RockMyAmadeus

1977 was not pre-Direct market. In fact, by 1977, the Direct market had been in place for about 2-2.5 years. Really? Then what was the first Direct Market Comic Book? Your question isn't clear. There isn't any such thing as the "first Direct market comic book", because Marvel & DC didn't just pick a single book. There is, however, a first Direct market ONLY book, which was Dazzler #1.

There is a slight premium for the run of the mill pedigrees. There's a couple auctions Ive been watching where they seem to command 10-25%. The FP 1 Twin Cities 9.8 commanded a premium to the 9.8 that sold on connect. $1675 vs $1400 roughly. The Dr Strange 172 BG pedigree in the comiclink summer feature has already set the all time high for the book with 7 days left in the auction. They do add some value. How much is up for debate. In these two cases the pedigree copy is also the highest graded, which probably makes it the most desirable. Not all of them add value. It exists for some, but for all intents and purposes, it's been replaced by the slab, outside of the "famous" Peds. How has CGC taken the place of pedigrees? And what are the pedigrees that fall outside your "famous" criteria? See explanation in a post above. So the slab replaced the function of the pedigree? So the history of the pedigree becomes irrelevant? What world do you live in? 1. Yes. 2. No. 3. And this one. My question for you is: when will you be able to disagree about things, and discuss things, without being insulting? If you disagree with me, clearly and reasonably state why, without the snide commentary. Is that really that hard?

There is a slight premium for the run of the mill pedigrees. There's a couple auctions Ive been watching where they seem to command 10-25%. The FP 1 Twin Cities 9.8 commanded a premium to the 9.8 that sold on connect. $1675 vs $1400 roughly. The Dr Strange 172 BG pedigree in the comiclink summer feature has already set the all time high for the book with 7 days left in the auction. They do add some value. How much is up for debate. In these two cases the pedigree copy is also the highest graded, which probably makes it the most desirable. Not all of them add value. It exists for some, but for all intents and purposes, it's been replaced by the slab, outside of the "famous" Peds. You are an intelligent man. If the pedigree commands a premium in these two examples, it certainly doesn't detract from the marketability of a scarce, yet heralded, Bronze Age book that was auctioned as a second highest graded copy. That $879 sale of the 100 Page #5 is an embarrassment. You are about to witness several books surpass the Danielle Steele novel, as IM 55 very clearly already has. Once again, there is no defense here. There is enough data to show this is an easy easy easy easy call yet you continue to defend the #5. Let it go, man. If you want romance study French, drink wine, watch Eat Pray Love and read poetry. A better case could be made for the ASM 129, which surprisingly is showing some recent strength due to the first appearance of the Jackal. Take it up with Overstreet. No need for flattery. You cannot make an argument based on 4 sales in 10 years, no matter how you wish to try. Take care. 2 sales in 3 years. Pedigree copies. I can make a pretty good argument. If you don't want to hear it then you should not have said it belongs on the list. This book is the Four Color #9 of the Bronze Age It clearly belongs on the list.

1977 was not pre-Direct market. In fact, by 1977, the Direct market had been in place for about 2-2.5 years.

