A long winded appeal, thoughts and suggestions needed !!!

[ciorac]

I like the idea of finding a few key books and going after them. .

 

I love that idea

[Old Fashion PB and J]

Hey Jim,

 

I have four primary hobbies

1. Collecting Batman which I finished in 2002 and began in 1972. Never even considered selling them off, now I just do some selective upgrading.

2. Original Art, started in 1980s picking up a few pages here and there but now my main focus.

3. Collecting the 1940s Saafield Superman Puzzles

 

and my 4th hobby, watching people crash and burn in their collecting. I admit, it is a sick hobby, but one that always amazes me. These boards help me with this hobby quite a bit.

 

I would say what ever is prompting you to re-think your WM collection will hit you with GA as well. If it is driven by not being able to acquire new WM books, you have to focus on finding new ways to acquire them. For me, if I am lucky I buy one Superman puzzle a year. When I first started, I found 3 to 5 a year but that quickly dropped down to maybe one a year. For the OA, this year has been amazing, so far I have bought four pages! It is not about the quantity, but the quality in my case.

 

Good luck on the decision but I think you would be well served to take some time to think long and hard before doing it.

 

Can you post one of the puzzles for us?

 

Rick has posted the pics before apparently he can put together those "puzzles" in record time !

[batman_fan]

Hey Jim,

 

I have four primary hobbies

1. Collecting Batman which I finished in 2002 and began in 1972. Never even considered selling them off, now I just do some selective upgrading.

2. Original Art, started in 1980s picking up a few pages here and there but now my main focus.

3. Collecting the 1940s Saafield Superman Puzzles

 

and my 4th hobby, watching people crash and burn in their collecting. I admit, it is a sick hobby, but one that always amazes me. These boards help me with this hobby quite a bit.

 

I would say what ever is prompting you to re-think your WM collection will hit you with GA as well. If it is driven by not being able to acquire new WM books, you have to focus on finding new ways to acquire them. For me, if I am lucky I buy one Superman puzzle a year. When I first started, I found 3 to 5 a year but that quickly dropped down to maybe one a year. For the OA, this year has been amazing, so far I have bought four pages! It is not about the quantity, but the quality in my case.

 

Good luck on the decision but I think you would be well served to take some time to think long and hard before doing it.

 

Can you post one of the puzzles for us?

 

Hey Bill,

 

I have been saying I would do this for a while so here are a few. Sorry about the glare. Bonus question, can anyone tell me what my five year old was watching?

 

 

 

 

[Guardian Comics]

Who lives in a pineapple under the Sea?

Sponge Bob Square Pants!!!

 

What did I win?

 

Jim

[adamstrange]

Those look great!

[batman_fan]

Who lives in a pineapple under the Sea?

Sponge Bob Square Pants!!!

 

What did I win?

 

Jim

 

[Guardian Comics]

I guess it is going to be gut check time, as this one plays out

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/STRANGE-TALES-123-CGC-9-6-WHITE-MOUNTAIN_W0QQitemZ260285151413QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item260285151413&_trkparms=39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A3%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

 

I'm going to give this book a good shot but if I end up losing it, I think I'll take everybodys advice and keep the best of the best and sell the rest. I mean this is an absolutely nothing, book...for $1400+, that'll get you a very decent slabbed 8.0-8.5 MMC Schomburg War cover, there really is no comparasin.

 

This WILL be my epiphany book.

 

Jim

[CAP Freak]

I guess it is going to be gut check time, as this one plays out

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/STRANGE-TALES-123-CGC-9-6-WHITE-MOUNTAIN_W0QQitemZ260285151413QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item260285151413&_trkparms=39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A3%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

 

I'm going to give this book a good shot but if I end up losing it, I think I'll take everybodys advice and keep the best of the best and sell the rest. I mean this is an absolutely nothing, book...for $1400+, that'll get you a very decent slabbed 8.0-8.5 MMC Schomburg War cover, there really is no comparasin.

 

This WILL be my epiphany book.

 

Jim

But it does have Human Torch art by Carl Burgos, creator of the original Golden Age Human Torch.

