Qalyar

I don't know if this is really what happened at CGC, but I do find this argument somewhat compelling. A detached cover results in a book with two significant structural defects -- essentially, two tears in the cover along the spine. That warrants a more serious penalty than two randomly-located tears of equivalent size because it also compromises the book's integrity. A one-staple book with a detached cover still has the issue of fundamental integrity, but it gets there via one technical defect rather than two. In the extreme situation with an otherwise sufficiently high-grade copy, is that a difference that might warrant an 0.5 higher grade maximum?

I think the future price trend for TMNT keys will depend in part on whether the 2023 reboot film is 1990-film-level mediocre, 2014-film-level baaaaaaad, or actually a positive adaptation of the franchise.

I've found that the general rise in prices has scared some rare, but low-demand items out of hiding. So it might be a good time to look for books that are interesting and elusive, but... aren't what other people are looking for, shall we say? If you're trying to assemble runs of major titles, or -- even worse -- pick up conventionally desirable key issues, this is sure an expensive time to collect, if nothing else.

I think condition is the real barrier for most holders of '90s bulk books. The typical estimate is that books off the LCS shelf -- especially in the pre-slabbing days when many LCS owners' idea of condition was much looser -- ended up 8.5-9.0. Having a couple long boxes of '90s "spec" fodder then required that you had access to a retailer who got 9.8-candidate copies from the distributors (which was hardly guaranteed), that the retailer themselves didn't damage the books in any way, and that you as the OO have stored them appropriately in the intervening 30 years. For most of the people who bought into the '90s rush solely on investment grounds, I think it's likely that somewhere between one and all of those things are false.

So, obviously, demand has something to do with that. People are way more likely to care that they own books that other people care about, and so to take the time to list them. Cold books are almost certainly under-represented as a result. On the other hand, if all data sources were flawless, I would be out of my job as a data analyst! I think we can look at comparable items to get sort of a directionally-correct calibration. So let's do that. DC's 2012 Diablo series is not entirely unlike Masked Rider. It is a modern book, adapting a licensed property that doesn't have particularly strong cross-over success with the comic book market. The series had a little under 5k orders placed for #1, rapidly dropping thereafter. Sales figures aren't available for #5, but trendlines suggest it had around 4000 books sold via Previews (and minimal other distribution). CPG shows 21 copies owned for #1, dropping to a low of 7 for the last issue. Dark Horse's earlier Diablo: Tales of Sanctuary (non-variant) had a bit more than 6k Previews orders and shows 12 owned in CPG. Kitchen Sink's Black Hole is a classic indie title (continued with Fantagraphics after Kitchen Sink's demise). Started in 1995, it's roughly a contemporary of Masked Rider, and the awards and recognition it has received make up a bit for the lower interest usually afforded indies vs. Big Two books. The four Kitchen Sink issues of Black Hole had roughly 6000 copies each produced; CPG ownership numbers are 29/29/12/15. I looked up a few other titles as well; obviously, every book is different, so it's tough to reduce the noise in these data points. Still, Masked Rider's CPG census suggests it's of similar rarity to the two above titles. However, browsing ebay suggests it may actually be slightly more common in the market in reality (as of this post: 7 DM copies / 2 NS). That makes sense, because publication numbers in 1996 for Big Two books (even ones they expected to tank) were quite a bit higher than niche books in 2012, or indies in most any year. Add to that the observation that Masked Rider had dual-channel distribution, and I think it's likely that more copies of Masked Rider were produced than for Diablo or Black Hole, even if that's not clearly reflected in the CPG population. My estimate, then, is that this book likely had 8000-10000 copies produced (which is in line with what little we do know about bottom-offering Marvel titles from the era). The target audience probably didn't overlap with traditional collectors all that strongly, however, so I'd expect survival and condition rates to be lower than normal. If that's correct (or close enough to it), that explains why this book is pretty much a ghost. Top-tier 1996 books had print runs north of 150k or sometimes north of 200k. Heck, the Fantastic Four #1 volume reset later that year had over 313,000 copies ordered through Heroes World alone. Bonus points indeed.

Agreed. Otherwise I would think the fairly rabid MMPR community would push the price on this quite a bit higher, despite the complicated canon/non-canon relationship between MMPR and Masked Rider. I have no idea how many copies of this book were ordered -- and it's difficult to really estimate, because Marvel was still distributing exclusively via Heroes World at the time, and they never made sales figures from this period public -- but considering that it was released less than a year before Marvel's bankruptcy, amid an industry-wide collapse in sales, plus the niche nature of the licensed product, it cannot have been very widely sold. It certainly doesn't appear often now.

No. At least, not yet. There are comics from the 30s without staple corrosion, so far.

If they go all the way through the book, I expect the grade would be similar to a book with punch holes, yes.

"wear staple", but no mention at all of staple rust, for the record.

Unless he's asking if you can get Signature Series labels on books that you, yourself, sign. In which case you need to contact CGC directly. I believe they've allowed that in some circumstances in the past, but there's a creator's form involved, and they're less likely to entertain that sort of thing for books you have no legitimate connection to. Regardless, you can't just send books in directly that way. If that's not what was being asked about, then, yeah, everything SOTIcollector said.

