OuterBanks

On 9/4/2021 at 2:04 PM, KCOComics said:

Probably best to find a pro and have them take a look. 

My amateur opinion is, glue can be awfully difficult to remove. It can spread between wraps and pages and require a descent amount of work. The type of glue is probably important as well. I imagine some glues aren't as easy to remove and attempting to would do more damage to the book. 

You could reach out to guys like Kenny Sanderson, Trace Heft, or Hero Restoration to get their thoughts, but I imagine the answer would be "it depends" and they would need to see the book out of the slab. 

Thanks for the names - I’ll definitely check them out.  I read up on glue and there are glues that are easy to remove and then there’s this kinda glue which could cause all the problems you mentioned.  Especially if someone pressed the comic or it was exposed to warm temperatures - the glue will bleed into pages.

Worth a shot!

On 9/4/2021 at 9:55 AM, zzutak said:

An amateur repair typically done to seal a spine split/tear or reattach a partially/completely detached cover to the interior.  If you remove the non-archival adhesive, the pre-repair damage will once again become evident, and new damage (such as ink or paper loss) will likely occur. 

It’s a CGC 3.0 right now with the purple label and C-1 restoration.

Even if it dropped to a 2.0 or 1.0 it’d be worth it . 

Thanks for the answer.

Hi 

Thinking of buying a cgc graded book with some small amount of glue on the cover.  I can’t post a pic unfortunately but searching around about restoration removal it seems to always be about color touch and other areas.  I haven’t seen much about glue removal.   Is this common to do - ?

It’s a C-1 level of restoration fwiw - the glue appears to be non-archival which I know makes it hard but it’s a small amount.  

(grader notes state: Glue/adhesive (Non-archival material small amount) Spine C-1)

Check out the following places:

- CLink

- Comic Connect

- Heritage

- eBay 

Also look at the FB group for AF 15 owners.  You can inquire there - 

Congrats on the WP - I didn’t think it would qualify for that.

You gotta be careful with NFT’s.  Some of these companies are very shady - I also like Blockchain/Crypto but there is a lot of fraud in the space right now.

I have found some use in having an online sub to Marvel (get to read whatever I want, whenever I want - right there at my finger tips) but for collecting and heavy duty reading - it’s always physical for me.

Do you have an eBay store and are you paying the fees for it?  I have been able to do dispute resolution with them just fine as a seller but I also pay the store fees.

The store fees more than pay for themselves by the way.  Especially when you sell a big key they are actually cheaper than some of the auction houses - no buyer’s premium etc.  

But if you need other options - I have consigned with Reece’s Rare Comics and sold on HA & Clink with good experiences.  I’ve used Shortboxed as a customer and they’re great too.  

1. Alan Moore
2. Brian K Vaughan
3. Jason Aaron (minus the Avengers run) 
4. Donny Cates
5. Robert Kirkman 
6. Chip Zdarksy / Matt Fraction 
7. Chris Claremont 

I could go on - I tend to like the writers more than even the artists.

7 hours ago, Bob Loblaw III said:

Not really. It was the second best selling comic for that month at around 90,000 copies.

https://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2011/2011-05.html

I'll take that bet. No way the census climbs from 150 copies to over 2,000 copies even if a movie is a blockbuster. It doesn't help that the Flashpoint storyline was garbage. Pandora as deus ex machina was just lazy writing.

On the first point - you’re actually making my point which is that there is a high print run of 90K but a low census count.

UF4 has > 10K in the census - did a bad storyline stop that from happening?  That census count climbed based on speculative interest alone IMO - the movie buzz, speculative ideas that UF4 is the next AF15 (which is laughable to me) etc…

I’m noticing golden age comics and DC comics picking up in price so I don’t think it’s impossible that something like Flashpoint (new movie coming out) could go up in value.

My only point is that you can’t go on census number counts alone to understand scarcity.  

Also - low census count might mean people haven’t bothered to get it graded.  Take a look at Flashpoint with 150 graded copies:

https://comics.gocollect.com/guide/view/976505

That comic has a low count and doesn’t sell much.  What if the new Flash movie changes that?  I’d bet that census count would climb into the thousands - this is a book sitting around in a lot of people’s collections that they haven’t bothered to get graded because they don’t think it’s worth the effort.

So I tend to rely on the print run of the comic to understand it’s scarcity along with the census number.

It’s hard to say which ones have been cracked and resubmitted - when I think about scarcity of books I also think about the overall print run.  TMNT1 has a notoriously low print run (less than 10K?).

It’s hard to say - some books have very high print runs and high census counts (Wolverine 1) - how much of those are resubmission?  I have no idea.

People will assign value to anything - I have a friend who buys shoes (apparently shoes are collectibles too and there are entire websites devoted to just selling different kinds of basketball shoes) and sells them.  He’s willing to spend a lot of money on this.  

Coins, stamps are still viable hobbies / investments.  Coin collecting isn’t anywhere near as popular as it used to be and still the hobby persists and people still view them as investments.  

It’s not like 10yrs from now - comic books as a medium goes away.  1/2 the content people watch on TV is probably based on a comic book and they have no idea.  I sold a few Invincible 1’s recently and the buyers weren’t even comic fans - they just loved the cartoon and found out it was based on a comic.  