This is an interesting point and one that deserves greater analysis, The question as to whether Wolvie made the X-Men more popular or vice versa is not a simple one to answer. However, you raise a question that goes to the heart of the how the greatest BA creation differs from those of the Golden and Silver Ages. Interestingly, while Wolverine is one of the 4 greatest comic book characters ever created, he is unlike Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man since they developed in a more "individualized" context. Each developed in their own books over a period of time while Wolverine "grew up" within the X-Men team. Not until Frank Miller's limited series in 1982 did Wolverine get his own book. Concurrently, the X-Men grew into the most popular superhero team of the latter part of the 20th Century. The Marvel Age of Mutants was really an era where the X-Men and Wolverine led comics into the next century. Only Punisher came close to rivaling them during the late 80s. The BA not only gave rise to the 4th great comic book superhero but one unlike the prior 3, an antihero who simultaneously relied on a team of heroes where they all developed together. Wolverine is special in the history of comics. Wolvie did NOT "make the X-Men popular." As was discussed in CG a while back, Wolverine was just one of the gang, for a good 8-10 years after the new X-Men came about. It is no secret that Claremont and Cockrum were about to ditch Wolverine altogether, and it was Byrne...3 years into the run...who saved him. From 1975-1978, no one cared about the X-Men. From 1978-1982-ish, it was THE X-MEN. Wolverine was just part of the whole. The X-Men as a UNIT was the dominating force in comics from about 1981 to about 1985. But it was the X-MEN, not "Wolverine & The X-Men." It didn't become WOLVERINE (occasionally featuring the other X-Men) until a little after issue #200, in 1985-1986. Good examples of why it's not an easy question to answer. It is an easy question to answer: without the X-Men, Wolverine would be a one-off 70's character, the kind that Marvel pumped out by the bucketful. The X-Men made Wolverine, not the other way around.

There is a slight premium for the run of the mill pedigrees. There's a couple auctions Ive been watching where they seem to command 10-25%. The FP 1 Twin Cities 9.8 commanded a premium to the 9.8 that sold on connect. $1675 vs $1400 roughly. The Dr Strange 172 BG pedigree in the comiclink summer feature has already set the all time high for the book with 7 days left in the auction. They do add some value. How much is up for debate. In these two cases the pedigree copy is also the highest graded, which probably makes it the most desirable. Not all of them add value. It exists for some, but for all intents and purposes, it's been replaced by the slab, outside of the "famous" Peds. How has CGC taken the place of pedigrees? And what are the pedigrees that fall outside your "famous" criteria? See explanation in a post above.

There is a slight premium for the run of the mill pedigrees. There's a couple auctions Ive been watching where they seem to command 10-25%. The FP 1 Twin Cities 9.8 commanded a premium to the 9.8 that sold on connect. $1675 vs $1400 roughly. The Dr Strange 172 BG pedigree in the comiclink summer feature has already set the all time high for the book with 7 days left in the auction. They do add some value. How much is up for debate. In these two cases the pedigree copy is also the highest graded, which probably makes it the most desirable. Not all of them add value. It exists for some, but for all intents and purposes, it's been replaced by the slab, outside of the "famous" Peds. You are an intelligent man. If the pedigree commands a premium in these two examples, it certainly doesn't detract from the marketability of a scarce, yet heralded, Bronze Age book that was auctioned as a second highest graded copy. That $879 sale of the 100 Page #5 is an embarrassment. You are about to witness several books surpass the Danielle Steele novel, as IM 55 very clearly already has. Once again, there is no defense here. There is enough data to show this is an easy easy easy easy call yet you continue to defend the #5. Let it go, man. If you want romance study French, drink wine, watch Eat Pray Love and read poetry. A better case could be made for the ASM 129, which surprisingly is showing some recent strength due to the first appearance of the Jackal. Take it up with Overstreet. No need for flattery. You cannot make an argument based on 4 sales in 10 years, no matter how you wish to try. Take care.