On the other hand, any demand spike for Spiderman 2099 probably is Into the Spider-verse 2 hype. Sorry, Across the Spider-verse!

I don't think this needs a rule per se. Responsible sellers should probably make it upfront that this is the case. But either way, if the seller isn't able to get the book, or the book doesn't end up as advertised, then the rules already handle what happens to sellers who cannot or do not uphold their agreements.

Welp, there's an easy addition to my ebay block list.

That Matrix book has to be the most common comic that was supposed to have the full run pulped! Still a nice find, especially with the new film arriving shortly. That Twisted Tales is no slouch either; the Pacific series isn't too hard to find, but that issue from Eclipse is oddly elusive. Also, something something late number Spawn newsstand. And does Faust see much interest these days?

Especially if you try to figure out just what options exist.

Still a ways to go for a comic to catch the high sale for the 1804 dollar, at a cool $7.68M

Usually, anyway. Some indie titles, in particular, require more arcane methods. And then there's Classics Illustrated, where none save poets and madmen dare tread. But anyway, check the indicia first. If it's not a first print, note that as the variant when submitting. CGC should catch those but it never hurts to give them a hand.

The series I would most want OA from is effectively impossible, which is probably for the best for my hobby budgets. Only a tiny amount of Black Hole OA has ever reached the secondary market. Most notably, the cover OA from #3, which sold at Heritage for $37,500 (!!). My wife would murder me as I slept.

This one really impresses me because of it's era. Production quality for the late SA / early BA stuff was a travesty, and so the glorious miswraps on those books -- while still impressive -- aren't really surprising. Heck, I've seen quite a few books that aren't miswrapped so much as miscut, including several that aren't even rectangular. But by 2003 and 2007? I think the WWLA exclusive is the most surprising. I wonder if that was actually distributed at WWLA and no one noticed or cared, of if it was "printer's waste" that made it to the market via ... let's say, other than regular channels.

Strongly support this decision. Thank you.

That's very strange. I don't put a lot of stock in the graders' notes, but I don't think I've ever seen anything as seemingly random as those before. That said, clearly, wherever these invisible extra manufacturing staples are, they didn't impact the grade. If anything, I'm more than a little surprised this got a 7.5 with that bottom edge...

I think newsstands are close to parity with DM on this title, or maybe a bit less common. They're not a crazy chase-rarity ratio like for some later books. That said, this whole series rarely shows up anywhere, in either printing. So "equal or a bit less common" than "fairly scarce" is still tough to find, and this is one of those titles where the default condition seems to be "beaten to death with a shovel" to boot. Also, while I've seen perhaps a half-dozen #1 in the last few years, I ... don't actually think I ever knew this series went to 9 issues. I just looked up the run, and that "Marvel Madness" cover for #9 isn't the least bit familiar to me. The fact that there are all of three copies on ebay at the moment (for the record: 1 DM, 2 newsstands -- although one of those is currently in the Netherlands!) suggests I'm not alone in that.

Especially for DC books that only date back to 2012, all five issues of this miniseries are pretty close to being ghosts, and not without reason. Although 2012 saw some of the best sales for comics in general in over a decade, Previews orders for the first three of these books were all under 5k copies apiece. At 4253 orders placed, #3 barely made it into the top 300 titles ordered for its month. There's no record of #4 or #5 in Comichron's listings, so they were likely out of the top 300 entirely, and quite likely below 4000 orders placed. With no newsstand distribution, and very likely minimal overseas sales, I don't expect total print runs to be too much higher. To the extent that these show up at all, midgrade copies in the 6.0-7.0 range are the norm. These three are actually fairly nice copies. The #3 and #4 here both have some trauma to the LR corner, most of which probably would press out if I were so inclined. #5 is a reasonably clean book. Demand for this title has never been particularly great, and its sort of awkward caring about Blizzard-based stuff right now given that company's current situation, but I'm always happy to rescue cheap, high grade copies of the series from their obscurity.

I find it interesting that CGC credits Bizarre Sex #9 as the first appearance of Omaha. I suppose that's the first appearance that's likely to be eligible for authentication by CGC, however. Omaha previously appeared in issue #8 of the APA Vootie in January 1978. Issues of Vootie were printed by a random mixture of photocopying, mimeography, and actual offset printing, depending largely I think on how much money the editors had at the time of any specific issue. I have no idea how #8 was printed (as I've never seen a copy!) but it seems likely CGC would decline to authenticate one. Assuming you could find a copy. By their nature, APAs are really, really hard to track down copies of, and that one more than most.

I will note that I successfully received a package from a German shipper in the midst of the COVID logistics lockdowns, some 5 months after it was shipped. So there is still a possibility that your package will arrive someday. You may also be able to contact USPS and have them open an investigation to confirm that the package has not left the United States and that they still know where it is; I'll note that if it was tendered to customs for international transit at some point, then the chances you'll be able to get a direct status update from anyone at the moment are about zero, although it's possible Ascendia could tell you more (I'm not sure; I've never worked with them).