Shows like the Expanse, Sweet Tooth, Walking Dead, Preacher etc.. - all from comics that most people outside the hobby have no idea about.  Comic sales are also healthy - not as great as they used to be but healthy.

I'd give up my left Kidney and 1st born for the privilege of owning DarkHawk1 in a PGX 9.8.

Killing Joke was well put together and there are actually a few 9.9's & 10.0's - I know PGX standards are worse than CGC but your book could very well go to 9.8.  (that's a book that holds up well - my original copy which wasn't properly bagged & boarded and was bought in the 80's came back after a signing as 9.6).

https://comics.gocollect.com/guide/view/150104

52 9.9's & 14 10.0's in the census.  

I like Robbservations with Rob Liefeld.  Never really followed his work when he was on X-Force or at Image but he does a good job going over the history of comics - 70's, 80's, 90's to present day.  The dude's got an impressive memory.

6 hours ago, William-James88 said:

Yes that sounds good, though just to be clear, the idea would be to have a site which is simply links to every non commission opportunity out there?

So if someone makes a post on these forums or facebook marketplace, it would show up on your app/site right? That sounds wonderful, I would be all over that.

I was actually thinking of eBay without the commissions (just run ads instead of taking a % of every transaction).  I think if the site ran ads and generated revenue that way, collectors wouldn't have to worry about losing 10%+ on each item sold.

3 hours ago, wisbyron said:

I'm sure one of the primary reasons eBay hasn't had a significant competitor is just because of awareness of it as an established entity- in the sense that, there's this psychological assurance that there are protections and liability, even if the seller fees, tax, ebay fees etc make it increasingly undesirable. Any site would need to do more than rely on more than word-of-mouth for it to become established as a viable source, so you'd likely have to pay for some advertising as well for it to potentially take off. 

Yeah - that makes sense.  In addition to it's authority, eBay also makes things stupid easy - I really like how easy it is to list a new comic straight thru the app on my iPhone.  Doing that sort of development work isn't easy or cheap.

6 hours ago, Dr. Dank said:

The biggest problem I have selling/buying outside eBay is liability 

Do you think goods & services & the consumer protection provided by a lot of CC companies is inadequate?

1 hour ago, Ryan. said:

I think I saw something like you describe. Let me see if I can find a link...

Here it is:

Comics Market - Forum Only Selling Area - CGC Comic Book Collectors Chat Boards (cgccomics.com)

Yeah - I know that exists along with a bunch of other forums on Facebook/IG - I thought a site like eBay without the fees would be more user friendly though - guess not!

Hey Everyone 

Some background here - I've been collecting for most of my life (with a long break when we had kids) and like many I hold a full time job and just want to figure out how to get the hobby to pay for itself (even partly for itself).  When I look into the commissions sites pay (eBay, Heritage etc.)- I get it, they need to make a living.  They've got staff, they've got marketing and they're in competition to earn a profit.  They also have to recruit a lot of big dealers which require some white glove treatment.  

The alternative is selling on boards or social media - I like the FB/Instagram sellers but it's hard to search for titles, the auctions are time consuming to find and it takes time to figure out someone's reputation (eBay makes it easy with a seller / buyer rating).  I like the better deals I find but it would be nice if this were all aggregated in onto one simple site for collectors (you can search, setup alerts, watch lists, buyers/sellers get feedback we can all see, and maybe we'd even feel more comfortable doing cash transactions, schedule a meetup to exchange books in person).  

I work in tech and have built e-commerce platforms before and they're surprisingly little overhead.  If I setup a site that had zero listing and commission fees done specifically for comics and the collectors community do you think people would use it?  Or are people pretty happy with FB/Instagram enough that this problem is solved? 

I'm not interested in turning it into a profit machine.  I like my day job and the idea of competing with ComicLink/HA etc.. (these are not easy business to run I suspect) is daunting.  But it would be a fun side project for me and let me connect more with fellow collectors.

So..if such a site exists , do you think collectors would use it?

Cover detached?  Even still - that’s something else!

I was thinking 9.2 - 9.4 after a clean/press too - thanks for taking a look!

17 minutes ago, Hamlet said:

You make too much for a Roth IRA 😀

 

Nope - Reverse ROTH IRA.  Anyone can do it - even if you’re above the cut off.  It’s a known loophole - that the IRS decided to leave in place.

2 hours ago, the blob said:

I hate that my only deductability route is a 401K and i am stuck with the funds in question.

OK, I read up on that loophole. Interesting. Of course, investing in this stock market feels like investing in 9.8s, but I was too chickenshyt to jump back in last year when I was hoarding TP and rice. I was waiting for a crash. The crash happened. And then I was terrified there would be a second crash and I'd lose my job and wanted the cash accessible. Stoopid. I am due to inherit a little money. Maybe this is the time to set up a Roth/IRA as I won't paying any taxes on that, but it would be considered post-tax income.

 

Gotta put your emotions aside and go with the data:

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2014/02/worlds-worst-market-timer/

I think the market and everything is probably inflated or bubbly but who knows how high?  And who knows how fast a correction?  We think comics are in a bubble, they can go down - but how does someone know the bottom?  I think buy/hold sensible books and index funds is the way to go (emphasize retirement stuff over comics).