eastcoaster

Maybe I wasn't clear but to me supply only has meaning when demand is taken into account so I implicitly was also talking about demand. It's impossible to say if there is a lot or a little supply without relating it to the demand. Yes, 9.8 is higher than 9.6. Of course all things being equal people will choose the higher grade copy. If the prices were ever equal the market would fix that in a jiffy. The market has sorted out all this stuff and priced 9.8 and 9.6 appropriately. As to why to people avoid 9.6s, it is because they obsess about having the most perfect copy and even minor differences are unbearable.

Yeah but you are only talking about supply. To get a complete picture you have to talk about demand. 1000 people wanting 1 available copies is far different than 1 copy wanted with 1000 copies available. Rarity doesn't mean anything if no one wants the rare item. There are not enough 9.8s to go around and plenty of unwanted 9.6s.

There is a reason to settle... the price. If you're not picky about 9.6s you can have a much bigger collection.

If 9.8s are so plentiful, why do they command a large premium over 9.6s? Clearly they are in short supply relative to other grades.

I want only 9.8s but realize it's not rational to pay a fortune more for a book with miniscule differences. Collectors can be obsessive and they want what they want. A 9.6 is still a fantastic book... just not highly desired.

I see even with the signing event happening now that he doesn't always spell out Todd and it looks similar to his older sig. The spider stamp on the back is an extra confirmation.

Looks very real to me. I bought the same signed comic back in the day and just saw some more. Nowdays he really spells his name out but some parts of the signature look tbe same.

There are a lot of covers!!

Good list!

Correct, so far I just collect the books I loved when I was actively reading. This post was mainly about playing catch-up... I may buy TPBs of the suggestions here to read and get the singles slabbed.

Thanks I will check out those issues. It is hard to recapture the fun of reading back in the day.

Thanks I will check out those issues. It is hard to recapture the fun of reading back in the day.

I am not into the Spiderverse concept. Peter Parker or bust!

Not really. There are a handful of characters I follow and most comics are forgettable so there shouldn't be that many sought after issues. If variants are hot then it sounds like the gimmicks of the 90s that crashed the industry. I'm impressed that Spawn is still going!

All of the above! Another way of putting it is significant books. I admit a book may not be significant just because of the artist but it could be because it's the first issue by the artist on a cool run like X-Men 248. Or a cool cover by a cool artist like Hulk 340. Which reminds me to look for Jim Lee Batmans!

Disappointing how little happened in decades. Makes sense because most cool characters and events come along once in a blue moon and are reused over the long term. I like the Grim Knight cover where Batman has the guns.

J Scott Campbell is one of the only ones I know. He seems to specialize in babes but is also very cartoony.

Venomized Spider-Man? Haha.

Looking for help as I stopped reading in the early 90s and I'm getting back into comics and collecting. What are some post mid-nineties keys in Spider-Man, Hulk, Wolverine, Punisher, X-Men, and Batman? Looking for cool covers, first appearances, landmark events, first issues, and great artists. Thanks!

They all look pretty valuable. I would get them CGC graded and auction individually at a high-end place like ComicLink or ComicConnect.

No I just don't accept what you're saying. I fully accept what the other people said about it falling below the established standard of a CGC 9.8 and being mislabeled or misgraded.

Special thanks to Comicquant, namisgr, and any others I may have missed, who quickly deduced it was a labeling error and not a magic grade.

No help required.

Lol, the whole basis of value of a grading company is to provide a meaningful grade that accurately describes the books condition, based on their own standards. When their opinion clearly counters all their own past examples, something is wrong, and the value of the opinions is damaged. Seems pretty basic to me.

"We don't know what CGC's grading standards are - that is the point. It's a 'trade secret' of theirs to avoid discussions like this." Yup, we don't have a clue what their 9.8 means....