 

Who can't draw The Thing for ...

[blackterror]

You said ... "When I was a kid, I always assumed that someday Gold would be valueless as who would care about it once the geezers died off, obviously I've seen the error of my ways (youth is wasted on the young) but will Gold still hold it's value the way I can forsee Silver holding it's? and if something ever happened down the road that I need to sell, is Gold as liquid as Silver? I don't know these answers. I'd love to hear thoughts and opinions of how you made the transition and whether any regrets are harboured in your decisions. Maybe everybody gets these "pre-Gold jitters".

 

 

I'm no old geezer yet but here's the thing ... and you can take this to the bank

 

I don't care how stupid people get or how upside down the pricing and markets get ... here's a powerful dose of reality juice ... Gold is gold and Silver is silver ... forget comics for a moment ... and consider the obvious ...

 

gold is more valuable desireable precious rare than silver...my wedding band is gold my forks and spoons are silver. If you want to collect silver fine ... but it ain't gold no matter how it glitters ... all that glitters (and high grade silver age and White Mountain pedigrees really do glitter, BUT they aren't gold) all that glitters is not gold.

 

In fact, you said ... youth is wasted on the young ... meaning you know there is truly a difference in gold and silver ... they do have different atomic symbols AU versus AG ... AU beats AG when you go to the jewlery store ...even though I'm a child of the late silver age and early bronze....I know what's worth more an ounce.

 

I remember being exposed to the golden age through stories in the DC 100 page

Super Spectaculars. And the hardbound "The Great Comic Book Heroes", by Jules Feiffer...upon seeing them ... I realized there were wonderful stories I never knew and wanted to read ... boom I was hooked ... although I couldn't get it and had to read what was being produced at the time ... yay silver surfer ... and all that ... the older it was the better it was to me.

 

As for selling comics ... are you kidding I've never gotten any free ... I actually keep waiting for the great market crash, so I can buy them all, but the market doesn't crash .... it just keeps going ... what if it did crash, yay and I'd still have my wonderful books anyway ... granted some sell faster than others but... buy what you like blah, blah and you'll be fine...

 

Woudl you rather have an enormous 2 or 3 hundred thousand dollar pile of White Mountains ... or just one beautiful Batman #1 in unrestored 9.0 .. I'll take the one beautiful Bat 1 or Action 1 or Cap 1 or whatever ...

 

It's kind of like you can buy 30 silver dollars or just one twenty dollar gold piece ... hey eventually storage and care and display come into play ... and one wonderful piece outshines 30 others in my opinion.

 

Look I don't want the Silver Age Gerbers... give me the golden age ... lets seperate the men from the boys ... maybe lots of people just love dreaming and drooling over there silver age Gerbers ... but give me the Golden Age period.

 

When I was a kid ... I realized there were books that made dealers drool ... and while books from every age can do this ... it was, is and always will be ... golden age that seperates the men from the boys ... silver age you can replace, it's just a matter of money (yeah I know pedigrees (WM) are one of a kind, but the same applies to golden age pedigrees) ...

 

And hard to collect... shoot ... since you like Schomburg ... try putting together a run of Black Terror's in 6.0 or better ... Marvel Mysteries are a piece of cake in comparison ... go look at the census numbers ...

 

When I'm done with this post, I'm going tol type up one of the greatest editorials I've ever seen ... about comic values and comic signifcance ... tonight ... it was by Gary Carter in one of the early CBM's ... I'll give it .. it's own thread ... it should as much as any single thing boost your confidence in collecting comics ... and in particular golden age comics.

 

excelsior ... oh wait that's a silver age pstscript, isn't it?

 

Ok how about this ...

 

Make mine Nedor ...

 

PS ... good grief I just posted about the first ... I mean the first JOKER cover a pedigree Detective Comic going for I think it was $1200 in the last comic link auction ... and here you are about to pay more than that for a Strange Tales White Mountain ... stop the insanity ... that Detective is gone never to see the open market again for a long long time ... as you pointed out that piece of drivel Strange Tales ... far to much money for not nearly enough book ... right now the market confusion ... and label/grade confusion has created a buying opportunity in the Golden Age.

