Dergrosse13

I’ll take ASM 78 at 20% off, Machine Man 1 and FF185 if they’re all still available 

On 3/8/2023 at 8:47 AM, mr_highgrade said:

You can try and sell them here first in the Marketplace. It's free. 

Good suggestion.  I’d also consider a My Comic Shop auction. 

Here’s a good example of why I wouldn’t slab non-keys in the original Marvel Star Wars run unless you are confident they are in pristine condition:

https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?ItemID=58331093

In an MCS auction ending in a few hours, there’s an 8.5 issue 29 with white pages and a pretty nice, clean looking slab.  The current bid is $27.  It might go up a bit more before the end, but not much. Whoever paid to have that slabbed and sent to MCS for auction probably is going to end up losing money on the process. 
 

On 3/6/2023 at 8:36 AM, graffix13 said:

Is MCS having staffing issues? My recent shipment of books to them was denied because "the business was closed" even though it was a Friday (March 3).

I have also had some books in the "Item set up in progess" category for 2 weeks now. It has never taken this long before. 

Haven’t there been some crazy weather issues down there in the last week or two?  Maybe that’s it. 

Again, only for the keys if you’re going to get those ones slabbed. The non-keys aren’t worth the cost of slabbing in my opinion, even though I love them. 

If by “Should I have them graded before selling or only grade the key issues,” you mean, should I have them graded and slabbed by CGC, then I would definitely only do the key issues.

Pre-pandemic I collected this entire run of Star Wars comics, mostly by buying individual raw copies off of eBay and graded copies of the key issues.  For the graded key issues, I bought 9.6s or 9.8s.  I did it just for fun since I had collected these as a kid.  Back in 2019, it wasn’t particularly expensive to get the whole run raw in mid-grade to upper-mid condition and I think that is still true today.  9.6 and 9.8 versions of the keys have increased substantially in value along with everything else since then, and your 8.0 issue 1 is a lot more valuable today than it would have been in 2019.  I also bought some graded and slabbed copies of non-key issues, but only 9.8s.  Even 9.6s of the non-key issues aren’t worth that much.  And based on the condition of your copies as you’ve described them, they’d likely grade out below 9.6–maybe significantly so.  If that’s the case, you’re probably going to spend more on having them graded and slabbed than you’d be likely to sell them for.

You got an 8.0 on issue 1 — that’s likely to be your most valuable book, followed by the 8.0 issue 42.  The 9.2 issue 4 isn’t going to be very valuable because it looks like a Whitman reprint.  You might consider pressing and slabbing the 2-6 newsstand versions (not the Whitman’s with no UPC label), the Empire Strikes Back books (issues 39-44) if they look like they are in decent shape, and maybe #68.  Before deciding what to do, you might post those issues in the Buddy Can You Spare a Grade forum to get a sense of How they would grade out.

If I were you, and I didn’t want to spend too much time on this, I might send the whole lot to My Comic Shop and have them include them in one of their weekly auctions as a group, or as multiple groups.  I think they’d advise you on the best approach to the auction.

OK, not below 50.  There are 51 Universal and 1 Signature Series

On 1/29/2023 at 12:26 PM, Arashikage26 said:

Strange Adventures# 135 FN- $12

 

Take!

The last couple weeks the Heritage Sunday/Monday Auction has included lots of CGC and CBCS slabs with a “Forbidden Collection” symbol in the slab label.  Many mid- and lower-grade slabs. What’s the Forbidden Collection? 

On 12/23/2022 at 6:59 PM, Larryw7 said:

Intentional humor. The Batman TV series is meant to be a comedy.

Oh I know.  And that sequence was pretty spectacular on that front.  The makeup compact laser. The cocoon gun.  Awesome. 

There are so many hilarious things about that Batgirl clip that its hard to know where to begin. But let’s start with Yvonne Craig delivering the line “isn’t that your youthful ward” with a straight face, and Bruce Wayne introducing the explorer dude as “my millionaire friend.”  

Thanks all - I appreciate the advice!

I just received it.  I’ve gone back and looked at the photos of it from the CLink auction and the fold is not apparent.  Is this something that is returnable? I got it for what I regarded as a good price ($326) but now am worried this will impact its value.

I recently picked up a Bronze Age CGC 9.8 Star Wars book at auction.  When i got it, I noticed the bottoms right corner is folded over slightly as seen in the attached picture.  Is that a flaw that a boook can have and still get a 9.8 grade?  Or is this something that likely happened after it had been slabbed?

On 6/24/2022 at 12:21 PM, KirbyTown said:

The daily-renewed six month to two year glut of coming slabs provides ever present proof about the incoming endless supply of slabbed comic books. This supply is apart from the incoming dump of speculative raw hoards from those Fools who rightly choose to liquidate their failed gamble before their car, dwelling etc. Illegitimate demand will disappear, but both the fresh stuff and the glut of speculative raw supply will always remain. Not enough people are legitimately interested in back issue comic books, and there's now access to more supply than ever and always will be, and as long as people are submitting to CGC we have hard proof that it's not going to stop. I mentioned the numbers in a previous post, but it's 8 million total, 1.5 million last 12 months, 1,200 wolverines a year, 300 caps. Those numbers don't work even if speculative demand remains let alone disappears.

