high grade is not fun anymore

[qualitycomix]

I don't think it's so much that the print runs were greater for late Silver and early Bronze books--as much as it is that, by that time, people were saving them and taking care of them.

 

The print runs of this era were higher but you're right, there were more "investors" and collectors that were taking care of their books and that is the majority of the reason why so many NM copies exist today.

[Aman619]

I don't think it's so much that the print runs were greater for late Silver and early Bronze books--as much as it is that, by that time, people were saving them and taking care of them.

 

My understanding is that comics in the early 40s had huge print runs. And how many people saved them and kept them in decent shape? One guy named Edgar Church.

 

Charlie.

 

right. The formula is that stuff gets tossed when they are widely considered "trash", like comics in the 40s.

And they are hoarded when they are widely comnsidered cool or collectable - - comics in the late 60s

 

I bought my first doubles in 68 when Cap 100 etc came out. And I was a piker, as we know now that others bought far more. But even still, except for the warehouse finds of some issues, its not that easy for a collector back then to have maintained their books in what is now "9.4" Most of us READ them, carefully, at dinner and piled them up. No bags. No boards. Earliest copy (#1) on the bottom of the stack that got moved around fairly often. Some exist, obviously, but for me, too many already are in the census for me to pay the new prices.

 

Anybody check their stash yet?

[FlComicFan]

Somehow my thread got turned into another crash thread. That wasnt my intent. We can all speculate all day long but nobody really knows for 100% where the prices will be in 5/10/20 years I'm just a little bummed that a fun hobby is being turned into Money making 101. My 2 cents on the coin crash is that Joe C is 100% correct the graph posted pretty much shows anyone exactly what occured. Check out baseball card prices when slabs hit A lot of people will be licking their wounds from that for years to come and likely will never see some of the highs from that bubble market. I think the majority of collectors are under the false impression that all high grade books are rare and deserve these extraordinary values. The WORST! thing CGC did was to grade Moderns I refer to this insane practice of slabbing brand new comics to get 9.8/9.9/10.0 People say they dont buy the lable but when you spend lots of money for a brand new comic printed today because some funder grader graded it a 10.0? I just have to question CGC's intergrity in that respect I realise they are a company and bottom line and paying the bills is important but.................. I also really do not like the fact that Golden Age books get preferrential treatment If you are at a large convention and have the chance look at some of the Gold 9.4's No way under Overstreet those make the cut as NM Overstreet always maintained that comics should be graded with the same standards no matter it was that moths issue of a Action 1 Now do you all think that the long time big money guys who owned the majority of the pedigree Golden Age books would have jumped on the slab bandwagon if those books were being graded like silver/bronze books? Can you see most of those Mile High's with minor wear being submitted to receive VF's instead of the NM's they do get? OK take a deep breath, back to our scheduled conversation!

[OldGuy]

How did this turn into a crash thread again?

 

Brent

 

Everything does eventually...circle of life etc....

 

Sometimes I like to light my farts on fire.

[JiveTurkeyMoFo]

I agree with your sentiments....Just contemplate this: how much of a diservice does CGC do to the guy who owns the OTHER Marvel Comics # 1 in Universal 9.0? (I am assuming the two on the census are not the same). Tell me, which one would YOU rather have?

 

I know I'd be pretty ticked if I my 9.0 had to share the "World's Best Copy" moniker with the scribbled-over "historical" Pay Copy.

[chromium]

How did this turn into a crash thread again?

 

Brent

 

Everything does eventually...circle of life etc....

 

Sometimes I like to light my farts on fire.

 

That's where I saw the leprechaun! He told me to burn things

[CompleteRunComics]

...but it's not a total loss.

 

Grading-wise everyone is on the same page.

Low grade issues are now getting more attention as "reader copies" (or in some cases because their the only affordable copies out there)

You now own a black light for defect checking which doubles for your vintage "60"'s black light poster collection, and, you have enough pairs of latex gloves for comic handling that you can have your significant other perform your annual prostate exam right in front of your X-men comics too.

 

 

CRC

[FlComicFan]

I beg to differ . Grading wise even CGC is not on the same page on the same books hence all the resubmits The Pay Copy of Marvel 1 is pretty bad but I guess its provenance and historical significance do make up for its questionable grade Taking that into consideration I would still rather have a true VF/NM minus the scribbles!