 

Here's the thing ... only advanced collectors understand ... 8.0 is the equivalent of 9.2 in the silver age ... Overstreet should not even price beyond 8.0 ... as it has become not a guide or only a guide ... but a MIS-GUIDE ... so few Golden Age books even exist beyond 8.0 ... it is not practical to price them ... I could go on about this ... but enough .... I've got to start the greatest editorial ever thread.

[innocuous]

I enjoyed your rant.

[PhiGam-migration]

me too

[COI]

Woudl you rather have an enormous 2 or 3 hundred thousand dollar pile of White Mountains ... or just one beautiful Batman #1 in unrestored 9.0 .. I'll take the one beautiful Bat 1 or Action 1 or Cap 1 or whatever ...

 

It's kind of like you can buy 30 silver dollars or just one twenty dollar gold piece ... hey eventually storage and care and display come into play ... and one wonderful piece outshines 30 others in my opinion.

 

Flawed logic. You can take the quality over quantity approach with SA books too. I could just as easily advise him to cash in all his WM's and get the nicest AF #15, ASM #1, FF #1 or IH #1 possible.

 

Also, you're going a little too far with your precious metals analogy. There is no correlation between investing in gold/silver bullion and gold/silver comics. I'd like to hear how Platinum would fit in to your little analogy.

[blackterror]

First it's a rant ... not an ironclad discourse, but since you wanted to play the Devil's advocate.

 

 

1. Flawed logic. You can take the quality over quantity approach with SA books too. I could just as easily advise him to cash in all his WM's and get the nicest AF #15, ASM #1, FF #1 or IH #1 possible.

 

You read my post accurately...I would take the quality over quantity approach. I used Golden Age in this approach, because generally speaking I would rather have a Cap 1 or a Bat 1 or an Action 1 than a Amazing Fantasy 1. But if you read my post ... I asked ... I asked the question ... I asked ... would you rather have?

 

I didn't answer the question...CGCWORLD has to answer the question. As we each must answer the question...would you rather have this or that?

 

I just brought the quantity versus quality ... argument into focus. And in my particular would you rather ... I would rather have a Bat 1 in 9.0 over a thousand ... Strange Tales one twenty somethings ... and I agree with you ... I would also rather have an AF 15 or and FF 1 ... in 9.4 ....

 

There is no flaw in my logic ... would you rather have? a thousand great little books or one great book ...

 

 

You did exactly like I suggested you ... considered it ... and it seems you would pick one great over many small ... it just so happens that your one great might be a silver age book .... wonderful. Good for you. Yay!

 

#2

Also, you're going a little too far with your precious metals analogy. There is no correlation between investing in gold/silver bullion and gold/silver comics. I'd like to hear how Platinum would fit in to your little analogy.

 

 

If there is no correlation between gold/silver bullion ... none at all ...then why do they call them gold/silver age ... because the name implies something ...

 

The correlation is clear enough ... a golden wedding anniversary ... versus a silver wedding anniversary ... we all know which milestone is more significant, don't we?

 

Historically speaking ... the gold standard is a phrase that means the standard by which everything is measured.

 

Language/Vocabulary is always changing ... perhaps one day platinum or uranium (I bet that's expensive) will take the place of gold ... that is the precious metal in our terminology. Gay used to just mean happy.

 

But to speak to your question ... the platinum age books were not even recognized as an age untill the early 90's the same for bronze, and copper and iron ... and lead and all these other metals that have no correlation between comics .... the truth is the gold standard in comics is Action 1, Detective 27, Marvel 1 ... and Amazing Fantasy 15 ... (or for that matter in their own way White Mountain Silver age Strange Tales) ... the best ofthe best the rarest the finest ... that is the gold ... or if you want the platinum, but good luck changing everybody's terminology.

 

But using present terminology .... make mine gold ... if I have to choose.

 

For CGC WORLD .... here's some real advice ...

 

Don't sell anything ... I remember Mark Wilson or is that Matthew, I think it was ... once saying if he had just kept the finest run of Captain America's he once owned ... he would be so far ahead ... dealers are churning and burning they have to ... just buy and hold ... don't trade off your treasures for treasures ... slow down and buy and add as you can afford to. In fact Wilson sold the Rockford Collection right before the advent of CGC ... now if he had just held ...

