ConcreteMob181

On 11/28/2023 at 11:49 AM, KirbyJack said:

You and i collect very similarly. Before our move, I went from 2 pallets of long boxes to this.

 
Very happy with it. We both collect along creator lines and use the “am I ever going to reread this” razor to trim down, so all I can recommend is that you raise your limit.  

I think I'm going to start with this approach although I very much appreciate what others have suggested, particularly D2's idea of transitioning to omnibuses and a few key runs at some point. Right now, I easily have room for about 6500 - 7000 books and we won't be moving anytime soon. But my goal has long been to keep my collection around 5000, 6000 max. I'm at at about 5500 and my outstanding want list is not overly long but there are a couple of decent size runs left that I want and I still buy about 6-to-8 new comics a month. I have a few hundred books in my sell pile already and definitely see some additional places to cut. Its not a great time to be selling at the moment but I have some storage space and much of what I'm selling isn't going to be worth a ton anyway. Thanks again all for the advice.

On 11/21/2023 at 8:30 PM, stormflora said:

It's easier (and more budget friendly) to focus on series that do not have more than a few hundred issues at most. And it's best to focus on series that you have a deep emotional attachment to, not just something that seems interesting at the immediate moment because of a nice cover but you have never really delved into before. Going with lower grade comics helps reduce financial strain as well, and makes it psychologically easier to read a comic without being too careful about maintaining its value.

Some of the older superhero comic series have run for hundreds to thousands of issues, many of which are expensive key issues most people would never be able to afford if they aren't filthy rich. So the sooner you realize that you're guaranteed to have gaps, the sooner you'll know to be more realistic with your expectations. Of course, low grade or reprints will help fill those gaps.

I recently started up a Chip 'n' Dale collection (on Oct. 13, although I had two issues to start with beforehand) and finally finished it today. Every issue from every imprint (excluding foreign variants). It wasn't easy and involved a lot of haggling and bundling comics to maintain a healthy average cost per issue. I knew right from the get-go how many issues it would be in total. I initially started with the Gold Key imprint, but realized later on that the other imprints had original content that the GK one did not, so I expanded to those as well. A grand total of 140 issues. Some of them are still coming in the mail, but I plan to take photos and showcase the collection once they are all in my hand. And then I plan to press each and every one of them and perform some restorations.

In the meanwhile, due to having to average down the cost, I also started collecting Tom & Jerry issues as well. But that's going to be far more daunting, due to the greater issue count as well as the first imprints being insanely rare. It's going to be a longer journey and will involve a heavier investment. But my wife and I both love T&J, so it's not going to be collecting dust on a shelf. Our daughter will eventually read these comics as well.

I would say that if you have outgrown some series, sell it as a collection lot.

More great advice. As I mentioned in the previous post, a few of my runs are quite long, even if they are mostly creator, rather than character runs. As you mentioned, I do try to only keep the runs that I love and/or runs that have historical/cultural value. Thanks for sharing your experiences with Chip n'Dale and Tom & Jerry. I think it's helped me realize that while I have done a pretty good job of cutting down my collection in the past (I have sold far more books than I currently own), there is still a decent amount of fat. In other words, I still have all the runs I love but I also probably have a few I just like. And I'm not sure I need to keep the ones I just like for the sake of being a completionist. I may go through my collection spreadsheet and start to make that distinction. I'm guessing I can find 500 plus books to trim. Thanks!

On 11/21/2023 at 8:10 PM, Robot Man said:

Maybe trim down your runs a bit. Instead of collecting ASM 1-present, collect 1-100 for example. Or even better, realize that you are merely just storing a lot of books that really don’t mean all that much.

I broke the long run habit many years ago and just kept the stuff I like the most. Trouble is, there is a lot of stuff I like…

That's good advice. I have mostly cut my character runs down to creator runs. So, instead of all of Fantastic Four I have the best part of the Kirby/Lee (IMO) run, the Byrne run, the Waid run, and the Hickman run. The only full character run I may have left is Hellblazer but admittedly there are some pretty long creator runs such as Peter David's Hulk and Chris Claremont's X-Men that I could give a second look to. The problem with cutting the creator runs is that while I like having the whole run I also read all my post-Silver books in single issues. In other words, with a couple of exceptions, I don't have any of this stuff in trade. While this gives some folks watching me flip through a Giant Size X-Men #1 or an Iron Man #55 a kitten attack, I like reading the single issues, looking at the adds, the original paper, etc. and wouldn't be too stoked to suddenly replace all that with hardcovers. But definitely some things to think about. Thanks!

