Conacon

Goldballs! Karma when she was possessed by the Shadow King. The Slug (thank Nomad for putting him out of our misery). 

I'm going to say Volcana, Molecule Man's main squeeze, but I'll be the first to admit 1985 me did not think she was overweight, even though they use that as her motivation to join Doom's bad guys in Secret Wars. 

Who's the fat clown from Spawn?

The double cover was labeled as such. I picked up a few that had the fold. As a kid, I was too young for they way they used to mail comics. I remember my GI Joes making it to us pretty much flat and never too banged up. 

We were only in the area visiting family, so I don't imagine I'll be back that way anytime soon. Next time we're in town, that'll be our comic stop! There were four people working and all four greeted me and offered help as I browsed. Their merchandise selection is crazy!

Well now that you've said it out loud, and this being CGC's forum, I'd say "no way, that might be considered unethical!" 

Now with my hand to the side of my mouth and in a whispering tone, "who would know?" In your case, anyway, since it looks like the rust is minor and not on the paper yet.

I'm definitely a small game hunter, so $125 is a significant bet for what looks like a small return. Before meeting, I spent an hour or two checking sales on ebay. I ran the numbers at "worst case scenario" (little did I know worst case was actually far worse) and then at 6.0-7.0 range. I came out with $450 to $1,950 so I felt the upside was worth a meet. 

I've stepped away from the edge now, thank you. 

Comics have been a hobby since I was old enough to have a hobby. Somewhere around '85, the parents bought us a collectors kit for beginners that included a long box, bags, and a "grab bag" of random comics. From there, I've been an on and off collector (I skipped the mid-90's completely). Now with a growing family, I've pared down my pull list to a few titles and I try not to pick up much else for the PC. Most of my buying now if for my side hustle. I've been fortunate this year with hunting down cheap deals at flea markets and antique stores and flipping them on Ebay. I've turned a lot of $2 buys into $20 sells. At first, it was just to balance out what I was spending on the PC per month, but this summer I decided to see how much I could make with as little work as possible on it. Here's a recent story that has me hooked in to the point I have to talk myself out of it. 

There's a guy with two posts on Marketplace. One had three early Ghost Riders and one had X-Men 69 (1971) for sale and in the description he says, "just a few of a large collection". So naturally I hit him up to see this large collection. He handed me off to his wife on Messenger and she sent me a list five pages long from a spiral. About 125 comics. I could see that she'd done some preliminary research, but the prices were way up there. She said most of the comics were in perfect condition with nothing wrong with them. There were some gems- Joker 1, Doctor Strange 1, Phantom Stranger 14, Fantastic Four 112, Detective 408, Amazing Spider-Man 98 and 100 to name a few off the top of my head. I took the list and priced it with Ebay sales, making one list with their minimum sales and one with conservative high sales. They were asking $500 and the minimum list hit around $450, so I arranged to meet. I made a list of the big titles b/c I needed them to be in good shape to make the deal worthwhile to me. We met at a local public place and the couple brought in a tub full of comics.

Side note: These were found while cleaning out a property. The owner was a hoarder and filled up his house, so he began stuffing things in camping tents in his back yard. They found the comics in a tent so packed with junk, they had to cut it open. To my disappointment, the comics were of course beat up. Some had gotten folded/twisted while wet and dried that way. Over half of them had mildew/mold spots on the front and back covers. I dug in and pulled out the ones from the key list I made. None of them were over a 5.0 and the Joker wasn't even there. Their coworker made off with it. The lady assured me she would get it from him, but I told her I was out at $500. I explained condition, spine tics, mildew/mold, etc. She admitted pricing through mycomicshop.com and I told her those prices were a little inflated b/c it's a sales site. Plus, her concept of condition was not reality-based. I told them to list it as one big lot and maybe a collector would buy it for the keys. All of the comics were from '68-'74 and had several DC and Marvel horror titles, so it would be enticing for someone willing to scrap half of the lot. I thanked them for their time and left empty-handed. 

A week later, she messages me that they would take $125 b/c they didn't want to go through the trouble of selling them in pieces. UGH! Even my 11 year old daughter is telling me not to do it. I have 1,000 comics outside of my PC that are stack and unprotected (to be used for grab bags eventually). I can't risk contaminating my garage, right? Well now I see that the X-Men 69 sold and I'm thinking, "I can flip the non-moldy comics by the issue for a profit at $125!" 

