Stefan_W

I used the hand grenade method of most of my guesses in this round where I just lobbed it into the area and hoped to get lucky.

This is basically a trust issue - trust that the auctions run by a site are completely fair. I believe it all comes down to who has access to the max bids and whether they are inclined to ever share that info. It would need to be pretty high level access to the system used by the site, so someone either at or near an ownership level for system access or else programmers who maintain the site. Site owners stake their entire business on running fair auctions so I have a hard time wrapping my brain around someone taking risks like that, but of course it takes all kinds to fill a freeway. I dont have a horse in this particular race since I dont use CC. There is no doubt in my mind that CL and MCS are completely fair based on my own experience so I stick with what I know and trust.

I think ease of re-selling is an important part of investing in collectables. In the OP's example, the AF15 will always be in demand although he will likely have to take it to auction when it is time to sell (very few locals will have a pile of cash that big sitting around) so the commissions and selling fees would eat into the appreciation of the book over time. I cant speak to the Pokemon cards. When I invest in comics I am very aware that if I pass away tomorrow the boxes of raws sitting in my basement will fetch very little for my family - some local dealer will come along and offer my wife 50-100 bucks a box and she will likely take it because it is easy for her to get rid of them that way. I did make an instruction sheet of who to contact and where to send the slabs so they can be sold off, and I asked a trusted friend to help her out with this. I have also tried to invest in comics with good re-sale potential to help avoid negative surprises where the comics sent in for auction only bring in a small fraction of what I said they are worth. Maybe it is just because I am older now, but these conversations about the estate (in this case the comic part of it) are important.

I'm in! Thanks again for running these

Unpopular opinion 1: X-Men 94 is one of the most poorly written comics ever. The ones that come closet to the title are single digit Avengers comics. Unpopular opinion 2: Hulk 181 is the most overpriced book out there. Although some serious collectors love it, there are a gazillion copies available and the value is continually propped up by people on the fringes of the hobby who think Wolverine is cool because they recognize him as cool from the first X-Men movies.

Not an overgrade but I figured y'all would enjoy how someone in my community offended Star Wars and Star Trek fans at the same time.

It takes two or three minutes to get a sticker off so definitely removable, but they are a pain. I think they moved away from this. I only had a couple of books with stickers in the last few batches I received and I assume those were put on in past auctions.

By buying the book and checking out the back when it arrives.

The books came back from CGC and the cases were all flawless. Here is the video of the unboxing that I promised in case anyone is interested. It helps if you click the "Watch on YouTube" icon at the bottom left of the video to open it from there (otherwise it does not count as a view).

I've seen many books where the lower grade was doing better prior to the end of an auction. Aside from the eye appeal that others already noted, people have budgets and more people can afford books in a lower grades than the higher grade/cost ones. In some cases the extra people drives the bidding up earlier. When this happens it always corrects at the end unless the books appear in totally different parts of the auction and end days apart (which is not he case here). In general, where books are sitting a week before an auction ends means little to nothing.

The buyer premium on Heritage is 20% and people factor that into the cost of the book, so you get 20% less right off the top before their seller fees. Unless you have big enough books to negotiate the selling fees they are pretty brutal. It really is pick your poison when it comes to selling through auction houses. Ebay charges 15% but you have to deal with buyers potentially not paying things or returning them for no reason. CL sale are often pretty low especially for Moderns (aside from UF 4, EoSV 2, Nyx 3, and books like that) but their selling fees are also low. Heritage sets the value bar but you get kicked in the nads with all the fees. And then people try to sell books directly in person with no fees, and charge full GPA thinking that is value so that is what they should be getting....

Yeah, I press my own books. IMO, the trick for crack and re-subs with moderns is getting the 9.8 premium. I regularly get books that are 9.0-9.4 into the 9.4/9.6 range but after the cost of grading the increase in value is minimal with getting 9.8 bumps. Even though I got a bump in 12 books with only 3 staying the same and no drops I still will be only a small amount above breaking even because only one book hit 9.8.

