BrooksR

I grabbed this the other night on ebay buy it now for $50. Another late night impulse purchase. I'm wondering if I paid too much once again (I think I'm going to stop buying books for a while ). How does this look to you guys?

So is 21 the only “key” joe issue now? I just bought one on eBay for $50. A few weeks ago I got a really nice 26 for $3. That’s less than it would have cost me in the 80’s 🤷‍♂️

I thought the story in #2 was really good and combined with it's "scarcity" its being valueable made sense to me. I remember it being like $40 back in the 80's, while #1 was $15-20. Maybe because of their value everyone held onto them in good condition back then and there are fewer 21's out there still? I don't know, I really don't get it. What do you guys think? When did this book take off and why?

I’ve been away for a long time too. I think you would get the most if you wait and sell when the trailers come and the excitement spreads beyond serious collectors. Then again I don’t understand the current market, it seems crazy to me.

I remember when I was a kid in the 80’s and obsessed with all things joe issue 21 wasn’t a big deal. The big issues were 1, 2, 26, and 27, especially #2. It’s kind of surreal for me coming back to comics after 25 years that this issue is so expensive

Gracious , I dare not dream of getting a grade that high

Thank you! I’d be happy with a 7. I bet it was pretty common to color touch back in the seventies. Was it a big deal back then? I remember when I was a kid in the early 80’s I restapled some of my comics

Hi, sorry for posting again so soon after my last one. This is the last one I'll do for a while I promise These are the ebay pics of the auction I won but they're pretty decent pics. I can upload more when it arrives if these aren't clear enough (crossing fingers that it makes it safely, my mailman likes to fold things and shove them into the mailbox). This is the most expensive book I've ever bought ($340), I'm feeling a little bit of sticker shock still. Thank you for taking the time to look, you guys are the best and I appreciate it.

I just started collecting again this year, I haven’t heard of the Ditko PHX signature issue. I’ll look that up. Is that why nobody likes PGX?

Thank you, I’ll not buy another book without researching it first, a valuable lesson learned 🙂

You can offer a service for pressing out wrinkles by unfocusing the monitor. That will improve the grade by anywhere from one to ten points depending on the resolution of the scan and whether or not you’re wearing your glasses.

Thanks everyone for taking the time to look at it, I really appreciate it 🙂

Thank you for your response. That’s what I get for buying something without looking it up first

I picked this up yesterday at an antique mall. It was an impulse buy, I wasn’t even looking for comics and I’m worried that in my excitement I might have paid too much ($45). It’s kind of dirty looking and the back is a little wrinkly but without breaking color. Would a cgc press improve it? Do they do cleaning also? Thank you for taking the time to look! 😀🙏

So what to do with older signed books? Are the authentications by other services not a good option? I think CGC should offer this service. Even if it's not as good as the witnessed service it's a market they're not tapping that competitor companies are. I'm sure a lot of the people using the other services would like to use cgc but feel they have no choice if they have older signed books. Sure there will be people that would not want to buy an unwitnessed book no matter who does it, but there are people that are satisfied with authenticated signatures. Maybe the investment in finding respected experts is seen as too much to make it profitable, where as beckett already had experts that have been doing it for baseball cards. I myself have only one signed comic, a Sandman 1 signed by McKean and Gaiman. I got the signatures myself back in the late nineties so I personally know they're real but there's no reason for anyone to believe me if ever I do need to part with it, I think it's nice to have experts look at it. It's better than nothing, which is the only other option for older books.

I had forgotten about them . I'm remembering another series, or maybe this is one of those Berenstein/Berenstain bears deals? I might be remembering them in the punisher? I might also be getting them mixed up with all the larry hama ninjas.

I've read posts on these forums a few times that say that non cgc witnessed signatures are worthless. By this argument no signature obtained before cgc's program would have any value, including the ones by writers/artists that died before that program started. Would you say that to people that collect presidential/historical signatures? There are people that have trained for years to recognize legitimate signatures for collectors/museums/courts. Their findings are not as certain as a witnessed and instantly sealed book but it does hold some weight. Serious collectors have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars at prestigious auctions for autographs from Babe Ruth, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln etc. Do you think they all have no value? Drotto is right to say that the reputation of the expert is key. I know cbcs uses beckett's authentication people. Do they have a bad reputation? I've been out of comic collecting since before grading services were even a thing and have just recently come back so I'm still trying to figure all of this out

The item I was looking at ended up selling for a lot more than I anticipated.

Thanks for the response, that makes sense . Have any of you used CGC to remove a restoration (color touch and glue)? Does it work well? I may try to win it and have CGC see what they can do with it.

I'm watching an ebay auction that says the book has been restored (color touch on the cover and slight glue on the spine). I know this lowers the value of the book, but what percentage do you estimate the value would depreciate from a similarly graded non restored book? I'm trying to figure out how much would be too much to spend on it (I'm not planning on selling it but if I ever do need to I don't want to lose money in the deal). Thank you so much for your time and knowledge, you guys are the best

It apparently has an enormous budget. That’s no guarantee of quality but at least it means they’re taking it seriously, trying to compete with HBO’s prestige shows. I thought the Marvel Netflix shows were fun so there’s a decent chance they’ll do this right. I hope they keep the horror aspects. As for the comics just a few weeks ago I went through my issues and discovered I have all but twenty or so of the issues of the original run. I decided I would gradually pick them up and then this news broke. Unfortunate timing on my part. Do you think the one shots and Death miniseries will appreciate? Maybe people will clamor for that Death Talks About Life aids awareness issue, I’ve got at least a dozen of those 🤷‍♂️ 😆

I would also love to have that Captain America, what a great cover! All the silver age books are steadily creeping out of my price range, even in lower grades. At least I get to see the ones on the board 🙂

Is the 1974 Sandman series still considered the first appearance? People used to list it that way back in the day when sandman was still running.

I’ve been looking for a silver surfer #1 mid grade but they’re getting expensive 🙁 I’ve always wanted one since I was in high school in the 90’s. That’s a good looking Hulk. Some of these like the Nick Fury get no love and are surprisingly affordable compared to the others. 🤷‍♂️

Thank you guys 🙂 I appreciate your looking at it! I don’t plan to sell it, at least not anytime soon, but I do want to protect it and hopefully prevent the condition from getting any worse. It’s a tough decision. I’m surprised how often I see really common modern/low value books graded on eBay that sell for less than it costs to grade 🤔🤨, I don’t want to be that guy.