Best way to fill holes in 80's runs

[johnenock]

Seems rather obvious, I know, but I am having a very difficult time filling holes in titles like Blue Devil, Teen Titans, Avengers West Coast/West Coast Avengers etc in true NM condition...

I've tried ebay and most NM's are VF's(worthless in this era), I've heard mycomicshop is also a crapshoot, and everyone knows about milehigh's grading or lack of grading.

There is a lack of that material in my area. I'd buy CGC, but I don't want or need a bunch of dollar CGC 9.8 books clogging my comic room(I have 3 kids and my comic room isn't big enough for more than the 6 CGC boxes that are already filled). If they aren't worth 200 and up or a ped they get cracked just to save space.

I assume most people don't break up their runs because I've never had much luck in the WTB threads even though I don't haggle much and pretty much pay the asking price, if fair.

Any thoughts on where I can get these issues? What's your guys' experience. Any help would be appreciated.

[Prince Namor]

Mycomicshop.com is actually grading VF/NM's and up and providing scans you can look at for the exact issue you want to purchase.

You can also create a want list, where they'll e-mail you when something comes in. Orders over $50 are free shipping, and they have a new group of books at 10% off every week (Avengers, DC M-Z, Eclipse, etc. )

I've been having some good results with the way they have it set up now.

[johnenock]

Good to know...maybe I'll do a test order.

[mschmidt]

Mycomicshop.com is actually grading VF/NM's and up and providing scans you can look at for the exact issue you want to purchase.

 

I'm fairly certain that a book has to sell for a specific amount (say $10) before they'll provide a scan for it - it's got nothing to do with the grade ...

[mister_not_so_nice]

Any thoughts on where I can get these issues? . . . Any help would be appreciated.

 

I see you've got a wantlist in your sig, but I'd suggest getting a complete list of all books your looking for and post a WTB thread. Then bump the thread periodically.

 

I can't believe with the amount of dealers on the boards it would be that hard to get the issues. And the more comprehensive the list, the more you may be able to get from a single source.

 

I check the WTB threads often to see if I can make a sale. Earlier this month I had for sale several of the FLASH books in your sig(with scans) in my SALES THREAD. ($0.50 per or 3/$1.00 )

[Prince Namor]

Mycomicshop.com is actually grading VF/NM's and up and providing scans you can look at for the exact issue you want to purchase.

 

I'm fairly certain that a book has to sell for a specific amount (say $10) before they'll provide a scan for it - it's got nothing to do with the grade ...

Right. Good point. I'm not sure what the amount is exactly, but yeah, that's probably a fair estimate of where it starts.

I will say, I've had far better success with the $1.10 fill in "NM's" from mycomicshop than I ever have from Mile Highs' higher priced fill in "NM's".

[RockMyAmadeus]

Conventions and eBay are the best way to fill holes in runs.

 

In fact, if you look for incomplete runs on eBay, they sell for vastly less than their complete counterparts, so you can buy, take what you need, and dump the rest, and you'll probably be saving quite a bit of money.

[nocutename]

If condition is truly esstental to you then I would suggest seeking out copies at LCS. One of my lcs use to automatically bag every new issue for the back stock. So you could definitely get lucky there. I just ordered from MCS 2 months ago and while I was pleased with the order, a NM still had a corner crease.

 

I use to order from this comic shop when I was collecting my Flash trades as he had many trades I could not find locally. I ordered one or two comics from him and they were in nice. You can try calling him as well. He is a really nice guy. The only draw back is the shipping cost. I think he used UPS so it was around 8-10 dollars to get books shipped but he packs very well.

 

http://www.tcomics.com/Cflash.html

[the blob]

those are books you should be able to find at a show in a dollar or less box, but i'm guessing you don't live near too many decent shows

[mschmidt]

those are books you should be able to find at a show in a dollar or less box, but i'm guessing you don't live near too many decent shows

 

Finding them is not a problem - finding them in NM or above condition is. I do a lot of box hunting at shows for high-grade copper books; it's definitely not as easy as people would like you to think ...

[the blob]

the OP wanted "true NM" whatever that is, but i hear what you're saying. i don't think it would be easy to put together anything in 9.6-9.8 raw while box diving, 9.4 I'd be less worried about from this era.

 

 

the flash 1st series might not be so easy in true NM...some of those might be in $2 boxes. 2d series should not be too hard. one would think the NTTs would not be as hard given that was a really popular book. and one would think the avengers WCs would be fairly easy except maybe toward the end of the series when print runs were perhaps plummeting?

 

but yeah, it would be a lot of work, although that's half the fun of collecting!

[PBK78]

I've used MyComicShop and the conventions to fill hundreds of gaps across a bunch of titles.

MCS will get you the books for cheap and most will come in pretty good shape, VF - NM. I personally never cared because these books will never be really valuable. So if the book looked good (no tears, stains etc) I'm happy. A handful will be junk and messed up badly.

 

Conventions will help you fill the gap and hopefully cherry pick some nicer copies.

[Krypto Super Dawg]

eBay is mostly worthless if you are trying to find minty fresh copies of worthless copper comics and you end up paying more. Most all auctions seem to be over-graded and its been really frustrating filling my runs of totally worthless comics.

 

I've had the most success buying in bulk at conventions and flee markets from the 50 cent boxes. I know exactly what I'm getting and its cheap. I just picked up the entire run of the Swamp Thing all in NM+ condition for $50 at the last convention I went to and I recently completed my NM run of X-Factor which averaged out to 25 cents an issue. It usually takes me a year or two of going to conventions to complete a run of something, but I can get them for very cheap prices.

 

For the lower print stuff like independents I usually have to resort to eBay to fill in the final holes here and there.