Nick Furious

Anyone pick anything up yet in the MCS Prime Auction...or have anything listed? Day one down. Here's the "Featured Items" for the rest of the week: October Prime Auction (mycomicshop.com)

I feel like we get some announcement like this every six months or so regarding a new Spawn movie. I'm hopeful, like many other people I own multiple 9.8 copies of Spawn #1. But I'm kind of growing skeptical regarding these announcements.

Reading is kind of a natural laxative but trying to respond by mobile phone can induce constipation. That's my theory on lurking without contributing. I should add a more serious contribution: Being new to a forum makes most people self-conscious and insecure. If your first couple posts get passed right over with no response, you start wondering what you are doing wrong and maybe stop posting. The reality is there is a bit of a "earning your respect" element to established forums. A new member could give the sagest piece of advice ever given and it likely wouldn't get the same recognition as a well-established member responding with "who farted?".

We typically compare year-to-year prices without taking inflation into account. Truth is, prices could be about 25% higher than 2019 and actually be at 2019 prices...relative to the cost of groceries or other things you might buy with that money.

Agreed, we must consider the exponential difference in utility and personal joy one most get from owning a CGC dubbed 9.8 vs. a CGC dubbed 9.6...

I would argue that variant covers are the modern equivalent of trying to make everything a "collector's issue".

Significance of the book has always been important to collectability and always will be. But I think we went through a period of time where emphasis shifted towards the grade on the label and MCU mentions...and away from the actual availability (or lack of availability) of the book itself. Someone once told me to collect the books that you don't find very often, don't get overly invested in the books that are available everywhere. You will always be able to find those books. I think we will see a return to that...where a 9.8 on a book that is easy to find will not be as desirable as owning a book that is harder to find. Kind of a return to collecting fundamentals. I expect there will be a time lag, but soon it will hurt sales of new books. The idea of guaranteed profit from buying 5 copies of a variant cover and getting a 9.8 grade on 1 or 2 of them will become...less guaranteed. So, I think the safe space is older books whose collectability was never dependent on secondary factors such as a 9.8 label or a mention in an MCU show/movie.

I would disagree with the specific idea that dealers won't sell at a loss. Auction prices typically dictate market values more than the dealers purchase prices. But I agree with the general idea that lower end will hold up better. Lower end typically has a broader base of support. High end prices can often be determined by just 2 bidders while low end is likely to have several potential buyers interested at or near the selling price.

Can't you do a C-P-R through CGC's pressing service that will maintain the signature authenticity? Other than the money spent for this, I don't see how you could go wrong. Certainly seems almost impossible that it would result in a lower grade and seems very likely it would get a higher grade. My one concern would be, who restores a book that extensively without pressing? Seems that would have happened as part of the restoration process.

If we are going to delve into nefarious-motivation theories, you would have to consider the timing of the grading to the timing of the Blackstone acquisition. Presumably they would have been more concerned with pre-acquisition revenues and graded as high as possible to maximize those revenues.

We tend to take old pictures like this for granted. But they were rare and expensive at the time they were taken and developed.

There's no question they are different books. But I don't think there is much reason to believe that the original copy would have graded at 9.8. I think that intentional theft is very doubtful. I think it's more likely it was accidentally switched at pressing or at encapsulation. A far more speculative (and nefarious) theory, your copy was damaged and got replaced with a copy taken from someone who had submitted multiple copies.

I covered that in the 4th sentence. I assume we can all agree that having 2 paths to winning the case is better than having just one of those paths.

I actually think the better initial chess move is to tell Ebay that you want a legal claim filed by either them or the buyer before you will accept any outcome that impugns your (sellers) integrity and indicates that you committed a crime. When someone falsely accuses you of a crime, demanding that they put it on the record through an official filing with law enforcement will often cause them to back off. I think this could cause Ebay to take the seller out of the loop and make it an issue between Ebay and the buyer. If that didn't work, then I would go to step #2 and file my own USPIS claim as a seller. By constantly siding with the buyer without proper investigations, Ebay has been complicit in mail fraud for a long time in my opinion. They encourage it by making it easy for buyers to scam sellers through their platform without proper investigation and without even filing a legal claim.

That looks like a lot of value for $180. Maybe next time you will be the one handing over the additional $20 bill?

Did you ship USPS? Tell Ebay that someone is committing the Federal crime of mail fraud, either you or the buyer. And if they choose to conclude that you committed mail fraud, you want it to see an official report to a law enforcement agency by either Ebay or the buyer. Might not work but might scare them enough to take you out of the loop and pay for it themselves.

I'm stickin with Fish Police and Gizmo.

I hope you decide to keep 5 or 10 books as memento and proof that you took the ride.

I actually think that going global is one of the real possibilities for new comic books. I don't think it will change values of old books so much as create a bigger market for new books. The new X-men team of GSX1 was specifically designed to appeal to a global market. Of course that was in the days before the internet and social media, so I don't think it was all them successful in that regard. But we are seeing more of an attempt to take a mostly New York based industry and make it more desirable around the world. I think it will be more successful this time around. As for older comic books, I'm under the impression that the majority of new collectors (true collectors, not investors) either never get very interested in old stuff or do so very slowly and gradually.

When taken as a whole, historical S&P 500 performance is based on the real profitability of real companies. Typically, the aggregate "price-to-earnings" ratio remains consistently range bound from year to year. Much of that historical profitability growth is dependent on ever-increasing government spending. Much of that government spending growth is based on borrowing. To look at historical stock performance and extrapolate into the future is to assume that government spending will continue to increase at the same rates as in the past. I don't believe this can happen in perpetuity without some kind of reckoning. Maybe it's just a devaluation of the currency relative to daily essentials. Maybe it's worse than that. But in inflation-adjusted terms, I would not be inclined to believe that past is perpetual prelude regarding the S&P 500.

If you wanted to limit the downside risk, I would say DC Silver age first appearances. Marvel keys have already priced in expectations and are now pulling back a bit from that. DC Silver Age first appearances haven't priced in a whole lot of expectations. I think they provide upside potential with downside risk that is much more limited. I would also put magazine first appearances in the category of limited downside risk.

So Clayton Crain will make an exclusive variant cover for you and take your wife? Does he charge a flat fee, or does he take a percentage of the sales?

Toxicity is an under-appreciated super-power in nature.

It sounds like taking some money off the table would give you some peace of mind. If I had your opportunity I would likely sell about $200K worth of books. Buy a $300K rental property with 50% down after paying taxes on the books. Netting $15K per year is a 10% ROI immediately, growing 5%-10% each year on an asset that is likely to hold it's value and increase eventually.

How exciting! A new limited edition fleecing to celebrate the 30th anniversary celebration of the original fleecing of the sheep! Where do I sign up? Definition of fleece (Entry 1 of 2) 1a : the coat of wool covering a wool-bearing animal (such as a sheep) b : the wool obtained from a sheep at one shearing. 2a : any of various soft or woolly coverings. b : a soft bulky deep-piled knitted or woven fabric used chiefly for clothing. verb gerund or present participle: fleecing 1. INFORMAL obtain a great deal of money from (someone), typically by overcharging or swindling them. "money that authorities say he fleeced from well-to-do acquaintances"