This is an interesting point and one that deserves greater analysis, The question as to whether Wolvie made the X-Men more popular or vice versa is not a simple one to answer. However, you raise a question that goes to the heart of the how the greatest BA creation differs from those of the Golden and Silver Ages. Interestingly, while Wolverine is one of the 4 greatest comic book characters ever created, he is unlike Superman, Batman, and Spider-Man since they developed in a more "individualized" context. Each developed in their own books over a period of time while Wolverine "grew up" within the X-Men team. Not until Frank Miller's limited series in 1982 did Wolverine get his own book. Concurrently, the X-Men grew into the most popular superhero team of the latter part of the 20th Century. The Marvel Age of Mutants was really an era where the X-Men and Wolverine led comics into the next century. Only Punisher came close to rivaling them during the late 80s. The BA not only gave rise to the 4th great comic book superhero but one unlike the prior 3, an antihero who simultaneously relied on a team of heroes where they all developed together. Wolverine is special in the history of comics. Wolvie did NOT "make the X-Men popular." As was discussed in CG a while back, Wolverine was just one of the gang, for a good 8-10 years after the new X-Men came about. It is no secret that Claremont and Cockrum were about to ditch Wolverine altogether, and it was Byrne...3 years into the run...who saved him. From 1975-1978, no one cared about the X-Men. From 1978-1982-ish, it was THE X-MEN. Wolverine was just part of the whole. The X-Men as a UNIT was the dominating force in comics from about 1981 to about 1985. But it was the X-MEN, not "Wolverine & The X-Men." It didn't become WOLVERINE (occasionally featuring the other X-Men) until a little after issue #200, in 1985-1986.

Your inexperience with using GPA doesn't validate your point. Hint: click the grade. No. There are many, MANY dealers who do not slab books at ALL. And there are many dealers who "play the grades", by keeping books raw that could go one way or another, hoping that the customer thinks they'll go the other. Again...CGC has slabbed over 2 million comic books. That number represents less than half the print run (and, likely extant copies) of Adventures of Superman #500 alone. I didn't think to click on the pedigree 9.2 so I guess that means my argument is invalid. No, it means you weren't arguing from the data. You really need to stop with the "trending" business for books that are represented by less than 5 sales on GPA in 10 years. ALL of you. Less than five sales in 10 years does NOT a trend make. Sorry to disappoint you, but that's the way it is. And could you please point out the "put down" that I made....? If you're going to be confrontational and dismissive, there's really no point in continuing the discussion with you. I didn't "avoid' IM #55; I simply don't care enough to check it out. That's not avoidance, that's apathy, and topic weariness. I don't want to endlessly debate why you think the OPG Top 10 list is wrong, and THIS book should be in, and THAT book should be out, and THIS book over here should be higher than that one. It's mind numbing. Just because someone doesn't address every single little point you make doesn't mean they are "avoiding" those points. It's not an IRS audit, here, it's a discussion. Lighten up, Francis. If you are going to accuse me of making straw-man arguments, 1. you'd better know exactly what they are, and 2. you'd best be able to point them out if I make them (and you will be hard pressed to find a single one in my 38,000+ posts here. Straw-man arguments are for the intellectually weak and dishonest. They are utter wastes of space, useful only for advancing propaganda, which is why they are used so often on message boards.) What is with you people, and your utter inability to discuss things without becoming emotionally charged up about it...?

This, I think, is indisputable even for hardcore Starwars or Cerebus fans. What does Cerebus have to do with this...? You're not still trying to argue from the perspective that the only reason anyone challenges Hulk #181's value is because they are a "hardcore Cerebus fan", are you...?

There is a slight premium for the run of the mill pedigrees. There's a couple auctions Ive been watching where they seem to command 10-25%. The FP 1 Twin Cities 9.8 commanded a premium to the 9.8 that sold on connect. $1675 vs $1400 roughly. The Dr Strange 172 BG pedigree in the comiclink summer feature has already set the all time high for the book with 7 days left in the auction. They do add some value. How much is up for debate. In these two cases the pedigree copy is also the highest graded, which probably makes it the most desirable. Not all of them add value. It exists for some, but for all intents and purposes, it's been replaced by the slab, outside of the "famous" Peds.

And Hulk #181 is not the most important book of the Bronze Age. Sorry Wolvie fans, but that honor still goes to GSXM #1. Hulk #181 is the most important single character intro...but without GSXM #1, Wolvie is a one-off.

