Peter Loves Gwen

On 7/30/2022 at 10:16 PM, divad said:

Fairly self-serving opinion if I've ever . . . 

Hmm. I own probably 25 boxes of raw comics, and my ASM CGC collection that is now maybe still about 200. I only own two signed books, the only two I have ever bought. I plan to keep three books long term now, and two are those signed books, my AF15 and ASM 50(the only John Romita plus SL 9.4 copy). I like those signatures for myself, and not for a value change.

I believe that there is a new huge group of collectors who want the SS books far more than any non signature books. It has been a perfect storm for comics over the last 2-3 years, the Covid 19 world wide lock downs forcing people to stay home and find something new to do, the death of Stan Lee, plus the huge economic supply issues. A lot more people have begun collecting things in a serious way, all over the world.

On 7/29/2022 at 1:31 AM, UncleBEN said:

Ah, yes sir notes are free now I think?  Not sure if you need a membership or not, the amount you can look up in one sitting is throttled still I believe likely to save bandwidth or prevent flooding.

I do have a 9.8 121 that has some small printer tears, unsure of how deep that scratch they indicate is. 

Your mileage may vary for CPR. 

...

The ASM had a common printing error that I saw a lot. I bought about seven or so of the 121 to find a couple of nicer ones without that defect. The usual place was along the cover's bottom edge, two tiny tears evenly spaced, from the equipment moving the cover sheet I guess. My CGC issue is also a 9.6 that looks better, without knowing the grader notes. That was one of several I had already wanted to regrade.

On 7/28/2022 at 3:48 PM, lou_fine said:

Very simple answer in terms of rarity in grade.  

Direct copies were brought by collectors from LCS's who knew how to care for and display their books for the condition fussy collectors/speculators, while the newsstand copies went straight to the spinning comic racks with the store owners not bothering to keep the books in top condition as they had so many other higher profit margin products to be concerned with.  

Funny, and true, so just being more scarce. My 300 is a direct book from a dealer, I found the picture. I still like the picture in the box instead of a barcode.

Your answer reminds me of how I got my ASM 361's. The Carnage character was a surprise and no dealers bought enough, so there were none to be had, except from various book stores etc. Fortunately I knew where several stores were in town that I had seen comic racks in, where I never looked anyway. So I spent about two hours that first day driving around town to 5-10 various stores. I ended up with at least 40 copies, likely most around 9.2, and a very few approaching 9.6's. I ordered 40 of each of the next issue and the 2nd prints, plus the 363. It looks like all but most of the 363's and 362 2nd prints were good choices.

Now 365 was a bad bet, most of those had printing defects out of the new box(at the one dealer I went to). I got about five of those that I picked out, the rest all had too much spine damage. I've been surprised by so many 9.8 365's, obviously other boxes were handled better than at my dealer.

On 7/28/2022 at 4:24 AM, lou_fine said:

Not a link, but probably just as good since it's a picture of the front cover of the book itself:  

Hope he didn't miss anything from this scrawled shopping list or he just might find himself sleeping outside in the doghouse tonight.  

Ouch, that's awful. I don't mind a very tasteful signature, but the recent SS trend is not good.

Dumb question, how is a news stand copy any great amount better than the dealer version? In the 80's I didn't notice where the difference came from. I always like the dealer version much better, I hated barcodes and the pictures were always nice enough. I don't know which my #300 is.

Thanks, I hadn't looked at the grader's notes yet. I'm glad they changed their policy and let us have access to the notes again.

Thanks, it's very hard to grade anything in the cases, we can't see the smallest defects. I sent in an ASM 101 that was a 9.6, because I couldn't see anything wrong with it. That came back as a 9.8 in about 2012 when I had found another nice 9.6, and then sold the 9.8 to buy my #3 or #4. Time keeps going, you gotta try to keep up.

On 7/18/2022 at 1:59 PM, DC# said:

With the sale of a 4.5 CR/OW on Heritage last night for $43.2k combined with the 5.0 above - decided to look at sales of 2.5 thru 5.0 since January.   I did a similar chart for FF #1 in the "Are Prices Climbing.." thread.  

 

Well done, that's a cool chart. It's hard and time consuming to hunt and trace enough data to put a fair price on most books. I like HA the best for data, GPA has altered it's display of data very poorly versus what it used to be. e Bay is useful but cluttered with tons of useless listings and you cannot adjust search terms enough to quickly eliminate it.