Somebody please chain me to the dog house in the back yard, b/c I'm having a hard time staying away from that deal! Perhaps posting a few pics of moldy comics would steel my resolve? 

The only thing I buy other than postage is the box itself from Walmart for 62 cents. All packing material is free from scrounging around the school I work at or my wife's make-up business. I get all the cardboard backing I could possibly use through our school cafeteria. Their trays, utensils, etc. all come in large boxes and are in perfect shape. I just ask them to set aside boxes when I'm around. 

17 hours ago, Don.F said:

Hello all, Thanks for taking the time to read this. 

I was wondering is it still a good idea to open a comic shop in 2019? If it is how would you do it and how much would it cost (assuming you have no inventory). 

 

I was looking at some other posts about this on here but they seen to be over a decade old (or at least the ones I saw).

Working at one or spending a lot of time at one is good advice. If you take the plunge, be sure to diversify. I don't know of any straight-up comicbook stores in my area any more. All of them focus on collectible card games, D&D, and other gaming products. The owners of the two shops I frequent have both told me comics are secondary to gaming products and they wouldn't stay afloat with just comics and comics-related merchandise.  

On 9/28/2019 at 3:37 PM, Motor City Rob said:

I don't understand why someone would post such a non-value-added response, especially attempting to make the other person feel stupid. This IS the newbie section...isn't it?!?! We are supposed to be using this forum to ask questions like this...aren't we? I'm somewhat of a newbie myself so always interested to hear what people with many years of experience have to share. Thanks to those of you who are actually trying to help those of us that are new to the collecting world.

I don't know, I took Shadroc's comment as self-deprecating. Hard to tell in print the intent of a post. I think the same thing myself sometimes. In carpenter work (other hobby), I'll ask myself why it isn't done another way, and then through experience find out the hard way. 

I'd like to throw in that I appreciate all the people who post here and those who lend wisdom. "Noobs" asking questions save me from asking them, and the knowledge base on this board is incredible. This is the first place I search for comic information!

On 9/23/2019 at 3:59 PM, Deadpoolica said:

7.5...mainly because of the back

Front cover, bottom left corner looks soft and top right corner has two small color-breaking creases (plus a dirt outline just below that corner). I'm wondering how much the back would improve with a good cleaning? 

40 minutes ago, comicginger1789 said:

29 looks awesome...slight wear mark at top edge keeps it from grading 9.8. I will say 9.4-9.6

30 has more wear. Light corner blunting, couple spine ticks. I will say 8.5-9.0

I think 29 has enough spine tics to drop it to 9.0/9.2 at the highest. Same with 30 taking into account what looks like a nasty crease THE_BEYONDER pointed out. 

1 hour ago, the blob said:

Did hit up an old honey hole junk shop and bought over 100 dollar books. Wife was calling yelling at me to get home so I did not have time to check condition fully or look into tbe rest of their comics. Next time. No big winners, but a bunch of newsies I am trying to value.

HAHA! My wife literally left me at a store when I showed her the box I was digging in and the row of boxes I hadn't gotten to yet. She got her hair done and even met a lady for a Facebook sale in the next town over before coming back to get me. To her chagrin, I still wasn't finished. She puts up with a lot.  

19 hours ago, JollyComics said:

No, CGC graders are not soft.  Arrival dates, stamps, grease pencil marks or personal name/written do not affect the grade. First generation labels had notes such as "name written on cover in pencil or pen" or "Hugs, 1968" until all notes were omitted after the second generation. Sometimes, they do leave notes but not often. I remember March Madness contest last March here. There was the note on the third generation label -- it said "Greggy is a dork" on cover in marker but it has over 9.0.

I know I learned from here that date stamps and grease pencil marks were forgiven, but a kid's scribbled name on the front cover or "read in 1968" have no affect on the grade of the book? 10 year-old me is off the hook, baby! 

I'm surprised the writing didn't knock the grade down a bit. They're going soft! Now's the time to submit all your comics! 

Wow. Of all the times and places a sticker could go in this universe... definitely leave that one to the professionals. 

Hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like the bottom right has more of a problem than near the staple. Nothing color-breaking, so that's good. I can tell you that's not enough weight to flatten out a crease. If you have clamps (Lowes/Home Depot/Walmart) and two small boards, sandwich the comic between two backing boards and sandwich that between two small boards and clamp them together for a few days. I do that to fix spine rolls once I've realigned the spine. It's a step down from getting it pressed, but It's worked for me. 

