sckao

I tried out a couple of Mylites+ Packs many years ago, but I found the 1.4mil thickness to be just too thin. They also seemed to be what everyone terms “crinkly” and make noises when flexed.

Experiments were also done on these CGC boards with using two Halfbacks which are theoretically thicker than one Fullback, but the one Fullback is actually more rigid and provides a better “fit” in terms of the 725/700 combo most people seem to prefer.

Not everyone has a grade in mind or a set dollar price in mind. If no grade is given then any grade is probably welcomed because the balance of grade/price is the overriding factor just as it would be in real-life at a convention.

A person would not turn down a book that isn’t in their “grade” range if it was an amazingly, great price at a convention necessarily or a hard to find book in any grade.

If writing the DM is too much trouble, then don’t answer the WTB post. 

I voted no before you modified the poll.  I posted a WTB for a Killing Joke 9th printing, a book that is currently going for obscene amounts on EBay when it’s not really the hardest printing to obtain actually if you look at the census. (I actually ended up slabbing copies that were rarer.)

I actually got a copy at a great price off a board member which led to more exchanges that mutually benefited both of us. (I’m not concerned about getting a Top Registry notation.)

I didn’t care necessarily about the grade… I was just interested in completing the base Killing Joke set.

These suppliers will come up a lot. Good luck.  (I've purchased from all three over the years and this past year.)

BCW Supplies for Polypropylene bags and boards
Collectible Supplies | Shop Display Cases for Collectible Comics, Trading Cards & More - BCW Supplies

Gerber for Mylites2, Fullbacks and Mylars (725, 700)
E. Gerber Products, LLC. - Home (egerber.com)

Hot Flips
Hot Flips – Comic Book And Art Supplies

The spot resin (plastics) market basically doubled in price in 2021 and affected plastics pricing and availability across the board. We saw that happen for comic supplies, and it invariably affected the supply chain for the slabs themselves. It has now started to finally come back down as supplies increase.

Public Research (theplasticsexchange.com)

Plastic Resin Prices 2021 | Resin Shortage & Cost of Plastic Explained (summitpackaging.com)

The cost of paper and packaging was also affected. (CGC has changed their packaging material recently to compensate I think.)

Producer Price Index by Industry: Corrugated and Solid Fiber Box Manufacturing: Primary Products (PCU322211322211P) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)

Coupled with their expansion and increased infrastructure costs, there are additional reasons why another price increase was considered so early probably. Usually, one thing you can do is pull more income from an established, successful division to cover the costs of starting up/running other areas of the company that are not yet profitable.

Here's what's really important: (Because it is a two-parter, the interest should span through 2023 conceivably.)

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One) is scheduled to be released in the United States on October 7, 2022, delayed from an initial April 2022 date due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Part Two is expected to be released in 2023, and a female-focused spin-off film is also in development.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Across_the_Spider-Verse_(Part_One)

On 12/26/2021 at 2:24 PM, ashsaytr said:

Thought I would put this here... I did receive my SS gift from SCKAO... but it will be a couple days before I get home to open it!  And thanks again for all the work put into this!

Just glad you got it.  

(You don’t actually have to post it publicly.)

I submitted a form last night didn’t I?

Fill out a form and let Sledder do the work… 

(Back to watching The Witcher Season 2…)

On 12/26/2021 at 9:07 AM, KirbyJack said:

I will choose...

#7 The sckao Mystery Box!

Congrats! 

And what does dealer overstock look like after 30 years? (Or the flotsam you pick up with a collection and have left over once you sell off what you need to sell off to make your money back?)

I’ve been trying to somewhat organize a bit and this is the latest X-Men #1 box. (Looks like some other single digit books in there as well currently.) The red band covers in the back are the ones with Wolverine, Cyclops, and Ice Man.

(This, of course, may not be typical… but it may be typical of dealer overstock.)

The average cost of tuition for a resident University of California undergraduate year is $36,700 with $19.5k of that allotted for room/board/transportation. All of these things you would have to pay anyway if you went to work and lived outside your parent's house anyway. So the tuition/books and supplies/insurance part of it is really only $17.1k a year.

If you go to an in-state Community College for the first two years and then transfer to the UC System as a junior, your average cost would then be around $3-4k a year.

Out of state students have to pay 2.5X roughly I'd say for tuition.

