StreetPreacher

And yet, you've still sent them nearly $2k worth of business! I'd say their business model is working PERFECTLY! Don't hire additional expensive professional graders, and just keep accepting orders and extending turn around times! Why would they waste money hiring more staff when people continue sending $2k worth of business and are apparently willing to wait! The ONLY way to change this is to stop using CGC... I suppose if enough people stopped using CGC due to the long wait times, then they might be forced to increase capacity, but as long as people keep sending them business, then why would they even consider doing anything to shorten wait times?

Do most people trust the CGC Grading enough to just buy blindly based on the subjective third party grade, and not bother examining the book contained within the shell? I haven't seen many 9.8 slabs in person, but of the few that I have seen, some seemed to have visible 'defects' that i thought would have immediately made 9.8 impossible, but CGC still awarded them the coveted 9.8 ratings...

Yeah I'm in Ontario, but looks like I already have at least 1 book from all 4 of your McFarlane 'sets', lol. Thanks anyway, GLWS!

Are the prices in CAD or USD? Wish I hadn't recently bought a bunch of random McFarlane books... Jjust trying to see if any of the 'sets' don't include books I already just bought

So you're saying that a good pressing would be able to fix the book's major defects, but that the book isn't nearly valuable enough to invest in having it pressed since you can easily find cheaper copies in better condition than you'll probably achieve even with ideal pressing results? However, these ARE the types of DEFECTS that pressing can 'fix'?

I think this same book has been listed on different sites over the past few months, and has yet to find a buyer. I believe the issue is that it hasn't been listed close enough to the bargain basement price that people would probably expect considering the comic's condition. Now it appears decent at first glance, but when you look closer at the front, or bother to look at the back, you encounter a severe? (subscription?) crease that's fairly wide and extends all the way from top to bottom, and is located right down the middle! Although, after further inspection it doesn't appear that the crease breaks colour, and on the front cover the crease sometimes isn't even noticeable under certain angles of light... Now I'm not suggesting that this book could be cleaned/pressed and then be slabbed and graded a 9.8, however would this be the type of damage that pressing could possibly fix, or at least improve? I mean, this book probably isn't even worth the effort to repair since great looking raw examples are readily available for dcent prices, but I thought it might be a good candidate using as practice for an amateur?

Yep, those covers were (according to the details listed on mycomics.com) all at the LEAST inked by Todd McFarlene. Todd was only a 'hired gun' for those covers, as I assume he had an interest in helping ALL Image publications to succeed. So McFarlane ONLY did the covers on these issues, and other artists handled ALL of the interior pencil/ink work... If the books were more valuable then THESE are ones I might consider sending to CGC, since I really only care about the covers! lol. Also, Batman #423 makes for a GREAT slab since the cover is GORGEOUS, but the story itself is pretty lame. The 'plot' just attempts to show batman's 'softer' side by first talking a guy out of jumping off a bridge to commit suicide, and then they show how caring BRUCE is, by having Batman send some injured kid? to the Wayne manor where Alfred helps him recover... All in all, I find it a pretty forgettable story, attempting to illustrate the 'compassionate' portion of Batman/Bruce's personality, but it comes across as quite LAME, and not very subtle or nuanced... So it's not a KEY issues, there's no villains, no big fights, just an AMAZING cover, and a boring? morality story. So Batman #423 is a PERFECT issue to slab, so you can just stare at that incredible cover image, and have a perfect excuse to NEVER actually read the book again Although I guess it is a comic book that was intended for kids

The trouble is if your treasured book comes back a 6.0, and you end up selling it on ebay for $23... You must have an impressive collection to own so many comics that are worthy of being graded/slabbed!

Hmm, I know that CGC makes a distinction between Newstand/Direct editions of some books now, but not all? And, is there any chance of UPC v.s. Direct editions ever being considered separate printings? I mean, I assume that the publisher would have printed ALL of the Newstand UPC copies at once, and the Direct Editions would also have been printed together as a separate run? So wouldn't that mean that either the UPC or Direct version would have been printed as a complete batch 'first'? Meaning that one variation must technically be a 2nd printing?

