csaag

2 hours ago, Robot Man said:

For less expensive books I just use 9 x 12 Manila envelopes. I use painters tape to secure the book to 2 sheets of double thick cardboard I cut myself. I put this inside a magazine bag and into a Manila envelope. I mark “Please do not bend” on both sides of the envelope. Never had a problem and it keeps it in the first class regulation. 

I do something very similar to this.   First of all we save all cardboard/packing paper/bubble wrap from mail shipments (It helps to have a big dog as we're regularly receiving boxes)

I wrap the comics in plastic sheeting (eg cheap Home Depot 1/2 mil thick plastic).  I tape that to the cardboard sheets.  That keeps tape residue off the comic bags and prevents having to pull tape off a comic bag.  I fill the open space around the cardboard sandwich with rolled up paper or bubble wrap.

Then the brick goes into a 9x12 poly bag which gives it some moisture protection too

The change over the last year is astonishing. About 2 years ago I got my books back from cgc ( from my childhood collecting days) and the biggest keys (IH 181, GSX 1, FF 48-50) have gone up 3-4x from then.

DC has performed nowhere near as well.

20 minutes ago, darkWaters said:

Thanks everyone, I appreciate the feedback!

I notice you all say Clean and Press, is that the same as getting it pressed at CCS or is the Clean part a separate feature?

it's one feature.

I'm more at a solid 8.5

I started collecting back in the latter half of the 70's while prop a freshman in High School  A friend got me started.  He was big into DC so that first time I met him at the local pharmacy I spent my paper route money on DC's and stayed mostly there for a few years, I wish I had given a few Marvel titles a chance initially, particularly Spider-Man & X-Men.

Shorty afterwards a LCS finally opened up in the area where I had bought the vast majority of my keys over the next 10 years.  In the beginning I was buying decent copies off the wall in the $10-$20. I wish I spread out the buys and instead pick even even better looking copies that were in the $20-$50 range.  But back then, with no idea about an Internet, I always wondered how I would sell them one day so I just bought what I liked and didn't give too much consideration to condition.

The other regret was years later when I moved my really nice IH 181 from a bag to a mylar and nicked the ULC of the back cover & almost totally cutting off a tiny piece.  Prob turned my eventual 8.5 into a 9.2

11 hours ago, Tcla75 said:

I'm looking at the prices online and they seem to have jumped to crazy levels even from the prices they were a few months ago. The best price I have seen so far for a graded 9.8 white pages is $1200. Is this the worst time to buy or will I be even looking at paying way more in the next year or two. This is something I plan to keep for good so if I have to wait a year or two till the market settles I would be willing to do that but then the last thing I want to happen is to have to buy one for about 10 grand next year or the year after that.

Any market correction doesn't necessarily mean the book will be found cheaper than right now.   Prices could double etc and then correct but still bottom out at a price higher than now

You have some research to do.  Plenty of Youtube videos (& threads here if you search for them) on how/if to submit to CGC since you said you plan to grade them.   Read the sticky in the 'Buddy Can You Spare a Grade' forum.  You can post pics/scans of them to get estimates of their condition.  That can help you search thru sites like goCollect, Ebay sold listings, the auction houses (you can make free accounts with Comic Connect, Comic Link, Heritage) to see what comics similarly graded sold for.  GPA Analysis similar to goCollect but they let you look at all  their sales data for free for Hulk 181 & Spiderman 129.  

You should also gently page thru them to make sure they are complete or if they have any cutouts (esp with Hulk 181)

Condolences on your loss and good luck.  These boards have a lot of great info.  The more you interact the more responses you may get.

PS you may also want to talk with a financial professional about tax implications of inheriting highly valued collectibles and selling them 

9 hours ago, Jasonmorris1000000 said:

OMAC and Me

 

If that isn't a WTF cover then I don't know what is.

The TRS-80 Whiz Kids!  (I had both the comic & the computer!)

23 minutes ago, Big Nate said:

Is eBay worth doing on a couple high end comics or not really? 

how do you define "high end"?

Ebay's big advantage is the number of potential eyeballs 

The downside is taking on the risk of unscrupulous buyers and higher fees (though you could look into opening a 'store' for a month or two to lower the fees - I'm no expert concerning that) .  I'd imagine there's been much much more smooth transactions for high price items than nightmare scenarios, but it's a matter of the level of risk that you're comfortable with.

10 hours ago, Math Teacher said:

I don't know why we continue to have this debate. Unless you have access to a time travel machine or you are psychic, the best we can get are educated guesses. Instead of worrying about a crash, let's just be happy that we are along for the ride.

FYI - On October 30, 2030, the S & P index stood at 3,269.96. As of Friday, it currently stands at 4,128.80. That is a 26.3% increase in 15.5 months. I have repeatedly heard about stock market crashes. Although these do occur, the stock market continues to rise over the long term.