1. X-Men (1991) No. 1 (7.1 Million copies) (They say 8.1 million copies pre-ordered.)
2. X-Force (1992) No. 1 (5 Million copies) (This number is at odds with other sources)
3. Adventures of Superman (1987) No. 500 (4.2 Million copies)
4. Superman (1987) No. 75 (3 Million copies) (This number has been reported as high as 6 million.)
5. Spider-Man (1990) No. 1 (2.5 Million copies)
6. Action Comics (1938) No. 687 (1.8 Million copies)
7. Superman (1987) No. 78 (1.78 million copies)
8. Adventures of Superman (1987) No. 501 (1.72 million copies)
9. Superman: Man of Steel (1991) No. 22 (1.71 Million copies)
10. Spawn (1992) No. 1 (1.7 Million copies)

Top 10 Best Selling Comic Books Of The Modern Era - Zap-Kapow Comics (zapkapowcomics.com)

On 12/21/2021 at 3:29 PM, Axelrod said:

Incidentally, where do I buy the "raw" 9.8s for $30.00 on ebay?  From suckers who don't know what they have?  You make this sound almost as easy as taking candy from a baby, but can you really be certain that something is going to be a 9.8 just from ebay pics?  Otherwise it seems like a huge gamble, yes?  

And, even if the seller is advertising a raw copy as such, then those sellers are not charging $30.00 for it either, when graded 9.8s sell for $200.  I imagine they are sending in those raws themselves or charging a lot more.

That wasn't the argument of the original post. 

By the way... You probably wouldn't find them easily on eBay... but you COULD find them here on the boards for sale occasionally. 

On 12/21/2021 at 3:06 PM, thesink said:

You’ve kind of pivoted on the “investment” portion of this thread and relied on the fun portion. I don’t disagree that you have had fun and that makes it worthwhile, I disagree that it was a “good” or even profitable investment. The X-men 1 example loses a lot of ground when you can go buy raw copies for less than $30.

Note that most CGC 9.8s that GPA for less than $250 usually can be found on eBay RAW for less than $30. So I'm not sure how this applies...

See Darkhawk 1, Dazzler 1, Alpha Flight 1, etc. All GPA for well over $200... All can be purchased raw on eBay for less than $30.

(Actually, Dazzler is only over $150... but someone is overpaying on Ebay...)

..And I estimate I have over 1000 copies of X-Men #1. 

I don't think that was the intent of the original post. I think the intent was that this was essentially "found money" and could be used to fund something of value... like a child's education.

Submitting a standard modern slow-boat submission of 25. Once you get to the Select Payment Method, you get this for the Checking Option. (Note that the Order Total is actually $578.00 for 25 Moderns... but the check amount is saying $2,321.00 which is a bit alarming). 

Someone earlier also mentioned that the packing slip is four pages. It's two. (Two copies with two pages since the list of comics is in a table that if long enough will require a page of its own when printed.) This is standard behavior when printing tables.

Yes. The Typeahead problem seems to be a Chicken or the Egg scenario. I typed in "Deadpool" to enter the 1993 Deadpool #1 comic and I had a hard time getting past this field. I literally had to know the month and year from your own census to actually get the field to find the issue given so many options. Just entering "Deadpool" returned over 50 entries, none on which were #1. I think in the old form, you could at least make an educated guess from the handful of possible dates that popped up. I guess it's assumed that the user will know the month and year of publication from the indicia, but I personally wouldn't want to take my comics out of their bag and board again just to find the date after I've carefully assembled a bunch of comics to send in for slabbing. (I don't even like to open them if they are warehouse copies.) Assuming that the user will use other online resources to find the month and year is also something you really can't assume. (Although many will use that route.) All of these things pause the form filling process and make the user go externally to find the data needed to fill out your form. Each time that happens, you literally are gambling that the user cares enough to come back and complete the form. 

Ideally, when you enter the title, the possible covers would come up which would make it easier to identify which comic and which volume/series it is from. 

Even knowing the month and date is problematic here as the results are also confusing. There are also no standardized examples of what a correct Search String would look like in the popup help box.

Finding it in your census is also a problem. That first entry doesn't actually exist as a valid title in your database apparently and GPA does not recognize that as the title for the 1993 mini-series.

If you search your census for Deadpool: The Circle Chase, you get this TPB? from 1996 which collects issues 1-4.:

Issue #48 has held its value actually... I have a stack.