Looking for advice from folks who have successfully pared down their collections. I have typically been very good at this, only keeping runs that I plan to reread or which have historical value. Goal is to keep collection around 5K. But since I collect runs, and not single issues, those numbers are getting harder to maintain. Welcome any metrics, thoughts, etc. fully understanding that there are limits when you only collect runs. Thanks!

On 9/20/2023 at 1:24 PM, Cimm said:

Unpopular opinion.... super-heroes hold the comic book artform back from what it could have been/could become. 90% of my collection is non-hero related.

There have been some great superhero comics done but superheroes are probably about a quarter of my collection. Vertigo was what got me fully invested in the medium and I have a huge interest in genre comics (e.g. scifi, crime, horrow) as well as non-genre indies/underground books.

On 9/16/2023 at 10:40 AM, Ken Aldred said:

I've never really liked any of Loeb and Sale's Batman mini-series. Or, Superman For All Seasons.

This is really interesting. I really dug Long Halloween but, after reading everyone’s comments I remembered that the last time I read it was about 12 years ago. I remember liking that it was a true detective story and got into the nitty gritty on the Gotham mob. But maybe it wouldn’t hold up on a re-read today. I will have to give it another look. When it comes to Batman I think Year One and Dark Knight Returns hold up well. I think Killing Joke is overrated although there are parts I like. I also quite enjoyed Morrison’s Arkham Asylum and Son of the Demon. I’d be curious to know folks’ opinion on other overrated and underrated Batman books.

Unpopular opinions you say? I’ve got a few.

1. Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye and Tom King’s Vision are overrated. 

2. Brian Azzarello’s Wonder Woman was the best New 52 series.

3. Brian Wood is not a good writer. 

4. Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing is the greatest comic run of all time.

5. The Long Halloween is a a top 3 Batman run.

On 6/24/2023 at 4:02 PM, alxjhnsn said:

Everything that I've learned on this topic is here in the aptly named "Pricing Comic Art" thread. Read the spoiler text in the first post. Enjoy.

Questions/comment/recommendations/concerns are all welcome.

Awesome! Thanks much! I look forward to reading.

Howdy all. My apologies, in advance, if this is addressed elsewhere. I have been collecting convention sketches/commissions for years. I don't have any intent of selling but I need to provide an accurate valuation for insurance purposes. I know, of course, what I paid but that's about it. I really have no clue as to how to value these. Can anyone suggest a reference or rule of thumb? Or do I just have to hire an appraiser? Many thanks!

On 1/10/2023 at 3:25 PM, Cat said:

Mark Waid had a really good run too. The Pacheco run was okay. Umm.... 

Second this. Waid is top 4 runs for me (Lee/Kirby, Byrne and Hickman being the other 3). Waid’s Doom and Galactus stories stand out but the whole run was pretty excellent.

1) Read 600 comics (read 454 last year).

2) Move at least 3 books closer to completing my Peak Kirby FF run (#44-67 plus Annual 6). Only 7 away (2022 goal was a FF 52, which I picked up).

3) Finish my current cull (got about 3/4 done in 2022).

4) Resume grading and pricing my collection (stopped doing this in 2021).

5) Marvel Premiere 9-14, Doc Strange Vol 2 #1, and a couple of random run fillers.

Jennifer,

Thank you for this clarification.

I appreciate it.

Best,

Evan

Dear CGC,

I have called three times in the past few months to ask when I will get back my Value tier submission 3884197 and have gotten a different (and in the first two instances an incorrect) answer every time. To be specific, I was told in November I would have my books in January. Then I was told in January, I would have my books in February/March And then, in February, I was told I would have my books in July - 14 months after CGC received them and one year after CGC opened them.

I understand that Value tier is low priority, having been discontinued, and that the enormous volume of books received makes it difficult to give a precise return date. But I find the wide range of dates I have been given - literally spanning 7 months - without any explanation as to why the date keeps getting pushed a bit frustrating. Could you please update me on an accurate timeframe for when I can anticipate getting this submission back?