I've been hearing that since the Dow was at 14K about 15 years ago.  Lots of very intelligent people with persuasive arguments filled with all sorts of statistics.  In all that time it had 2 crashes, one bigger than the other.  Both times it recovered to new highs and kept going, one faster than the other.

So were they right or wrong?   A lot of them thought once it crashed there would be a 'new norm'.   The ones who believed that and stayed on the sidelines long term certainly were wrong.    With all this tax law change, sometimes I think I'll just hold my bigger keys until retirement and hope they modify the law and maybe add some income levels to those tax thresholds.  Just have to hope it's not right around a comic crash period.  Otherwise I'll just decide to  live longer cause it will recover.

I had never heard of this character before, though  apparently  a very popular anime figure.

 If you are like me and unaware who he is, he is strong enough to win any fight with one punch and also incredibly bored because of that 

4 minutes ago, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Dark is a *great* show, though you should watch it with a notebook as it is a show you really need to pay attention to.  I also didn't think the English voiceover acting was the best, so if you don't mind subtitles watch with the original German audio.

CGC doesn't note all defects.   What they did note isn't going to be improved by a press

Personally I can't say from that pic if it would get a bump from a press

Some more pics from diff angles may get you some responses from folks with more experience in this area

35 minutes ago, Jo McCormick said:

Hello, new at this. I have about 80 Marvel Comics from the 1980’s.

what web sight should I use to figure out a good guesstimate on which comics I should send it to CDC for appraisals?  There are too many to send them all. So I want to look up prices to make sure I send in the best of what I have.  Do you suggest just googling them? Or go to a certain web sight.  E-bay seems to be all over the place with bids.  What do you think I should do?  I’m new at this.

Do you have fairly common comics?  if so then don't look at active auctions on Ebay.  Use their filter to look at completed/sold listings to see what similar copies actually sold for.   Ebay only shows sold data for something like the last 3 months

You can also try goCollect.com as they have a free version of their service that shows graded comic values (as long as there's enough sales data)

There's a sub-forum here called "Buddy Can You spare a grade" where you can post pics of your books and members will give you their estimates of the conditions.  Read the sticky to get all the rules etc for using that sub-forum.

Once you get a feel for the approx condition/value then you can balance value vs cost of grading & selling to see if there's enough potential profit to make it worth it to you

4 hours ago, Mike273 said:

 

Am I over thinking this?  If I consigned a few comics and got a large check for a silver age key how would the IRS know?  I don't have proper records from collecting over the years TBH.

(waiting for people to lecture me about the IRS :-) ) 

There's the person who bought the comic.  Say they sell it & report the gain (poss having a cancelled check to prove their cost basis). If they get get audited then the IRS would know that you sold it to them.  If they then decide to follow up on your return, they'd see that you didn't report the proceeds.  

2 hours ago, DINGER033 said:

I need help, I am hoping someone has some insight to this. So I am moving and I have 3 books at CGC that will most likely not make it back to me by the time I have to be out of my current house. I know I will need to change my address on my account but am concerned that it will not be relayed correctly and my books will end up at the wrong address. Anyone dealt with this before?

for something like that  I would suggest calling customer service CGC directly. 

1 minute ago, MARVELous Fan said:

I wasn’t asking if one guide was better than the other - I was asking if these guides were still relevant now, because sellers are now asking whatever they want for their books. Personally, I don’t think these guides are relevant now, because not every seller wants to adhere to the sales listed in them.

I think you would agree, that if sellers priced their books accordingly, they would sell more of them, and more buyers would get the books they want. A win-win situation all round.

When sellers hike up the price of a book, are they just doing that because they’re hoping some collector is gullible/desperate to have that book at any cost, or are they doing it because they’re expecting that particular book to spike soon, so the price their asking now, will be the right price to sell it when it has spiked? It would be nice to think it’s the latter, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if it were the former!

I've noticed that the free info on goCollect is certainly behind for big keys

As an example, Hulk 181 @8.5 was selling for 8500 over the last 2 weeks until the last 2 Ebay sales at 12-12,500  while goCollect lists it at 6750

I found this to be an incredibly smartly written comedy with wonderful characters. Unfortunately they left the last season on a cliffhanger and Netflix didn't bring it back for a 4th season.   All 3 seasons were excellent

17 hours ago, Capn17 said:

Watched it and enjoyed it.  Was very entertaining.  Fight scenes were awesome.  The damage and death toll would be enormous.  Would agree Kong had lots of moments to see his emotions and character. Godzilla, not so much.

 

Did have one question though. 

  Reveal hidden contents

Where was the light coming from when they were in the Hallow Earth?  There was no explanation of that.  There's just light?  

 

10 hours ago, Namtak said:

Im gonna see it this evening but i would have prefered a godzilla vs gamera but thats me

Would you settle for Godzilla vs Ultraman?

10 hours ago, Namtak said:

This thread must stay alive its alive!the first frenkenstein with Boris karloff 

Speaking of "it's alive"

This Netflix series has only 18 minute episodes but they do a great job with the characters, esp in season 1