The lips

On 8/27/2022 at 10:51 PM, KirbyJack said:

Magnificent!

Books like that represent to me the most rewarding aspects of our hobby. A reading copy of one of the greatest silver age stories ever written, by an artist at the height of his power. Enjoy it!

Very much so. 
I do focus on Spidey titles but also recently picked up FF51 just because it’s such a great story. That’s why we love what we do imo. 

Looks like a 0.5 to me. 

I think 1.8 is a bit harsh. 
mid have thought at least 2 or 2.5. 
 

Regardless though, it’s an all time classic book and great to have. 

I use Collectionary. 
 

totally free and does exactly what I require which is cataloging each series I collect. 

Great story and congrats on that run. I dream about that !! 

4.5

One of my all time favourite books. 

A comic I’ve really wanted to own and now delighted to do so. Not for financial reasons, just because imo it’s the best single issue story of the silver age. 
Thoughts welcome

Low .5 - 3.5

mid 4 - 7

high 7.5 - 10 

I’m in Paris regularly and to my knowledge no. There’s a street on the left bank that has around 3 comic stores but they’re all new issues and graphic novels. Didn’t see any back issues or slabs. 

On 7/30/2022 at 9:10 PM, asteroid-comix said:

Man that’s 3 of my grails there. ASM 101, 122 and 129. 

Bearing in mind my financial restraints, my current personal grail is ASM 14. Just waiting for it to come around at my price to pull the trigger. 

Delighted to have picked this up as been after it for a while. I understand the JR and GK signatures aren’t verified but I’m more curious to hear your thoughts on the condition of this iconic book. 

That’s a very nice copy. Being predominantly black cover it can be hard to find such nice copies. 
The wear in spine slightly let’s it down but it still presents well. 
 

5.5-6 

I’m 44 and hoping my kids aged 6 and 9 get into it for no other reason than reading is good for you and sparks the imagination. 
 

today I took them to the LCS where they absolutely love going. I picked up a couple of Carnage Moderns, my 9 year old a Stranger Things graphic novel and my 5 year old some Pokémon cards. 
We all left thoroughly happy and can’t wait to go back ! 

My only focus in completing ASM 1-375. 
 

outside of that I like to still pick up moderns that have in my opinion great looking covers. 

On 5/1/2022 at 10:23 PM, JC25427N said:

Where would you draw the line? If you collect both ASM and Hulk will you start having looming thoughts of you would have a better ASM collection if you solely focused on that instead of splitting your focus on collecting both Spidey and Hulk?

Good point and I should have give more context. I now only really focus on ASM and completing my run of 1-375. I still pick up some moderns also. I sold off vast majority of other titles to help me hopefully complete. 
Naturally I’m a completist and as Spidey is my fave I’m happy solely working on this. 

On 5/2/2022 at 2:31 AM, CGC Mike said:

So, I banned Celin90 early this morning for trying to scam board members via PM, and I made a post here.  Due to the forum glitch that happened this morning, the ban was undone, and my post here disappeared.  This person has been banned again.  

Thanks. I got a pm from Celin90 with the ‘please contact my friend on…’

i made contact and it’s clearly a scam 

On 5/1/2022 at 9:19 PM, sfcityduck said:

Not trying to put you down, I'm just, perhaps not clearly, stating that you have to define what you want to seek out and why?

For me, when it came to records, I collected mainly Beatles, Dylan, U2 and some 60s psych. I had lots of other music, but that was just for collecting.  Collecting the Beatles was what made me realize that I didn't need every record when what I really wanted was every song - whether on an original issue or not.  That saved me a lot of money.  With advances in technology and the release of ungodly high quality Beatles session tapes on CD, that made me realize all of the official releases were sonically compromised before they ever made it to vinyl, I decided to sell most of my vinyl and migrate to cd as much as possible especially with the new masters and official releases of session tapes.  Now, I have a ton of Beatles music (the equivalent of 50+ cds of Get Back sessions alone) at a much higher quality, lower cost, and space savings than what I used to have.  For U2 and Dylan, almost everything once on bootleg is getting an official release - so I've upgraded as new material has come out.  Where my limits are tested is when I go to my local record store and see something cool (like a still sealed copy the 13th Floor Elevators first album from the later 1960s) that once would have been a grail for me up on the wall looking like a pristine piece of art.  (I passed on the $1,000 record.)