[FFB]

I was talking about high grade comics and I don't think that 6.5 or 7.5 counts. I consider those mid-grade or maybe a 7.5 is the low end of high grade. I also don't think that many purchasers of mid-grade comics care if their books have been dry cleaned or PWOD. I am sure there are some that do, but I don't think that most care at all. I also don't think that a slew of mid-grade books being turned into slightly higher grade mid-grade books will spell doom for the high end of the market.

 

I agree with you here, but tell me honestly...does a book really HAVE to go from 8.0 to 9.4 to make that big of a difference price wise? No...please read this thread I started a while back.

 

6.5 to 7.5...POOF!

 

Thoughts?

[CompleteRunComics]

I beg to differ . Grading wise even CGC is not on the same page on the same books hence all the resubmits The Pay Copy of Marvel 1 is pretty bad but I guess its provenance and historical significance do make up for its questionable grade Taking that into consideration I would still rather have a true VF/NM minus the scribbles!

 

True.

 

How can I word this. We may not all be on the right page but at least we're all within a page or two of each other.

 

 

CRC

[FFB]

Does anyone have a scan of the pay copy of Marvel #1?

 

I agree with your sentiments....Just contemplate this: how much of a diservice does CGC do to the guy who owns the OTHER Marvel Comics # 1 in Universal 9.0? (I am assuming the two on the census are not the same). Tell me, which one would YOU rather have?

 

I know I'd be pretty ticked if I my 9.0 had to share the "World's Best Copy" moniker with the scribbled-over "historical" Pay Copy.

[tilleycs]

I'm not really into high grades. I got back into collecting toward the end of last year, and I'm getting married in November, so it would be foolish for me to spend all my money buying everything in high grade. I'd rather have full runs and get as many nice reader copies for my money as I can get. I'm able to get many of the issues I owned when I collected back in the 70's & 80's, and issues before and after that time period.

 

I've had more fun trading and searching through bargain bins than I would have if I'd bought everything in high grades off the net. How rewarding is it to write a check for everything? For me, that's buying, that's not hunting. With everything at your fingertips via the net, it's easier to get but a lot less rewarding (for me personally).

 

I don't see myself ever crossing over into high grades (which, honestly, makes me wonder what I'm doing here sometimes). I just don't want to get that "into" it and cross the proverbial line. For me, it becomes a question of whether I control my hobby or my hobby controls me. Once it starts controlling me, it stops being fun and becomes an obsession - to get the largest collection, make a ton of money from speculating, etc. Fun drops out of the equation completely and I become a slave.

 

I also remember the big crash of the 90's. I didn't get in on the rise as far as individual stocks (all my money was in mutual funds), but we were ALL affected by the crash. On the advice of my FORMER insurance agent (speaking of people lying when their lips are moving) who got me started in the mutual funds I had at the time, I was "encouraged" to get into a "Science & Technology Fund" they were starting after the crash happened (supposedly made up of companies that had survived the crash and were supposed to do well).

 

I didn't put much in there, but the fund did so poorly (i.e., TANKED so badly) that they liquidated it. I had to transfer my shares into my other mutual funds. Long story with that guy (which ended in me firing him and reporting him to the NC Dept. of Insurance). Anyway...

 

Do you guys think the ENTIRE hobby is going to crash, or just those issues that are REALLY high-end and/or REALLY expensive due to their CGC grades?

[Mr. Zipper]

I don't see myself ever crossing over into high grades (which, honestly, makes me wonder what I'm doing here sometimes). I just don't want to get that "into" it and cross the proverbial line. For me, it becomes a question of whether I control my hobby or my hobby controls me.

 

Same here. I'd much rather have ten silver age 7.0 - 9.0s than one 9.4 or 9.6. To me, it's about having the run in "nice" shape. I don't crave perfection in condition.

 

Do you guys think the ENTIRE hobby is going to crash, or just those issues that are REALLY high-end and/or REALLY expensive due to their CGC grades?

 

Presuming there is a crash, everything would probably be affected, but I don't see mid-grades falling as much because they aren't that over-inflated now. The higher something goes, the more it has to fall.

