.

Nobody said they weren't. Here is what I said: Keep it up...

"Started" being the operative word...

He/she said they're filling out the CGC forum. That must mean they're a member!

It's powder coated. What more can you want?