I'd love to see you do that kind of data chart for restored AF 15's. Those are the most wild in pricing and value. There have been some crazy sales in tons of low grade copies, and a few odd ones for higher grades. I just recently saw a new listing for a signed 6.0 book, on e Bay now for $112,500, while in completed listings, one supposedly went for $75,100 on June 21st. That one has been erased but still shows up in the completed listings, so without a decent picture I can't tell if it's the same book. It looks like it, both signed but no apparent signature on the cover. The one listed now states that the signing is inside.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/292031281030?hash=item43fe6bb786:g:DnEAAOSw2xRYX44N

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=amazing+Fantasy+15+cgc&_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=0&_sop=16&rt=nc&LH_Complete=1

I have a new found collector in a nearby county who is active at buying any old Marvels, I'm trying to get with him to buy some of my CGC collection since he is here and we can do anything in person. I don't plan to let him buy my 9.0 AF 15, but I do wonder what he thinks of a restored key with a Stan Lee signature on it.

I wish I'd kept my AF 15, ASM 3, ASM 4, ASM 13 and 14, plus two special ASM 101's. Those were when I was either upgrading to my restored AF 15, or when I first began selling some of my collection. The prices have been crazy for the last 10+ years, I never thought a lot of books would explode in price, like the Morbius copy.

On 5/30/2022 at 2:39 PM, pickycollector said:

The centering of this copy is simply amazing 

Thanks, that was my 3rd copy, the prior two were not quite centered great. I spent too much time hunting the most straight books. My #28 is fairly nice but the cover is slightly folded towards the back, so the right edge shows a little more of the inside pages. That one is so rare to find just right, like many are of course.

The Sandman showed up often back then. Here's another classic early cover with lots of characters to tease with.

On 5/30/2022 at 10:35 AM, Straw-Man said:

i have been having so much fun grabbing the late marvel #1's/premiere issues in grade [everything after d.d. 1 is on the table for me here].  still need the western ghost rider and iron man, the pricey one.

I'm glad that you are still enjoying your collecting, that's the whole point of it(for me anyway).

BTW, have you hunted for a cover yet, for that Straw-Man comic in your signature?

On 5/17/2022 at 7:31 PM, trmoore54 said:

And it was the #4 WP

That's right, I had someone else wanting the #3 a lot when I began letting some go.

I did buy a couple of lower grade books in one auction, the prices seemed low in that one auction. I got an 8.0 #4, 7.0 #11, and a #21 I think, an 8.0 #36, and an odd Dr. Strange, 9.0 of the earlier run.

I ran across a box that I had put some books in that I wanted to start grading, many were my original raw issues, 2,4,5, two 6's, mostly grades in the 4-6 range. My original #8, 13, and 15 I recall were my best raw copies, they fit my collection. I loved reading all of the old issues, that was real collecting, for the fun of the stories.

This might be my raw #2, I had another picture that I don't think was of mine.

Hi Tom, yes my path has been different too. My father died three years back and he left an interesting mess. I've learned a lot too, not really things you want to but, it happens.

I do have your Marvel Masterworks HULK 1-6 book somewhere in my office/PC room. I read most of it and it was very good, I've many times planned to put it in my to do stuff and pass it along.

I thought you had been very close to getting a restored AF15, when I sold you my 9.0 #3 etc, or #4 was it? I've planned to keep mine for a lot longer, even though I see it still gets the stink eye for being trimmed.

On 5/11/2022 at 7:15 PM, MR SigS said:

Ditto, that was the last copy I got in Germany from the PX there. So they all had the jeweler's insert, and I might still have several of those. I was hard on comics back then, just a kid that discovered them a couple of years before. One of my aunts gave me an Overstreet Price Guide a year later, and I learned to appreciate comics then. Plus I collected the Overstreets too. Those should be interesting to sell.

On 5/10/2022 at 8:10 PM, mosconi said:

Thanks!  Would love to complete the run up to #50 but that is going to be a very long endeavor.  Hoping to eventually complete it though, as I do already have a #50 

Have you read the grader's notes for that? I'd think about regrading it unless the notes mention a significant little defect. That looks nicer than a 9.0 book.