For comics, I don't seek out "keys."  They are readily available as long as you are willing to pay the price.  For my enjoyment of collecting, I research and identify cool items I think are worth pursuing (many that are off the beaten path), and then I seek them out.  I especially like having a theme to pursue, especially if it creates a nice mini-run or grouping with other books.  I have no desire to be a completest any more.  I find my collecting very satisfying, even though (1) the hunts can take a long time and (2) I don't end up joining very many "club" threads.   

An example:  Neal Adams just died after a very long career in which he is famous for his cover art.  There are very long threads devoted to Neal Adams covers.  CGC has been around for decades.  But the only person who has bothered to identify, chase down, and submit to CGC a copy of Neal Adams' very first comic book cover is me.  I guess everyone was focused on the readily available "keys" and never thought about (or even considered the existence of) the relatively hard to find "first."   

There is a lot of stuff like that out there that I'm still seeking out in every comic age - but I focus on GA through Copper.  I tend to post threads on my hunts after I've made the kill because I like to share cool stuff.

I'm doing what makes me happy.  

All I'm saying is that whatever that is for you, you should do it too.

Thanks, that’s sound advice. 
 

On 5/1/2022 at 6:16 PM, MattTheDuck said:

The "what makes you happy" piece is the key.  Without actually knowing you, and based solely on your posts in this thread, what you've been doing is not making you happy.  Life is much too short, and there way too many things to make one unhappy to allow a recreational activity to add to your frustrations.  The challenge is taking a precipitous action - like selling all your vinyl to buy comics - and then discovering it hasn't really solved your "problem."  Be d*amn sure.  As some on here have found, they end up having to re-buy all the things they sold at much higher prices.

Both make me happy and have done for many years. Comics shade it though. 
I think I’ve this desire to have a collection that’s the very best it can be but that won’t happen when I’m splitting disposable income over two hobbies. 
I think I’ll just spend the bigger cash in comics and keep vinyl to a minimum as probs unwise to just sell up. 
 

I get there’s a million more important things going on in the world but this hasn’t half played on my mind !!! 

On 5/1/2022 at 3:22 PM, sfcityduck said:

I do not see the concern.  You are not in a contest.  To be blunt you are not and never will be in the running for the “best” or “most impressive” comic book or record collection.  The competitors on that front are so far ahead you would need unlimited resources to get in the conversation.

So what are your collecting goals?

What makes you happy?

Those are the questions you should be asking … yourself.

I do collect more than one thing although there are some intersections.  There is no dilemma because I enjoy collecting different things.  Money is finite so I always have to make choices as I curate my collections regarding what I buy, sell, and choose to hunt.  That is part of the fun.

I’m not wanting to compete with other people, I know full well that there are countless people with collections I could only dream of ( across comics and vinyl )

if anything I’m striving to have the best collection that I can have but as long as I split my money I won’t achieve that which all of a sudden is making me think, what if ? 
 

I fully know that it’s just at an idiosyncrasy of mine.  

I presume I’m not the only one on here who collects things outside of comic books ?

for me, I’ve a long-standing love for vinyl and as I have with comics, I’ve spent a decent amount over the years. 
 

Now, and it’s only just hit me recently, is that if I only collected one, I’d have a much better and valuable collection than I would spreading over 2 hobbies. 
Everytime I’ve bought a 3 figure record it could have been a comic and vice versa. 
 

if I had to pick, comics are my favourite so now I’m thinking of selling the vinyl and spending the profits entirely on comics. 
 

anybody else collect multiple things and have this dilemma / and what would you do ? 
 

On 4/30/2022 at 9:24 PM, MattTheDuck said:

When we got to CDs I told a work friend I was just going to wait for whatever was next (at which he scoffed because there was no way to improve on CDs) so I saved a fortune and now get all the music I want for $10/month.  It'll take 50 years to cost what just buying all the CDs I wanted would have.

I still collect vinyl as love owning a physical artefact. Exactly same as comic books. 
 

thing is, if I didn’t also collect vinyl and invested all that money into comics, I’d have a much better collection than I do !!