[Aman619]

back to the graph. I ve got a question. It clearly show a crash in slabbed coin prices, but was it acrioss th eboard? or were the newer minted crappy plentiful coins hit hardest and the better, older and rarer stuff very little, a lot, or just as much as the new???

[CompleteRunComics]

 

I'm not really into high grades. I got back into collecting toward the end of last year, and I'm getting married in November, so it would be foolish for me to spend all my money buying everything in high grade. I'd rather have full runs and get as many nice reader copies for my money as I can get. I'm able to get many of the issues I owned when I collected back in the 70's & 80's, and issues before and after that time period.

 

I've had more fun trading and searching through bargain bins than I would have if I'd bought everything in high grades off the net. How rewarding is it to write a check for everything? For me, that's buying, that's not hunting. With everything at your fingertips via the net, it's easier to get but a lot less rewarding (for me personally).

 

 

Ironically, my idea of a bargain bin gem these days is a nice reader copy for 50 cents or so.

 

 

CRC

[Bronty]

it becomes a question of whether I control my hobby or my hobby controls me.

 

 

Well said.

[Bronty]

...but it's not a total loss.

 

Grading-wise everyone is on the same page.

Low grade issues are now getting more attention as "reader copies" (or in some cases because their the only affordable copies out there)

You now own a black light for defect checking which doubles for your vintage "60"'s black light poster collection, and, you have enough pairs of latex gloves for comic handling that you can have your significant other perform your annual prostate exam right in front of your X-men comics too.

 

 

CRC

 

rofl

[garthgantu]

take another look at your treasures. You will see that, nice as they are, 98% of them JUST ARENT GONNA BLOW THE CENSUS UP!!! Ill bet you that the further back you go, and especially for keys, there just ARENT a lot of 9.4s out there!!! Im talking about Marvel Keys through 1963. And DCs too, which will IMO end up at most half of Marvels numbers. Sure there are lots of Bethlehems and WMs etc still to surface in a slab, and these will yield a lot of 9.2s and 9.0s, but 9.4s and 9.6s??? I dont think so.

 

Point taken, but I think the combination of a continued stream of new books being submitted, combined with all the "clean, press and resubmit" books (which in most, probably all, cases aren't resubmitted with their holders/labels, so that CGC can adjust the census), will throw the census out the window. In 2-3 years, maybe sooner, the census won't accurately reflect the real number of HG books for many titles/issues - the census will show 8 copies of B&B 1 in 9.2 - 9.4, while in fact there are only four in existence, and two or three of them were cleaned/pressed to that grade, possibly more than once.

[Bronty]

back to the graph. I ve got a question. It clearly show a crash in slabbed coin prices, but was it acrioss th eboard? or were the newer minted crappy plentiful coins hit hardest and the better, older and rarer stuff very little, a lot, or just as much as the new???

 

Exactly. That graph shows the value of an index, but doesn't say what was in the index. I'm willing to bet that those newly minted MS67 quarters that I've heard dropped from $500 to $50 were included in that index... the equivalent of Darth's 10.0 Origin #1 for $2k

 

I don't know anything about coins but quality material will always stand the test of time in any collectible field. Prices will rise and fall on those items but never truly crash. FF#1 is not going to be $500 in vg or fine any time soon. Fad items like that 10.0 Origin may have their day in the sun but that's all it will ever be, a day in the sun.

[Darthdiesel]

Fad items like that 10.0 Origin may have their day in the sun but that's all it will ever be, a day in the sun.

 

Last known verified sale of an Origin # 1 10.0 was $1500 .... I wouldn't qualify that as a "crash price" from my peak sale of $2250? Truth is, none have come up recently to test the market. I'm betting that the folks that are holding on to these to sell are waiting until 1) Origin series sequel comes out 2) hype from the Hugh Jackman Wolverine solo movie or from X3 starts driving up x-book prices again 3) other Wolverine comic projects like The End have a revitalizing effect on the interest in the comic community for this character...or like me, could be holding on to theirs for keeps... what do I have, $20 tied into the book? Remember there are only 5 or 6 of these and last one "made" was mine - don't know if anyone will risk submitting another bunch of them to try to get a 10.0?