Even after reading all of this information, my lizard brain says get the gold foil embossed one! Although, It seems that Haunt is unlikely to transform into a lucrative mainstream IP that causes the comic price to explode, so is there a good chance that prices for the first issue have already essentially stabilized? I just started shopping around for Haunt, but it seems like one of those titles that'll probably always be available for ~$25? I haven't seen a sale price graph, but I'd guess that an 11 year old book without any associated movie or TV series is unlikely to suddenly become a hot commodity? And did this become the longest most detailed thread that was started to ask for advice about a $20 comic? But seriously, thanks for all of the insight about how print runs normally work!

So, where do you find information about how many of each 'variant' or 'printing' of the book was produced? I guess it makes sense that later printings might become more valuable if the print run was reduced with each subsequent publication, and there are FAR more 1st printings available than 4th printings if you're only considering supply & demand, but I always felt with collectables like comics or sportscards, that the ORIGINAL printing would normally be considered more valuable... See, THIS is why buying comics is NOT an investment! lol. And I doubt that "Haunt" will ever become even a 3 figure book in raw form, so I guess it doesn't really matter which version I buy

That would explain it. I hadn't bought any comics in 25 years, so 'back in my day', Direct Editions always had logos or sketches in place of the UPC code that was only on Newstand copies... So, There's no real WINNER between these 3 available 'variants'? I'd like to complete at least the first 7 issue run that McFarlane did cover work on, but just wondering if people think whether the BLUE or GOLD cover variant will be more valuable long term? Or if the title is/was popular enough to even be in demand 20 years from now? I just don't want to buy one, and then learn that the other variant ended up spiking in value for some reason that i'm currently overlooking? Some ads state that the blue 'third' printing is more rare, but I'm not sure if that's just sales BS being used to help sell the book? Or I guess I should just do what I did when I was a kid and, BUY THE SHINY ONE!

Thanks! These are all by the same artist, and I did my best to cover the cover signatures

HAHA! At first I didn't even notice that his mask was also 'bedazzled' with skulls! "BeSkuzzeled"?" And I wonder what he keeps in those ~22? 'small' pouches strapped to his leg? Or is this part of a s silent competition with Rob to see who can include more pouches on a single character?

Just got a few more additions to my collection of less common books worked on by one of my all time favourite artists! Is anyone else a fan of more 'obscure' covers that people might not even be aware were done by high profile artists?

Yeah I'm just an old man who got confused with how comics releases are handled now... I THOUGHT I had already seen Spawn #313 for sale, and assumed #310 must be a reprint. HOWEVER, it turns out the listing I saw for #313 was for a PRE-ORDER, and the book doesn't actually come out until the end of December! It's a cool cover, but do I really have to pre-order a comic 3 months in advance just to ensure I'd get a copy? If that's the case, then they can keep the books! Especially if you had paid for the boo 3 months ago, and when it finally shows up it looks like these poorly packaged disasters? It's the same BS the video game stores tried to pull before downloading. The game-stops would essentially force customers to pre-order new games if they wanted to be sure they'd get a copy on release day... However, of course game-stop tries to force customers into pre-orders so that the store doesn't end up with extra copies they can't return! And as a bonus, the game-stops would get to earn interest on all of the pre-order money until the game is finally released!

Thanks, that's exactly what it was advertised as, so I'm very happy with the deal. One question, does it look like this book has already been pressed? For some reason the spine ticks visible on the back cover appear that they might have been worse, and someone has already tried to eliminate the indentations via pressing, but these results are the best they could do? It just looks like EVERY spine tick indentation has the exact same depth?

This is why I ACTUALLY have only bought slabs for books I that I couldn't find a raw copy of for a better price

Sorry, I was misreading the list. I hadn't been keeping up on the series, and was assuming the 1992 was the release date of that issue, but now that I think about it, that's obviously the year the title STARTED! lol. Apologies for my ignorance https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?q=spawn+310&pubid=&PubRng= And I guess I was naive enough to assume that issues that already had 4 copies listed for resale must be an 'older' title!

Sorry I'm not up to date. What's the deal with this issue? Isn't it just the reprint of a book from 1992, of which you can still buy original copies for $10? Or is there some speculation craze that I'm not aware of?

Well I actually meant in general? I currently focus exclusively on back issues, but it seems like new Direct Editions at my LCS now have a UPC on the cover?