 

If this is the case, does it counsel in favor of pursuing golden/early silver age books now, since presumably (maybe I’m wrong) there can’t be nearly as big of a glut of newly-slabbed books of that vintage about to hit the market, as compared to late silver, bronze, copper, modern, etc.?

On 6/15/2022 at 10:15 AM, mycomicshop said:

Two, I would encourage potential consignors deciding whether to send their raw books to us to look at it in terms of where can you get the most money for your comics relative to your investment (labor, shipping, slabbing costs, etc). Focus on that return rather than whether we grade something differently than you would. Because of our reputation for grading, buyers really like buying raw books from us. You can often sell a raw book through us for as much as a slabbed book in the same grade would go for, and in some cases, for somewhat more, and that's without the time and expense of slabbing. But if you prefer slabbing first, we support that too, can submit to CGC for you, and then list your slabs when they come back.

As a frequent MCS raw buyer, I can definitely confirm this.  
 

My only beef was I once bought a raw comic from MCS, it never left the sleeve they sent it to me in (which had a sticker identifying the grade they had assigned it), I sent it back to them a year or so later to consign, and they graded it a half grade lower.  I suppose it could have been damaged in transit or something (although it was carefully packed).  Generally, though, I have no complaints.  Ive consigned both slabbed and raw books, and been happy with the results. 

When you all submit these moderns to CGC, do you always have them pressed? It seems like the value difference between a 9.6 and a 9.8 in moderns is huge, and I’d be worried that my grading acumen isn’t high enough to spot sure-fire 9.8s.  Does pressing measurably increase the chance for a 9.8?

On 6/2/2022 at 1:18 AM, eee91 said:

General rule of thumb: never assume signature series will increase the value of your book. Especially celebrities. 

When you eventually go to sell it, you'll have to hope to find someone who collects signature series books. Anyone who doesn't and just wants a nice blue 9.6 is going to skip over your book. 

If it was me, I would leave your Star Wars #2 as is and find some post 1999 Star Wars book to get his signature on. 

And if you want to roll the dice, you could get it pressed and hope you can get it to a 9.8. Though if you do that, remember that you could spend that money and still end up with a 9.6 - or worse a 9.4. But that's the risk you take. 

Hope this helps! 

Definitely helps - thanks.  I guess I should have realized this.  I skip over signature books all the time because I don’t collect them. 

So I see CGC is monetizing the D+ Kenobi series with an Ewan McGregor signing event.  I have a CGC 9.6 Bronze Age Star Wars 2 that I bought cheap before prices exploded a few years ago.  I’m not a signature series collector — I have zero signature slabs.  And I’m not looking to sell my 9.6 at this stage.  Too much sentimental value.  But I will sell it at some stage years down the road when I’m getting out of the collecting hobby.  My question is whether getting it de-slabbed, signed, and re-slabbed now would increase its value in the long-term.  Or could it have the opposite effect: they de-slab it, and when re-slabbing it assign it a lower grade then 9.6?  Should I have it pressed if I get it signed? I don’t know if it was pressed before it was originally slabbed.  Could pressing it move it to a 9.8? Or does pressing rarely move the needle higher on something that is already a 9.6?

I’m a relative novice here so any thoughts appreciated.  

Whatever you think of this on the merits, the ”prominent member of the community” thing is a major gaffe.  Who gave that the green light?  Is there any more obvious deflection?  Hey, this wasn’t our idea—it was the idea of a bunch of “prominent” members show shall remain nameless.  This is a more egregious comic-grading version of the political non-answer utilization of the passive voice: “Mistakes were made.” 

I recently had a similar dilemma.  A CGC 3.5 ASM 2, or an ASM 50 several grades higher for a similar price as the low-grade ASM 2.  I went with the ASM 2.

Looks like you did well to me - love both of those covers.  

What’s the deal with Star Wars 8 (from the original 1977 series)?  9.8s are far more expensive than Star Wars 3-6, which are part of the serialization of A New Hope, and issue 7, which is billed as the first Expanded Universe issue. In 2020 the average price for a 9.8 issue 8 was $143, the 2021 average was $540, the 90-day average is $960 and the last sale was $1050 (all per GPA).  I know it is billed as the first appearance of Jaxxon.  But as far as I know that is a minor character never appearing in a film or tv show which looks like an anthropomorphic rabbit.  Are there some rumors out there sparking this price explosion?

On 3/7/2022 at 10:24 PM, littledoom said:

Thank you to the commenters about this mag. I found two for $4 each at a shop. They were the last in a magazine box  

Wow.  What a find!  That got cleaned out on eBay overnight not long ago. Nice work. 

On 3/2/2022 at 1:05 PM, 70s80sTimeMachine said:

(2)STAR WARS #1 "A NEW HOPE" CGC 9.8! WHITE PAGES! FIRST PRINT! KEY! MARVEL 1977

Pre-Owned

• $11,000.00
• Buy It Now

That. Is. Insane.