Just so everyone is on the same page "pedigree" doesn't mean anything nearly that it did 15 or even 10 years ago. The point of pedigrees as selling points was that people were reasonably assured...not guaranteed, of course, but reasonably assured...that the book they were getting was actually high grade, mostly unfiddled with, and usually fairly fresh. CGC took the place of the position of pedigrees, and as a result, the purpose and function of a pedigree as a selling point has been replaced by the slab. So...premiums for pedigrees, unless we're talking about Church, Allentown, Pacific Coast, etc, don't really exist any more.

Your inexperience with using GPA doesn't validate your point. Hint: click the grade. No. There are many, MANY dealers who do not slab books at ALL. And there are many dealers who "play the grades", by keeping books raw that could go one way or another, hoping that the customer thinks they'll go the other. Again...CGC has slabbed over 2 million comic books. That number represents less than half the print run (and, likely extant copies) of Adventures of Superman #500 alone.

People...all of you reading this....if you don't understand this yet, you really need to understand it now, because it's paramount: Slabbed comic books only make a *tiny* percentage of the amount of comic books sold annually. And of that tiny percentage, only a *fraction* of those sales are reported at GPA This is the CGC board, so obviously views here tend to be a bit myopic, but that is a truth. And yes, we look at GPA a lot, because that's the only really concrete data we have. But it's not the big picture, by a very, very long shot. Overstreet covers THE ENTIRE market (and many have claimed that the OPG only covers RAW books, but I think it's safe to say that ship sailed a few years ago.) There are literally millions and millions of sales of books, slabbed or not, that are not recorded at GPA. You have to understand and accept that, and stop going to GPA as if it is the end-all, be-all of pricing data. It's not. Yes, for frequently traded books like Hulk #181, Spidey #129, Spidey #300, New Mutants #98 it presents about as clear a picture as there can be. But for books with 5 sales in 10 years? No, it's not adequate, and it doesn't begin to paint the whole picture.

Now you've done it,you're poking the bear. Oakman-Who has a 9.4 and 9.2 IH 181 still thinks Cerebus is a cooler book. Iron Man 55 & Marvel Preview 7 both more valuable than the 100 Page 5. No emotion at play here, but with the data we have available both these books are more expensive in 9.2. In the case of IM 55 it isn't really all that close. ASM 121 is also gaining rapid momentum as is the Marvel Preview 4. That last pedigree sale of the 100 Pager is the proverbial nail in the coffin. I don't care about the 9.4's because they are the highest graded copies. To quote the bear himself that isn't comparing apples to apples. An 8.5 copy of this book recently tanked at $335, but I'm not concerned about that either. I know this book is a dog from a speculative prospective. There is a direct correlation between hits on xvideos and the price decline of 100 Page #5. No reasonable person can argue otherwise! MP #7 isn't involved in this discussion, as it had much less worth in 2013. We're not talking about current data. We're talking about a list that covers 2013. Why did you ignore the $1135 sale from earlier in 2011, but included the "last sale" at $876? Do we just pick and choose from information available to suit our arguments....? And...AGAIN...as has been said over and over and over again, slabbed comics sales are only one avenue that Overstreet uses to gather data and compile information. Let's not make the same poorly reasoned arguments as the others, huh?

I think, more than anything, that's precisely the thing which people cannot agree upon. Which is a ridiculous argument, because it's personal preference, and there is no arguing against personal preference. For the record, since it's been brought up by others, I like BOTH characters equally well...but while I have owned 3-4 Hulk #181s, they always end up for sale. My Cerebus #1s? I've owned them for closing on 10 years. I know which book is harder to get. That's the real problem in this entire thread: people wanting to convince everyone else that Wolverine is a cooler character, which no one has ever disputed. But these people are personally offended that Cerebus #1 is more valuable than Hulk #181 in 9.2 and above, which is irrational. Many more people care about and want IH181.. it is far the more liquid asset. Not under dispute.