 

Why not keep what you have and add to it ... whatever age ... it may be.

[drbanner]

For CGC WORLD .... here's some real advice ...

 

Don't sell anything ... I remember Mark Wilson or is that Matthew, I think it was ... once saying if he had just kept the finest run of Captain America's he once owned ... he would be so far ahead ... dealers are churning and burning they have to ... just buy and hold ... don't trade off your treasures for treasures ... slow down and buy and add as you can afford to. In fact Wilson sold the Rockford Collection right before the advent of CGC ... now if he had just held ...

 

Why not keep what you have and add to it ... whatever age ... it may be.

As I always like to say, if I would have kept every comic I've ever owned, I would never have owned every comic I've ever owned in the 1st place.

[blackterror]

oh yeah ... let's not forget ...

 

Each person can have their personal golden age as well ... I do like recollecting books I owned as a boy ... and ragged out ... I still have them all by the way.

 

I have my ragged Batman 239 that my parents gave me for Christmas when I was a boy that book is golden to me .... They said what do you want for Christmas and I said comics. One day I hope to bump into a nicely centered high grade copy that is not over priced ... it's just a very ordinary book ... but it is golden to me.

 

Always keep that in mind ... your personal golden age, if you have one.

 

There is the difference in the true comic readers versus the collectors ... I really read and enjoyed comics ... hence that influences my behavior ... as opposed to somebody with a pile of money that just shows up and starts buying ... I wonder how many comics, Jay Perrino ever read?

 

In that sense .... there all golden age to me

 

Up Up and Away ...

 

[jimjum12]

oh yeah ... let's not forget ...

 

Each person can have their personal golden age as well ... I do like recollecting books I owned as a boy ... and ragged out ... I still have them all by the way.

 

I have my ragged Batman 239 that my parents gave me for Christmas when I was a boy that book is golden to me .... They said what do you want for Christmas and I said comics. One day I hope to bump into a nicely centered high grade copy that is not over priced ... it's just a very ordinary book ... but it is golden to me.

 

Always keep that in mind ... your personal golden age, if you have one.

 

There is the difference in the true comic readers versus the collectors ... I really read and enjoyed comics ... hence that influences my behavior ... as opposed to somebody with a pile of money that just shows up and starts buying ... I wonder how many comics, Jay Perrino ever read?

 

In that sense .... there all golden age to me

 

Up Up and Away ...

 

Isn't that the Batman robot grey tone cover....? THAT would definitely be cool in high grade. www.superworldcomics.com had one a while back.GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[Old Fashion PB and J]

Platinum = Original Art.

[COI]

Platinum = Original Art.

 

Now I'm thoroughly confused.

[adamstrange]

I guess it is going to be gut check time, as this one plays out

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/STRANGE-TALES-123-CGC-9-6-WHITE-MOUNTAIN_W0QQitemZ260285151413QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item260285151413&_trkparms=39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A3%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

 

I'm going to give this book a good shot but if I end up losing it, I think I'll take everybodys advice and keep the best of the best and sell the rest. I mean this is an absolutely nothing, book...for $1400+, that'll get you a very decent slabbed 8.0-8.5 MMC Schomburg War cover, there really is no comparasin.

 

This WILL be my epiphany book.

 

Jim

 

 

For $1600 linky

[VintageComics]

I guess it is going to be gut check time, as this one plays out

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/STRANGE-TALES-123-CGC-9-6-WHITE-MOUNTAIN_W0QQitemZ260285151413QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item260285151413&_trkparms=39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A3%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

 

I'm going to give this book a good shot but if I end up losing it, I think I'll take everybodys advice and keep the best of the best and sell the rest. I mean this is an absolutely nothing, book...for $1400+, that'll get you a very decent slabbed 8.0-8.5 MMC Schomburg War cover, there really is no comparasin.

 

This WILL be my epiphany book.

 

Jim

 

 

For $1600 linky

 

I'd rather have this copy.