Were there direct edition of this that didn't have UPC codes? Or do even Direct Editions ALL have a UPC these days? At least in my day you'd get a cool little sketch instead of the ugly UPC if you bought a direct copy... But now ugly UPCs are actually preferred since those copies might be less common! Don't you love when your hobby becomes big bussines? On this issue I had just noticed that the first print uses a horizontal bar code, while the 'gold foil' printing went with a vertical UPC orientation... Is this just to help differentiate the editions? Like how some of the Marvel reprint/facsimile appear to BLACK out the UPC square to make the books harder to pass off as the real thing?

So the 3/4 print 'gold foil' edition is actually less common and harder to find than the 1st print? And it looks like the 'official' SECOND print was the McFarlane sketch variant, of which only 24 copies were published, so I'm not sure that can really be considered a 'printing' :). And those two 9.8s are what got me wondering! According to gocollect the 1st print 9.8 is $100 while the 3/4 print 'gold foil collector' edition most recently traded for $140... So is the later 'collector' edition printing really 40% more valuable than the 1st printing?!?! And WHY couldn't this be the case for my GOLD New Mutans #87, where the 1st print is $300+ while the 2nd print 'gold collector' edition is worth next to nothing? But it sounds like the suggestion is to pickup the Gold Foil and Blue editions first, and then look for a 'yellow' 1st print as the price has likely already stabilized? I found #3-5 for $5 (CAD) each at my LCS, but they've never had the earlier issues, so I figured I'd have to grab them online, at which point I encountered this predicament... And I'm not a serious enough collector (or investor) to start buying 3 variants of the same book, so if I was to pick 1 of the 3 'common' Issue #1 variants, which should it be? Will the Blue or Gold variants hold their value, or would the 1st printing be a safer choice? Although I guess this entire discussion is sort of pointless, as none of the variants are likely to become valuable enough to spend this much time debating which to buy Kind of like when I spent like 20 minutes trying to decide which copy of a $5 comic to buy from my LCS... Though, really I just don't want to be kicking myself in 10-20 years because one edition became valuable, while the variant I bought became worthless lol!

As part of my McFarlane quest, I was looking to purchase a copy of Haunt #1, and noticed that there seem to have been 3 printings of this issue. The 1st print has a yellow/gold outline to the cover title, and a horizontal UPC at the bottom right corner. The 2nd print can be identified by having a blue outline to to cover title instead of the yellow/gold used on the 1st print. Then there was ALSO a THIRD print that was advertised as a 'collectors' edition, and it used a reflective gold foil outline on the cover title, and the UPC at the bottom right is vertical instead of horizontal. Now I normally prefer FIRST prints, but when I checked the stats on 'gocollect' it seemed like the 'THIRD' print has actually been selling for more than the FIRST print? It seems I can currently find raw copies of both 1st & 3rd prints for the same price and in similar conditions, so just wondering if people here actually consider the THIRD print to be a more desirable version (smaller print run?), or if I'm better off with the FIRST printing in the long run? I know it's a relatively inexpensive book, but even with the cheap stuff I like to at least think I'm getting the best deal possible And just for the record I'm referring to these 3 'main' McFarlane variants. I know there might have been a couple other variants, and extremely limited edition 'sketch' versions. But I'm only looking at these 3 printings... FIRST PRINT: SECOND PRINT (possibly 3rd print if you consider the ultra limited sketch cover to be the 2nd print...) THIRD PRINT - Or 'Collectors Edition', which I also see this version advertised as... And it's not obvious in the image, but this edition used shiny reflective GOLD FOIL around the cover title lettering, which I believe is required to be present on all 'collectors edition' comics So in a nutshell I'm asking, if you had the choice to buy 1 of these 3 in the same condition for the same price, which would you purchase? As I said, I would normally grab the first edition, but I checked 'gocollect' (no idea if that site is even accurate), which showed recent sales of CGC 9.8s copies of both the First and 'Collectors' editions, and the 'Collectors Edition sold for $40 more than the first print, and it looked like selliing prices were alsi less than for the First print at all lower grades...

I sucks at this. I meant that I assumed 'hide' was a way for users to 'hide' any posts THEY found offensive, so they could safely read the thread again without being forced to see the 'offensive' post again... Anyway, no hard feeling, and this is already way too many posts covering something pointless lol. Thanks for the tip, I'll use the 'hide' option next time I accidentally post a stupid message.. So my message count might soon decrease significantly