Thanks you in advance for your time.

1 - FF #52 in a 7.5 to 8.0 (white pages)

2 - Read 600 comics (which would nearly catch me up on my current backlog)

3 - Finish my 2021 cull (about 70% done).

On 10/15/2021 at 4:06 PM, FFB said:

I have used GPAnalysis almost since the very beginning when George first launched the site.  It is the best, most user-friendly, easiest site to use if you are trying to look up a single CGC graded issue and get accurate information about sales occurring on the specific venues that GPA reports  (but for some reason, Comiclink sales are not reported).  

Early this year, I started using GoCollect when comic shops opened back up again.  For me, it was a game changer in a couple of respects.  I loved the fact that you could pull up an entire series by title and look at the whole list of issues with the GoCollect-provided FMV next to the issue number.  So, if you were looking for the FMV of multiple issues within a given title, you had that at a glance on a single screen.    Very helpful when digging through back issue bins, and not something you can do on GPA.   Plus, ComicLink sales were reported on GoCollect, which was another huge plus.   Clicking deeper into any specific issue provided a direct link to the actual listing where the book sold, in most cases with detailed, archived scans of the books sold. 

On top of that, they had excellent "Hottest Comics" lists for Silver Age, Bronze Age, Copper Age, Modern Age, and "New" books, with books listed in order based on how many copies were selling in the marketplace, and with FMVs listed next to each issue for reference.  

Wonderful!  Innovative!  Useful!    

The only real downsides to GoCollect were:

(1) sometimes a key book with one or more recent sales would not have an FMV reported (it would be listed as "pending"), which could make you miss something while digging through bins.  But the top level series listing of issues (what I called the "Price Guide View" screen that I looked at while digging through back issue bins) also showed how many sales of each issue were reported in GoCollect.  So, if you saw "Pending" for a single issue's FMV but also saw 10+ sales, you could click on that issue to drill down a level of detail and see what the book was selling for in specific instances without too much trouble, and then click back once to be back where you were.  Sometimes, the fact that a specific issue had many more sales than its surrounding issues could signal that it was a hidden key or a hot book, even though the FMV was reported as "Pending."   

(2) sometimes the FMVs on GoCollect made absolutely no sense.  A 9.8 FMV on a book might be $120, even though when you drilled down one level into the sales data, the actual sales of the book showed that it was consistently selling for more than double what the FMV was reporting over multiple sales and over a multi-month period.  Or even more than double, sometimes.  

Other times, the FMV would show a really high 9.8 value with zero 9.8 sales being reported, and when you drilled down, it appeared as though the site was extrapolating the 9.8 FMV based on a single sale of a CGC 9.6 within the last year (sometimes longer) of the same issue for a price that was somewhere around 40-70% less than the 9.8 FMV being reported on GoCollect.  Or sometimes the recent 9.8 sales were there, but simply did not support the high FMV that GoCollect was placing on that issue.  Not as a high price paid, not as an average, not at all.  

These anomalies made it hard to trust the GoCollect FMV methodology, which isn't explained anywhere in the first place.  BUT, the ability to scan through back issue bins and pull hot issues and keys out based on scanning the series list was valuable enough in its own right that it was more than worth it for me to plunk down $90 for an annual Pro subscription.  

(3) As the year wore on, it seemed like GoCollect was getting slower and slower to report new sales data.  Many clearly relevant sales from GoCollect's normal reporting sales venues were just omitted entirely without any reason given.  

 

 

And then two days ago (October 13), GoCollect killed its legacy site in favor of its "new and improved" site.  

Gone is the ability to view a specific comic book series in a list by issue, with FMV alongside.  (What I thought of as the "Price Guide" view, because that's how price guides look - issue # and price, issue # and price, rinse and repeat for the entire series.)  They simply removed this functionality and did not replace it with anything else.    Think about it - they got rid of the one thing that allowed you to use their site as a mobile price guide.  

