duplicatecomics

8 hours ago, joeypost said:

What do the voldy graders notes say? From the scan it presents nicely for a 5.5 but there could be a grade killer like rust migration in the centerfold. 

These are the notes!

Notes:
1" tear page 21, 1/2" tear page 29
spine roll, wear, stress & creases most does not break color
wear & creases right front cover & left back cover breaks color

Another earlier Bats copy, one of my favourite covers, would a clean/press improve the grade?

Trying to get some opinions - love my early Bats and hoping to improve on the grades for these books. Would this Bats #4 benefit from a press/clean?

2 minutes ago, KirbyJack said:

Post em! 
I have everything except the current series. I’ve been posting my SA run. Stay tuned!

 I have stated (like many) that the great run of Fantastic Four started with #44. I’ve changed my mind. I think it started with the continuing stories in 35. The greatness that is FF 39 and 40 support that idea.

Battle of the Baxter Building! That classic.

UK variant.

And FF#27. Love this cover.

My copy of ST#110. If anybody's selling their copy that's higher grade please let me know! Will trade this one in + cash.

16 minutes ago, KirbyJack said:

I do. I don't buy the current series, tho.

I suspect many others do, as well. As far as just the silver age issues go, Straw-Man has everything in 9.0 or better! (go back a few pages of this thread). I know there are many other complete SA collections here. Sweet Lou 14?

Nice! Which issues do you have? I've got a run from #1-93, some of them are really not the highest grade, some pence copies and all. And also the John Byrne run from #232-293.

anybody has an unbroken run of FFs here?

On 10/26/2019 at 10:24 PM, Black_Adam said:

As soon as I saw your post I was 99% sure it was Worldwide and proceeded from there. This isn't the first time their practice in regards to cracking out graded books and selling them as ungraded at a higher grade has been noted. There is nothing illegal about this - it isn't fraud - as grading is subjective and buyers should always buy the book, not the label. But hiding this info from a buyer while at the same time disclosing it on other comics listed on your site is highly questionable and, in my opinion, beneath the standards of our hobby.

I noticed WW typically does denote cracked books though, with their corresponding former grades? Or at least that's what I see on their site.

On 9/13/2019 at 12:17 AM, Comics-n-ERB said:

Original owner collection I picked up a couple of weeks ago.

Beautiful! Thats Bats3 possibly for sale?

14 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Hello DC,

I was waiting to see if you would post again.

I take it you are referring to Marvel pence copies here. I've dabbled a little in this area and I can tell you that there is near zero interest in the pence variants produced by Archie, Charlton, DC, Dell Gold Key and King Comics. The only publisher that attracts any meaningful interest is, surprise surprise, Marvel.

As a general rule, historically, pence copies have commanded much lower prices than their cents counterparts. This is entirely understandable as the comics are US creations. We have always loved the medium in the UK, hence the books coming to our shores first as stamped copies and then with our currency applied for a time. But even the majority of UK based collectors prefer the cents copies as they represent 'purity'. There are many other influencing factors. Because of the notorious shipping issues there are hardly any headline titles for which you can collect a full set of pence copies. Amazing Spider-Man stops at issue 17 and doesn't start again until issue 28. That can put collectors off. There has been much speculation as to printing order. Are pence copies later reprints or true first printings. The history is plagued with misinformation which can put people off.

I have spent well over ten years documenting what pence copies exist, three of them here, and you will not find a bigger appreciator of them. But I understand completely why they have been, are, and likely always will play second fiddle to the US priced copies. 

That said, I see the keys are starting to gain traction as you yourself note. That is also entirely understandable. As more is known about them, collectors will see opportunities to own key books in pence which may be out of reach in cents. One personal view I hold is that there are a hardcore of serious collectors who are excited by any variants. I am one of them. So pence copies are a natural progression for those who have completed their cents collections.

Scarcity will always play a part. I live in England. Many early Marvel titles - especially pre-hero, romance and western - are virtually non existent now as pence copies. If they exist, they are squirrelled away in collections and rarely see the light of day. There are books for which I have only ever seen one or two copies in all my years. So the prices on these are starting to rise (especially titles like JIM, TTA, TOS). On the flip, no one is interested in 'My Girl Pearl' #7 as a pence copy. The title commands zero interest. So it could be the only pence copy in the world and wouldn't be worth much. There has to be something in the title that attracts collector interest in the first place.

As a parallel, there has been a near explosion in the prices seen for Australian price variants. It appals me personally, but it is rooted I think in the growing understanding that they exist, their comparative scarcity, and the desire to 'clean up' the keys while they are available. And the fact that many collectors love variants, especially first printings. 

Anyway, I could go on, but I hope this helps. It would be nice to hear your thoughts having raised the question and now that you have received a few replies. 

Thanks for the very detailed post! I'm very new to the CGC Boards, but certainly not new to collecting comics (IG handle is my ID here, but quite new there too).

It does interest me though that you actually prefer the cents copies over the pence copies even though you're English! I'm neither English nor American so I'm somewhat ambivalent about either.

The key thing here to me is, as I understand it, literally almost everything is the same. Cover, content, same press, printed at the same time, same paper, same ink. At some point of time the pence was printed instead of cents, and the calendar month was removed so that long shipping time wouldn't make it seem like the comics were outdated. But it seems to me that they are one, and the same! Except for that price. I can't help but wonder if this is down to general collector education, or whether truly not many collectors want the pence variants despite knowing the history behind it? In modern age comics, there are plenty of collectors that clamor after cover variants (I personally don't).

There are certainly collectors out there who look for pence variants because variants in general appeal to them. I do seek out a few pence titles (the earlier ones i have are FF#1, #3, #5 etc). Another source of demand is also those who want to own key books but who can't afford / not willing to pay as much for the cents copies. The latter group however is probably getting smaller primarily because the pence variants are starting to get almost as expensive as the cents copies.

I noticed that the pence vs cents issue prices vary but quite a fair bit for non-key issues, whilst for the larger books, the price discount seems much less. However, the supply for pence variants is much lower (i read a figure of 3-5% being thrown around before). Given its relative rarity, shouldn't prices at least be comparable to its cents counterpart? Demand certainly plays a factor but I wonder whether the much lower supply figures should at least help to contribute to prices being higher.