RockMyAmadeus

What are you going to do? Crack out one of the slabbed ones already and resub for SS? The slabbed copies are the only ones in existence. And there's only 4 of them, right...?

I won't be happy until I have an SS copy of #8 variant signed by Berger.

There was someone selling the two packs last year sometime, but they weren't properly identified. Contained therein were the 4th and 5th print packs, along with other choice goodies. The 5th print pack sold for $26 and the 4th for $4.50 or so. Both to me.

Your life is like one big long box of drek, isn't it? Newb humor. I wasn't complaining, just illustrating a point. Some of the very best years of my life are in that time period. 'Cuz, you know, it's not all about the money, dig?

It blows my mind that the verbiage on the notes section of a CGC label...which isn't even part of the service, just a freebie bonus...means so much to so many people. I simply cannot fathom it. In my day, you knew what a Hulk #181 was, a New Mutants #87, a Man of Steel #18, a Spidey #194....you either knew it, or you learned it. Now...? :shrug: "But the CGC label note says X! I need it so say Y!! It has to say Y, or it's WORTHLESS to me!!" Back in the olden days, we just held up a copy of X-Men #244, and if someone asked why it was important, we just said "It's the first appearance of Jubilee!" I don't need a label note to tell me that Swamp Thing #37 is the first appearance of John Constantine. If you do...you should probably do a little more homework.

I may have been off on this one book but all of my other assesments were dead on.I do remember selling a sweet copy of this book for around $30, at a show, during that time period.I probably just got lucky buuut then again, as a rule of thumb, collectors will pay more for virtually any raw book at a show than on ebay for the simple fact that can be sure of what they're buying. I'll also say that it is nigh impossible to accurately gauge market prices fr raw books in 1999 for the very same reason: Collectors don't want to get softly graded books through the mail.Waiting a week after you've paid then winding up with a book that looked better in the scan aaaand then having to send the book back, usually at their own expense. Here's a good bit of advice: before you tell someone what they post is "nonsense", you might make sure you have all of your ducks in a row first, and your arguments are unassailable, or someone will invariably find the leaks and exploit them. You don't know who I am, and I don't know who you are. Fair enough, and no one expects you to. But, you've been here a month and a half...and this board is, in my opinion, the deepest, broadest, most experienced and intellectually gifted "comics" board that exists. The depth and breadth of knowledge and experience here puts everything else to shame. No one...not me, not you, not anyone...can post questionable comments and not be challenged. And no one is immune. If your facts are in order, no problem...if they're not...beware! In any event, the point about eBay is this: whether you believe it wasn't representative of the market as a whole...and, at that early stage, it certainly wasn't, though it was making those serious inroads I mentioned earlier...the point was this: if a person could buy Book X for $Y on eBay, then that's what the market was for that person, for that book, at that time. And, since most buyers do NOT buy multiple copies of books, once that item is obtained, they are no longer in the market FOR that item...which means a seller trying to sell it for $Y +$Z isn't going to be able to sell it to that buyer. The market isn't, and never has been, about asking prices. It's about what the buyer pays. And, the idea that customers were as grade sensitive in 1999 as you are suggesting...nothing could be further from the truth. Don't misunderstand: there have ALWAYS been buyers, ALWAYS, who were sensitive to grades. But, prior to CGC, they were a tiny, tiny minority of buyers. No one knew, because no one COULD know, what the minute differences in grade would bring in regards to price differences, because CGC didn't exist. If 1 buyer out of 1,000 cared enough about grades to really have an issue with overgrading in 1998, 1999, 2000...I would be surprised. I used to get, all the time, the excuse of "well, no one's ever complained about my grading before!"...and they were mostly correct! No one DID complain about grading, because it just wasn't *that* important to *that* many people before CGC. I was one of those super-anal, super-picky buyers, and retailers all over the SF Bay Area got pissed at me because I would be so picky about books, grabbing a stack of 40 and spending much time examining every single copy...I did this for several years. No one else cared. People thought I was crazy...but I have a couple of years' worth of mostly worthless books that are, nevertheless, 9.8s and better. But in 1991, no one, including me, knew if such pickiness would ever matter. And I was the very, very rare duck. So, would you have sold a "sweet copy" of New Mutants #98 to someone for $30 in 1999...? I guess anything's possible, but that customer would have been incredibly rare, and massively overpaid. The book was, in all likelihood, no better than a 9.8, and 9.8s are still quite common. And, interestingly enough, you can see the remnants of this outlook/attitude/philosophy even today: when a buyer buys a "CGC X.X", and the book has quite obviously been overgraded by CGC, do they send the book back? Do they care? No, of course not. All that matters is the number in the upper left hand corner. So, did buyers pay MORE for books they could look at in person? Hard to say. Some did, sure. But the vast, vast majority? No. It didn't matter then. Hardly anyone knew the difference between what would BECOME an average 9.8 and an average 9.4, and they didn't care. So long as it didn't have multiple color breaks on the spine, or a big ol' crease...good enough. A "near mint" was the same price, whether it was a "what would become" 9.8, or 9.0. And if you could get a copy that was acceptable to you for $17 on eBay...why would anyone pay $45 for it from a dealer's wall, at a store or con? That's exactly how eBay became eBay.

Reading. Hold on, young Padawan. Calvary's coming. Cavalry!

Be sure to put "first Captain America" in the auction title so there will be something new to talk about. I don't think anyone would buy that. 1st Bucky, though...