Gone is the ability to look at the Hottest Comics lists with FMV next to each book.  The Hottest Comics lists are still there, but they just made the covers bigger on each listing and took away the FMV information.  Like I needed a bigger picture of ASM #361 to know what the ing cover looks like, and like I would trade that in exchange for getting rid of the FMV data.    What used to be perhaps the best, most timely "market report" one could imagine was rendered clunkier, less intuitive, and harder to navigate.    

These were the single most valuable things about GoCollect and as of two days ago, they are just gone.  No explanation given at all.  Gone.  

What was an extremely useful tool is now almost completely useless unless I am trying to look up a single issue.  Which is what I already used GPA for in the first place, and GPA's sales data is more complete than GoCollect's - except for the ComicLink thing.  But for the sites that it does report, GPA does not miss very many sales on the venues from which it does report data.  Meanwhile, the quality of GoCollect's reporting data has consistently eroded all year long to the point where it just isn't reliable any more.  The fact that GoCollect reports ComicLink sales makes no difference when sales information isn't being updated on GoCollect from any of its reporting sales sites.  

I tried using GoCollect in a comic shop yesterday while going through back issue bins and I just got frustrated and angry.  It took way too long to look up each and every issue instead of just seeing all of the issues in a given title on a simple list.  

I wound up going to PayPal and cancelling my Pro subscription renewal for GoCollect and sent GoCollect a helpdesk ticket to refund the rest of my annual subscription.  They removed virtually all of the functionality from this tool that caused me to pay the subscription fee in the first place.  If you had asked me a week ago, I would have told you that GoCollect's Pro subscription was a must-have.  Now, two days after the new site launched, I just want my money back and I'm frustrated and extremely disappointed.  

This an incredibly thorough and extremely helpful response. I knew GoGollect was relaunching the site and it's great to have someone break down how it has evolved (clearly, for the worse). I also really appreciated the breakdown of the relative strengths and weaknesses of both sites (prior to relaunch). Thanks so much!

I am sure this question has been asked before but I would be interested in any opinions on which is the “better” subscription and why? Much thanks!

On 10/6/2021 at 8:47 PM, Lpgk said:

 

I don't think it will make much difference but given the dollar value of this book, it would be best to press it. couldn't hurt really.

it's actually a pretty nice book but on a technical side, you have several major defects like tears, the yellow stain on the top front and the writing on the back. 

Thanks. I figured the stain was overspray from either the printer or the distributor but wasn’t sure. I honestly had no idea how to grade this one. 

On 10/6/2021 at 6:15 PM, Lpgk said:

6.0 as is. 

Thanks. Do you think pressing would make a difference?

On 10/6/2021 at 6:36 PM, Zegeroth said:

4.5 with the back tear,  looks to be about and inch and also a small front bottom tear.  

Thanks. But the back tear on the spine isn’t actually a tear, it’s a crease. The bottom tear is 1/4 inch. The chipping tears are smaler.

Overspray on top of front cover (and a tiny bit on the back) and first page, creasing in top left quadrant of front cover, minor chipping on bottom front cover, and three small tears on the top, bottom, and left of back cover. The top and left look like bindery/machine tears. The bottom tear is 1/4 inch. The thing that looks like a “tear” on the spine side of the back cover is actually a crease. Thanks in advance!

On 10/4/2021 at 11:22 PM, Mr. Bigg said:

No love for The Invisibles? 

Invisibles is phenomenal IMO. It may not get the same attention as some other Vertigo heavyweights but I didn’t include it in the less heralded category given the high level of critical acclaim.

On 10/5/2021 at 9:38 AM, peted76 said:

WE3 was a great little three issue arc, defo worth picking up. 

It probably doesn't count as 'less heralded', more akin to getting lost in the history books, but 'Transmetropolitan' was a 60 issue series and is a must read. I'm pretty sure you could pick it up for pennies in tbp or single issues. 

 

WE3 is definitely on my buy list once I finally catch up on my already purchased reading backlog. Read and loved Transmet. Probably my favorite Warren Ellis series.

On 10/4/2021 at 9:13 AM, Jennifer F. said:

Hello,

Unfortunately, we have been experiencing some issues with our server.  As a result, some features on the website, such as submission tracking, were not displaying properly. Everything should be back up and running normally now, however.  Please let us know if you are still experiencing an issue.

Thank you!

Jennifer,

Thanks. It appears to be back up now. I appreciate the response.