I think, more than anything, that's precisely the thing which people cannot agree upon. Which is a ridiculous argument, because it's personal preference, and there is no arguing against personal preference. For the record, since it's been brought up by others, I like BOTH characters equally well...but while I have owned 3-4 Hulk #181s, they always end up for sale. My Cerebus #1s? I've owned them for closing on 10 years. I know which book is harder to get. That's the real problem in this entire thread: people wanting to convince everyone else that Wolverine is a cooler character, which no one has ever disputed. But these people are personally offended that Cerebus #1 is more valuable than Hulk #181 in 9.2 and above, which is irrational. Again, cerebus 1 does NOT trade higher than hulk 181 in a 9.2. Throw Overstreet out the door on that my friend. And you have sold your hulk 181's precisely because you could. They are an easy sale when you need the money and if you buy right you can turn in a profit with a short holding period. As others have stated... they are a highly liquid asset. Cerebus 1.....not so much. -J. I didn't say Cerebus #1 "traded" higher than Hulk #181 in 9.2, because the data doesn't support it. I said it is worth more in 9.2. And, it is. The rest of your post is incorrect.

Oh, and 100 Page #5 belongs quite comfortably on that list.

I think, more than anything, that's precisely the thing which people cannot agree upon. Which is a ridiculous argument, because it's personal preference, and there is no arguing against personal preference. For the record, since it's been brought up by others, I like BOTH characters equally well...but while I have owned 3-4 Hulk #181s, they always end up for sale. My Cerebus #1s? I've owned them for closing on 10 years. I know which book is harder to get. That's the real problem in this entire thread: people wanting to convince everyone else that Wolverine is a cooler character, which no one has ever disputed. But these people are personally offended that Cerebus #1 is more valuable than Hulk #181 in 9.2 and above, which is irrational.

No doubt. A 7.0 #4 35 center sold for $1200 in March.

Some observations: 1. It is difficult to grade a book by scans. As a result, the PGM forum has historically *undergraded* books. This is a well known fact to board members who have been here for a long while. There are psychological reasons involved, too, that needn't be gotten into here. 2. No one has to agree with the grades given in the PGM thread, but a seller needs to be consistent in his/her assigned grades. A book isn't a "CGC boards 4.0" and an "eBay 5.5." That harkens back to the bad old days.

If you think spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on pulp and ink is ridiculous, then doing the same on sneakers will blow your mind. As long as no one is collecting socks... Underpants, man, underpants is where it's at... 1. Collect underpants. 2. 3. Profit.

Annual #3. Deadpool's second appearance doesn't move the needle despite NM #98 being so hot (we point copies of X-Force #2 out to kids who drool over NM #98 when we do shows, and we can't even sell them at $5). I can't think of any Copper second appearances that have broken out; maybe there are some but I can't think of any. Why would second Nightwing be a big deal over any other second appearance? X-Force #2 had a print run at, or over, a million copies. So, there's a bit of a supply factor involved. But yes, the "second appearance" has taken a nosedive in popularity, across the board. Where second, third, fourth appearances used to command respectable money (like, say, Legion of Supes, or Batman, as a classic example, or J'onn J'onzz, or much of Showcase and B&B)...now, if it's not a first appearance, everyone turns their nose up at it. Which either may herald a buying opportunity, or the end of the value of later appearances. Supply is absolutely a factor, no doubt. But the people we show X-Force #2s to at shows aren't disinterested because they already own it, they just don't seem to care about his second appearance. And these are kids who are looking at our NM #98s like they are AF #15s, and they aren't motivated to pick up a NM second appearance of the same character for $5. That tells me that if its not the first appearance they couldn't care less. One thing leads to another.. I betcha IF the upcoming X-Force movie comes out, and people decide to hoard on NM100/XF#1 and only offer copies on eBay for 100$ or over, you'd have the same kid sweating these books at your upcoming show. That's just how trends are, Supply means nothing when it comes to WHAT THE MARKET DECIDES Supply means everything. It is supply AND demand. If you're saying "the supply would be outstripped by the demand", then that's a valid point, but supply never means "nothing."