Seeing how far the key Valiant books had fallen from their mid-1990s highs, I'm not sure if "propped up" is the right description... You know I'm talking about us, right...? You, me, Pete, Anthony, Dino, etc? By "propped up", I mean, "made sure Harby #1 didn't sell for 99 cents." That's true. I probably would have "propped them up" even more if people had bid me to my max on a lot of those books. I would OFTEN win books for below my max, even before automated sniping started. So... I was willing to pay more, it's just that no one made me. Nice edit per my edit... I wasn't willing to pay more. I was angry that I hadn't bought more in 1991-92, and even angrier when I didn't cash in before everything crashed. Plus, Turok #1. I *did* manage to sell a complete pre-Unity set to a store for $350 or so in 9/93...which was an absolute fraction of what they had sold for in the spring. If I'd just set up a table somewhere. I think I bought back my copies from that store in 1997-98 or so for $1 each. So, I wasn't about to pay a premium for any of these books...and I managed to assemble quite the hoards myself, as you know. Still have my last 9.8 Harby #1 double signed by Jim and JJ. That was from the Mile High hoard. I wish I'd gotten to that Harby lot that John got a hold of, before he turned it into a project. Did you bid on the Petrilak lot, or were you not interested because it was everything? I got an e-mail from someone within minutes of me being the high bid, asking for Turok #47. What's the old advice about investing? "Go where they ain't"? That's what some of us crazy kids were doing. Greggy just gets to cash in earlier than we do because his books are older. I'm still working on that overnight-get-rich-quick scheme I've been accused of... since 1997. You can still laugh at me for sitting on (so far) at least 6 9.8 Harby #1s while they were selling for $2500.

More silly madness. On a related note, why, why, WHY would anyone sub this?? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Captain-America-275-CGC-2-5-GD-Universal-CGC-1002843012-/201056774107?pt=US_Comic_Books&hash=item2ecfeae7db

Seeing how far the key Valiant books had fallen from their mid-1990s highs, I'm not sure if "propped up" is the right description... You know I'm talking about us, right...? You, me, Pete, Anthony, Dino, etc? By "propped up", I mean, "made sure Harby #1 didn't sell for 99 cents." I'm well aware that you drove up bids against me that caused me to pay more for books than I probably should have...and vice versa. Hell, Greggy practically ran the tables on high grade Bronze on eBay during the same period.

If I was clever and resourceful like Flee, I would do a Harley Yee and Harley Quinn team-up....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/INCREDIBLE-HULK-181-CGC-SS-Signed-Stan-Lee-amp-by-Artists-1st-WOLVERINE-UNRESTORED-/331305136090?_trksid=p2054897.l4275

Yes, this is always very good advice, no matter how many times it is mentioned. Quick question, though...would "Results vary widely", with absolutely no definitions or examples of just how "widely" those results "varied", be considered an example of someone presenting their opinion as fact...? We wouldn't want people to be unduly swayed by mere opinion, after all, right?

Um. Just about everyone on the Valiantfans board...? The real question is, how many people can say they held all 40 copies of the Magnus #0 first fan project? "amok"

I have some in my backyard.

I agree with your sediments. I think they're a bit sandy, myself.

Some of the dates were a bit off, but the gist was there. Everything Pre-Z is hard for me to remember, because I wasn't directly involved. It is a shame that the history of 2002-2004 is lost. But the main point is, there wasn't a Valiant Comics message board for kimik to have been a part of "well before 2002." Easter eggs! Make that two books: Chaos Effect Alpha Red. But yes, Unity Red was Petrilak's favorite book of all time. It was the one and only book missing from his "complete listing of every Acclaim/Valiant" eBay listing of Dec 30, 1999 (which I won for $1,000...I'd probably have done better to never have seen it.) I remember what what's her face was selling Harby #0 pinks for $15...and I scoffed at the price. I want to say 2003? The Valiant market was singlehandedly propped up by 5-10 guys from 1998-2002. I bought a Unity Red for $20 at one point, but I don't remember when. I've only owned 5-6 copies. Harby #0 has always been the magical book for me.

What do you mean, "your" argument...?

FTFY You get no disagreement from me on that.

I have no idea how to respond to this, on any level. :shrug:

Not true (except for very few scans), but people aren't interested in an in-depth discussion, so I'll just say that.

I'm just waiting for Legends #6 to take off again. It was a helluva book back when the "new" Justice League was hotter than Georgia asphalt in August, and it's wildly undervalued now. If the "new" incarnation of the SS can get a bump, so can the "new" incarnation of the JL (which was far, far, FAR superior to Suicide Squad...leaps and bounds better. If you've never red Giffen and DeMatteis' JL run...you're missing out, man!)

I remember Dragon Lady Comics! And I remember Lange's! That Livonia collection was sweet! And these guys could grade. I'd bet more than one of us bought their '9.2' s and got 9.8s. And, yeah, your broad brush stroke thesis that copper was cheap from 1996 to the early 2000's (and, in many cases, beyond) is dead on. (thumbs u We can debate whether book X sold for $10 or $15 in 2000, but the underlying statement that copper books were cheap is dead on. I just wish I'd bought a Turtles 1 like you did.

RMA, you wrote: Imagine: any copper book, all of them, for $5 or less. Every. Single. One. We know that was not the case either. Does that put a dagger through your arguments as well? You both got some data wrong. Picking on one data point from either's arguments seems... counterproductive. No, not at all. My original post, which you didn't quote in its entirety, was hyperbole to make a broader point (made clear by the fact that I "contradicted" that statement myself in that post), and CAK's post was a serious response using a literal example, meant to be taken literally. Pretty basic. I'd be happy to expand upon this, if you're interested.