The grades for my latest submission of crack and resubs are in and I did well - 12 grade bumps and another 3 where the grade stayed the same. I will either post pics or a link to the video once FedEx gets them back here. The biggest bump was an ASM 238 new stand that was originally an 8.0 and I got it up to a 9.4.

The fee is probably because Paypal charges a fee for G&S transactions but no fee for F&F. Since there is no commission that cost would have to be eaten by Collector's Comics which would make absolutely no sense. There is a world of difference between not making any money and losing money.

Switched to QC first things this AM - Aug 21 Marked as shipping mid afternoon - Aug 22 Shipping date is marked for tomorrow but hoping I get lucky and it is picked up today.

Yup. I once won a book in an auction, paid for it, and had them hold it for the next time around to maximize shipping (I only won two books). The timing was great and that book spiked like crazy so I asked them to roll it into the next auction instead. They rolled it and I made a tidy profit even after the 10% fee.

I am not finding any deals to bid on there which is a great sign for sellers. I am considering sending a few books in to them to auction off just to see what happens.

The submission is still sitting at G/E/I but it was graded. I know this because I was dinged with an extra charge on one of the books - they bumped it to high value. That is the type of added charge I love seeing

So many options in our local buy and sell to pick from for this topic. Here is one of my favourites but there are so many others just like this.

Modern regular track submission with 21 books: Dropped off at FedEx way up here in Canada - July 27 Arrived at CGC - Aug 2 Box opened and SFG - Aug 14 G/E/I - Aug 18 Note that when I submitted I used Greg's posts to come up with an estimate of Aug 14th for when this would flip to G/E/I, and it ended up being exactly correct. That was really helpful to me.

Same. I am giving them a miss this auction and probably for the next few auctions as well. I hate giving up 2k worth of books and not even being able to pull off a 1k purchase in return.

I know a few people who started collecting Goldens and it is mostly because they view them as a more secure comic investment. The ones I know are mostly middle aged, but there are definitely a few older gentlemen with white hair that are on the prowl for them at local shows. Some started before the pandemic, but the majority that I personally know started when prices of other books were bouncing up and down like crazy during and after the comic boom. They like to point out that while moderns especially, but also silvers, shot up in value before the prices corrected, Golden Age books were more of a straight line in terms of value. I think the logic is basically ok although a little flawed (e.g., a lot of GA books did not bounce in value simple because there are so few sales). When looking for hold books that will appreciate in value over the next couple of decades you can certainly do worse.

Thinking about this, I would add that there is sometimes a cumulative effect where if I lose a few books I really want in a row I get frustrated and end up over bidding for one later in the auction. This has happened a few times to me, but one that stands out is I was trying to nab a few books along with an X-Men 50 at a CL auction during the comic boom. I kept missing out on everything so right near the end of the auction I put in a crazy bid for a 9.2 copy and it ended up making Comic Tom's list that week (see attached image of the sale). That is definitely not a list I ever wanted to be on. To add one more dimension to that story, I sold a ton of books that were previously very low value at that auction. For example, a couple of Star Wars books that I had in my bins priced at $5 each were spiking so I sent them in through CL and ended up with 9.8 on both, which represented $1500 in seed cash after CL took their 10%. I felt like money had no value at that auction because I fed books into it that I probably paid less than $200 in total for and ended up with thousands in credit to spend. The trouble was that everything was going high and I had a hard time spending it. Anyway, long story short even though I made Comic Ton's list with a crazy high buying price the context is I had very little actual cash invested in the purchase. When I kept striking out on books I wanted more it meant nothing to me at the time that I overpaid for this one.

My modern regular submission was delivered on Aug 2nd and entered into the system day before yesterday so it should not be too much longer for yours.

My current submission that is SFG is also no longer clickable as of yesterday. Maybe it is just a glitch.