I don't particularly read Batman right now, but what about the Signal is going to keep him from being Batman? Here's my pick:

Hold up. I can get myself on an SS?!? 

I was actually thinking of letting my seven year old draw Darth Vader and I'd go back in and do the background so the two would contrast greatly; making for a neat look. 

I'm seeing more of these blank covers where you're supposed to get an artist to draw it for you at a convention. What's the board's preference here? Do you try to get the guy who works on that comic to draw your cover? Do you get just anyone, maybe your favorite artist, to do their version of the character? What if you're a half-way decent artist (I'm not); would doing your own be a thing?  

For example: I had Steven Butler (Silver Sable, Archie, and Sonic comics in the 90's) do a quick Spider-Gwen for my daughter at a local con. It's the best art hanging in the house, by the way. Off the top of my head, I have blanks of Howard the Duck, Black Cat, and Darth Vader. What if I had him draw their covers in the style of Archie comics? 

Anyway, from a $$$ perspective, what would maximize a blank books value? Also, would having someone do your cover be considered a variant, or would all covers of that book be lumped into one entry? 

On 8/29/2019 at 8:55 PM, Paul Clarizio said:

Question ( for fans of Carol Danvers ) 

I own 3 copies of Avenging Spiderman #9  ( all in near mint condition)

One copy of Ms. Marvel #1 ( grade 8.5-9.0)

One copy of Marvel Superheroes #13 Nice grade ( probably a 7.0)

Will all of these books increase in popularity and value when Captain Marvel #2 movie date is announced? Also, are we throwing the Overstreet guide out the window now that upcoming films are dictating values of comic books? Please share your thoughts.

Didn't Deadpool's New Mutants 98 spike at the movie announcement, level off afterwards, and spike again at the sequel announcement? I think I recall reading the the second spike was smaller. I think there's always going to be a pop when news breaks followed by a plateau or steady decline. With so many movies hitting the big screens now-a-days, it's almost like sitting on a surf board riding out a wave while waiting for that perfect one. 

As far as Overstreet, I often hear from buyers and sellers who quote from it without regard for contemporary value markers like ebay and other auction sites. As the wise man always says, it's worth what someone's willing to pay for it!

Nah, people who don't know any better thinking they know better. Another ad wants to sell Hulk 340 for $150- not NM. And Spider-Man 300 for $500- definitely not NM. And there's that lady who think her kid's mid/late 90's Spider-Man comics are worth their weight in gold. 

On 8/30/2019 at 4:11 PM, the blob said:

No, this is what is on the facebook marketplace:

Distance shot of 12 mid-grade 80s and 90s drek comics. "WHOLESALE INVESTMENT PRICE! I don't know much about comics, but these are very rare and in mint condition. Asking price $200. Get these before some smart investor does."

 

Amen! This weekend I responded to an add that had Strange Tale 146, 147, 157, and Shazam 1 along with a few "meh" books. I asked him to send pics of each cover for me and they were not the best representation of the books to say the least. We haggled a little and agreed to meet. When I saw the books in person, it was like someone took my beer goggles off the morning after. They were beat up pretty bad. Like 1.5 to 3.5 bad. I explained how important condition was and had to pass. Wasted an evening on that one. He took the time to explain to me his research. For example- he found an example of one of his books graded at a 9.8 for $750. So he had $750 written on that issue's bag. He said, " I know you have to pay a percentage to get it graded, but I think it would be worth it." I told him he should put the lot on ebay and hope for the best. 

Another guy this weekend had a She Hulk 1 and 25 (plus some obligatory 90's random junk that everyone likes to throw into a deal) for $70. I thought it might be worth a look. When I contacted him, he said he'd decided to pull the ad and sell them with the rest of his collection. "I'll take $450. I have 600-700 issues. I've been collecting for almost 20 years, so I know what I have. It's a steal. I just want them out of my living room." His one pic of the collection was two long boxes with a stack of 90's Batgirl on top. Looks like he had a full run of nothing for me.

It's not water damage. It looks like spine wear from someone who doesn't know how to bag a comic. There's a rough spot on the spine higher up similar to current comics that come right off the shelf already looking worn. Don't know how to explain it, but you guys know what I mean? 

Anyways. Question is not what grade, but how much are these two defects specifically. Those of us looking for a little more experience would like to know what the forum thinks.