Jesse-Lee

Grabbed this today digging through boxes at an LCS:

Was nearby an LCS that isn't normally "L" to me based on where I live, and I had about 20 minutes to pop in and dig some boxes. Came away with some cool picks for what I thought was a decent price. $32 all-in - the Batman 500 and LOTDK 1 were $1 box books:

Yeah, that's definitely a fair point - in my opinion it still fits into the model of effective supply and demand in the sense that some of the same books may just recirculate in the market and continue to force flat sales for awhile. I actually don't even own this book in a 9.8 (and I can go into a whole rant around why I don't typically buy 9.8s... ), but I'm one of the people who thinks this book as a mega key will continue to increase in the long run across most grades.

I think you're missing my point - of course those copies in the census exist, but just because 1,377 of something exists (copies of 9.8 ASM 300 for example) doesn't mean that 1,377 are available to purchase. Right now there are only 9 or 10 9.8s available on eBay. I don't know how many are on other sites/stores to purchase, but for sake of argument and a round number, let's pretend that 100 ASM 300 9.8s are available to purchase on the open market currently. If 150 people want that book, and the other 1,277 aren't available for purchase, then the effective supply is 100 regardless of what the existent supply is, and the price is going to reflect that. Of course you can say that you're guessing or betting that the other holders won't or will sell at some point, but like you said, it's all speculation and it's what drives the price. When this book started to climb, more sellers were interested in cashing out and the supply met demand in the moment, and prices leveled or dipped. Then supply went back down because people didn't want to sell low, and now prices have started back up a bit. It's all cyclical like any other speculation game. I think what's currently available matters a lot. If every single copy of this book (or really any physical commodity people speculate on) was suddenly for sale tomorrow all at the same time, prices would almost certainly crash. But the likelihood of that happening is obviously very low, and I think many of us speculate that as more people become interested in this book - especially people who buy to hold and who take copies off the open market - the price will continue to rise in the future as effective supply continues to fail to meet the overall demand.

This is important to consider. I've said as much before, but people shouldn't use the overall number of graded copies in the census as their ultimate definition of supply, it should be the number of graded copies that are available to purchase in a given time-frame.

Oh man, I used to have that Halloween Hulk bucket! Wow, I totally forgot about it until I saw this - I wish I still had that! Thanks for the nostalgia!

After recently getting back into collecting and buying my first slabs in the past year, I realized I was falling back into buying to collect and shoving everything into boxes. So I spent some time the other day pulling books - especially the slabs - and just taking the time to look at each cover and really enjoy what I had. I love reading comics of course, but I also love the way slabbed books look, and I like to just take the slab and examine it. Do you do the same? Or how do you take the time to enjoy your collection, rather than just filing it away?

I never posted a pic of my copy. Glad I picked it up, even in a 9.2 I think it's a cool book to own:

Thanks for doing this - I learned I'm probably too harsh of a grader (which I guess is better than too lenient...). Congrats to the winners!

Book 1 - 7.0 Book 2 - 2.5 Book 3 - 2.5 Book 4 - 5.5 Book 5 - 6.0 Book 6 - 6.5 Book 7 - 1.8

I've talked about this before, but this is one of my personal examples embodying this quote - it's Batman 244, one of my all-time favorite covers and one of my favorite Bat-eras. This is a 6.5 that looks better than a lot of higher-graded books out there, because the back cover has some sun shadowing going on that likely brought the grade down. It looks gorgeous from the front and I only paid 6.5 level money for it:

The one on the left looks slanted or miscut to me. There is less of the "300" visible on the top right than there is as you go down to the bottom right. It kind of does that on the right copy too, but it doesn't jump out to me like the left copy:

Seriously though, the one on the right feels just a bit more centered to me.

Orders from the past few weeks/months finally starting to come in:

Orders from the past few weeks/months finally starting to come in:

Just wanted to comment on this with an update to be fair to Legacy Comics - it appears they created a label on 11/11 and shipped on 11/26, and the order is in transit. I didn't receive any tracking info, but they did respond to me today with it, so all is well that ends well. The first couple of times I asked about the order I did it via a direct email; this time I used the form on their site and received an update within a couple of hours. This wouldn't dissuade me from ordering from them again - I'd just know to make sure and ask for a tracking update and to do it using their main form instead of the email address I got from the PayPal transaction.

I apparently have the worst luck in choosing where to buy comics online - I already had to do chargebacks on two different places who never shipped and completely ghosted me. Now I have Legacy Comics - I bought a bunch of comics in September with preorders. The last issue that was preordered came out on Nov. 10, but I still don't have shipping confirmation and I emailed them twice now for a status update with zero response. I really want the books I ordered, but they're just ghosting me now too it seems. What the heck is going on with these online comic retailers? It's really frustrating...

Another 9.8 at $4,200 with 2 days left though: https://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Amazing-Spider-Man-300-CGC-9-8/114513621952?epid=85528898&hash=item1aa98b33c0:g:knAAAOSwbdNfrJ0n

One of my favorites, I need to get this book. I guess the characters aren't actually messing with it, but it's still a cool way to implement it.

This cover is... nuts.

The first slabbed comic I bought was Batman #404 - Year One Part One - in a 9.4 W. Since then I've kept my eye out for deals and cheap copies of the other three parts in 9.4 W so I could have a matching set. I finally got the final part on Sunday, issue #406. I know they're not 9.8s and ultimately they're not anything crazy, rare or hard to find, but it was fun putting the set together by trying to find the best deals, and I got the whole set for less than the current FMV of a 9.8 copy of 404.

I waited a bit longer, reached out a couple of more times without response and finally filed for a refund with my credit card company yesterday. I was half hoping it would prompt a shipment, but so far I've heard nothing. I assume I'll just get a refund at this point. Sucks because I really wanted the books and they're now going for a lot more than what they were when I ordered them, but I guess that's how it goes.

Die!namite #1 is from Unknown Comics and the Batman #100 is from Bulletproof. Pricey books for a variant cover, but I just was an instant fan of his art as soon as I saw these, and I really wanted them.

He hasn't done a ton of covers yet, but he's got a few now and he's starting to have more each month. Puppeteer Lee is an amazing artist and I think he'll continue to do big things. Here are a couple: