Moderns that are heating up on ebay! 71 71

[Jaydogrules]

Hey guys, this was discussed once in this thread so I figure this is a good place to ask this....eBay seems to have corrected the glitch that allowed you to see the accepted offer amount on a buy it now on a mobile device. Anyone know another way to see that kind of data? And ideas are much appreciated.

 

Warm regards

 

-J.

[krighton]

Only ebay would consider that a glitch

[Pinky Lee Zepplin]

Anyone know another way to see that kind of data? And ideas are much appreciated.

 

Grab the Auction # and go to watchcount.com

 

 

[darkstar]

Hey guys, this was discussed once in this thread so I figure this is a good place to ask this....eBay seems to have corrected the glitch that allowed you to see the accepted offer amount on a buy it now on a mobile device. Anyone know another way to see that kind of data? And ideas are much appreciated.

 

Warm regards

 

-J.

 

click on listing.

 

click on "see original listing" next to listing title.

 

scroll down, below the seller's name and info on the right hand side of the page you should see "report item" and "print"

 

click "print"

 

a new page will open showing the accepted offer.

[spreads]

Harbinger #1 has sold for waaaay more than that in the past. It's been in the toilet ($250-$300) for a while.

 

It actually has never bottomed out at that range. The only sales under $300 occurred during the infancy of CGC, and long before the demand for Harbinger shot the price up to $2500. The past year or so the book has oscillated around $300-350, ending closer to $350.

 

From what I understand, the books he lists are based on the # of bids, not the price.

 

FWIW, the suckers were the ones that bought Harbinger #1 at the highs. There were plenty of HG copies to go around and it was only a matter of time for more to surface. Just like any BA/CA/Modern #1 or key, there will be more highest graded copies on the census over time and that will bring prices back to reality.

 

Actually that particular post had to do with the number of watchers, not the price.

 

I think you are a little strong with your characterization of the supply of high grade Harbinger 1s. Given a book that sold from $2500 down to $350, there are still only about 100 9.8s on the census which has grown very very slowly for a 90's "big money" book. Compare to Batman Adventures 12.

 

Certainly there was little support for a 2500 price given even a slowly growing census count, but it still is a legitimately tough book to grade out at 9.8.

 

It is tougher than other books from that period, but at an estimated 48,000 print run there are plenty of potential 9.8s out there in long boxes and store stock that have not come out to play yet. The question is how many people are willing to pay the $250-$350 for it if the current series fails and there are no movie/tv prospects to inflate prices?

 

When I look at the number of so-so Image books being optioned, I keep wondering if Valiant will ever get something on the big or small screen.

 

Harbinger 1 doesn't have a TON of downside in CGC 9.8 in that price range. It's a relatively tough 9.8, has a very low print run for its era, is a classic book that a lot of people have some nostalgia for, and the characters are back in print for now. Even if the current series died, it's already renewed some interest in the book.

 

Certainly. You don't need to be a Valiant collector to want a H1 9.8 in your collection. It is a legit modern era key book. I would put it in the top 10, and I can't see it out of the top 20 in any serious list.

 

 

I think the Valiant book that should be on people's top 10 modern lists is VH1 X-O Manowar 1. The title outsold Harbinger back in the day (X-O Manowar was published for over a year after the original Harbinger title folded), it was one of the few titles revived by Acclaim (Harbinger did not make the cut), and is the top selling Valiant title for VEI. Harbinger is a wannabe X-Men and will always be compared to that title. X-O Manowar is a unique character and is Valiant's flagship character and title. IMHO, of course.

 

It's pathetic that VH1 X-O Manowar 1 in 9.8 CGC sells for $75 - $100. There are VEI X-O Manowar variants that sell for more and that's just wrong.

 

As for moderns that are heating up, did anyone else notice the inexpensive (under $15) copies of House of Mystery Halloween Annual 1s disappeared on E-Bay this weekend after the iZombie news? That book has less than 12,000 copies. Not a huge print run.

 

I don't think it's fair to say the variants are selling for more is right or wrong, the 1:50s are getting ridiculously hard to find. If I only have $50 or $100 to spend on a book, do I choose a high grade copy of a book I already own multiples of, or 1 or 2 variants that are extremely limited, just playing devil's advocate....I would also like to add that I think X-O and Harby VE1 is a lot better than their VH1 counterparts.

 

Harbinger in particular, is an amazing book, so for people questioning the quality of these books I really wonder what they're reading (I assume they're not).

[Jaydogrules]

Hey guys, this was discussed once in this thread so I figure this is a good place to ask this....eBay seems to have corrected the glitch that allowed you to see the accepted offer amount on a buy it now on a mobile device. Anyone know another way to see that kind of data? And ideas are much appreciated.

 

Warm regards

 

-J.

 

click on listing.

 

click on "see original listing" next to listing title.

 

scroll down, below the seller's name and info on the right hand side of the page you should see "report item" and "print"

 

click "print"

 

a new page will open showing the accepted offer.

 

Worked like a charm. Thank you kindly gents. (thumbs u

 

-J.

[RCheli]

Call me stupid, but what is VH1 and VE1?

 

I think Harbinger will always be a key book, but I don't think it will have much legs. Once the people who collected Valiants in the early 90s are no longer collecting comics, I don't see there being much of a replacement consumer.

[slym2none]

VH1 - the first VALIANT iteration

VH2 - when Acclaim took over

VEI - Valiant Entertainment Industries, the guys that put out the new Valiant books.

 

Such as, your line above should read "Once the people who collected VALIANTs in the early 90s are no longer collecting comics..."

 

Makes my using "VALIANT" and "Valiant" to differentiate the companies a little easier to accept, eh?

 

Eh??

 

 

 

 

-slym ( :: )

[Jimmy Linguini]

VH1 - the first VALIANT iteration

VH2 - when Acclaim took over

VEI - Valiant Entertainment Industries, the guys that put out the new Valiant books.

 

Such as, your line above should read "Once the people who collected VALIANTs in the early 90s are no longer collecting comics..."

 

Makes my using "VALIANT" and "Valiant" to differentiate the companies a little easier to accept, eh?

 

Eh??

 

 

 

 

-slym ( :: )

 

EH!

[Awax]

VH1 - the first VALIANT iteration

VH2 - when Acclaim took over

VEI - Valiant Entertainment Industries, the guys that put out the new Valiant books.

 

Such as, your line above should read "Once the people who collected VALIANTs in the early 90s are no longer collecting comics..."

 

Makes my using "VALIANT" and "Valiant" to differentiate the companies a little easier to accept, eh?

 

Eh??

 

 

 

 

-slym ( :: )

 

EH!

 

Doesn't VH 1 just play Bon Jovi videos now?

[slym2none]

Pff, no "music video channels" play music nor videos anymore.

 

 

 

 

-slym

[kimik]

It is tougher than other books from that period, but at an estimated 48,000 print run there are plenty of potential 9.8s out there in long boxes and store stock that have not come out to play yet.

 

My opinion is that the last ~10 years cast doubt on this scenario.

 

When you have high dollar sales for a "common" book they get graded in droves. See Batman Adventures 12. There was quite a lot of publicity when there were ~$1000 prices for CGC 9.8 copies of H1. If they were going to come out to play, why not then? The mythical sealed case has never surfaced - this is not Wolverine 1.

 

Despite this, there has never been an explosion in the census. I can only guess how big the explosion in submissions was based on what has been graded so far since pre-screening completely throws off what we are trying to measure, But as it stands the current 9.8 count is 119 out 663 universal blue labels.

 

As has been discussed many times, the problem with H1 is that there were production problems that keep most copies out of 9.8 and most of those problems are not pressable. It would not surprise me if a small percentage of the run had a shot at 9.8 as they came off the press in 1992. And it's all downhill from there after 22 years of time.

 

 

I agree that the spine splits and other production issues make Harby #1 more difficult in 9.8, but these books were so valuable shortly after release that they would have been bagged and boarded right away so the chances of them being stored improperly is lower. When I was cleaning out the stock that LCSs had in their bins in the late 90s the Harbinger, Solar and Magnus pre-unity and incentive issues were always bagged and boarded. Interestingly, I found a lot of unbagged X-Os and Shadowman #1s, which surprised me as X-O outlasted most of the rest.

 

Looking at the census numbers right now, out of the 717 copies of Harby #1 slabbed to date, 131 have come back at 9.8 (blue, green and yellow labels), which means a little over 18% of the slabbed copies have hit that grade. That number does not seem to indicate it is as tough to land in 9.8 (basically a 1 in 6 chance) as I thought it would be - I expected it to be in the 6-8% range due to the long known production issues.

 

If that number holds for the entire print run, then you are looking at 8000+ potential 9.8 candidates. Even if that rate is halved to 9% of the print run, that is still over 4000 copies in total as potential 9.8 books.

 

 

 

 

[CKB]

It is tougher than other books from that period, but at an estimated 48,000 print run there are plenty of potential 9.8s out there in long boxes and store stock that have not come out to play yet.

 

My opinion is that the last ~10 years cast doubt on this scenario.

 

When you have high dollar sales for a "common" book they get graded in droves. See Batman Adventures 12. There was quite a lot of publicity when there were ~$1000 prices for CGC 9.8 copies of H1. If they were going to come out to play, why not then? The mythical sealed case has never surfaced - this is not Wolverine 1.

 

Despite this, there has never been an explosion in the census. I can only guess how big the explosion in submissions was based on what has been graded so far since pre-screening completely throws off what we are trying to measure, But as it stands the current 9.8 count is 119 out 663 universal blue labels.

 

As has been discussed many times, the problem with H1 is that there were production problems that keep most copies out of 9.8 and most of those problems are not pressable. It would not surprise me if a small percentage of the run had a shot at 9.8 as they came off the press in 1992. And it's all downhill from there after 22 years of time.

 

 

I agree that the spine splits and other production issues make Harby #1 more difficult in 9.8, but these books were so valuable shortly after release that they would have been bagged and boarded right away so the chances of them being stored improperly is lower. When I was cleaning out the stock that LCSs had in their bins in the late 90s the Harbinger, Solar and Magnus pre-unity and incentive issues were always bagged and boarded. Interestingly, I found a lot of unbagged X-Os and Shadowman #1s, which surprised me as X-O outlasted most of the rest.

 

Looking at the census numbers right now, out of the 717 copies of Harby #1 slabbed to date, 131 have come back at 9.8 (blue, green and yellow labels), which means a little over 18% of the slabbed copies have hit that grade. That number does not seem to indicate it is as tough to land in 9.8 (basically a 1 in 6 chance) as I thought it would be - I expected it to be in the 6-8% range due to the long known production issues.

 

If that number holds for the entire print run, then you are looking at 8000+ potential 9.8 candidates. Even if that rate is halved to 9% of the print run, that is still over 4000 copies in total as potential 9.8 books.

 

Unfortunately, the ratio is killed by pre-screening. I have personally submitted over 100 copies of H1, all pre-screens. Only a small number of those appear on the census.

 

The census is also thrown off by nothing ever coming off the census. How many 9.8s also appear on the Census as 9.6s or lower grades? Must be a few that were CPRd successfully or just resubbed. Many of us (Valiant CGC nuts) feel that CGC is much more lenient with H1s than they were 5 years ago.

 

Like you, I estimate (based on handling hundreds and hundreds of copies over the years) only about 10% of the original run was 9.8 worthy. If you erode that number through the coupon program, time, handling, and general mayhem, I usually use 1000 as a theoretical top end number of what might be left.

 

But in reality that seems high to me. We'll see how the trickle of census number grows.

 

 

[whetteon]

Harbinger #1 has sold for waaaay more than that in the past. It's been in the toilet ($250-$300) for a while.

 

It actually has never bottomed out at that range. The only sales under $300 occurred during the infancy of CGC, and long before the demand for Harbinger shot the price up to $2500. The past year or so the book has oscillated around $300-350, ending closer to $350.

 

From what I understand, the books he lists are based on the # of bids, not the price.

 

FWIW, the suckers were the ones that bought Harbinger #1 at the highs. There were plenty of HG copies to go around and it was only a matter of time for more to surface. Just like any BA/CA/Modern #1 or key, there will be more highest graded copies on the census over time and that will bring prices back to reality.

 

Actually that particular post had to do with the number of watchers, not the price.

 

I think you are a little strong with your characterization of the supply of high grade Harbinger 1s. Given a book that sold from $2500 down to $350, there are still only about 100 9.8s on the census which has grown very very slowly for a 90's "big money" book. Compare to Batman Adventures 12.

 

Certainly there was little support for a 2500 price given even a slowly growing census count, but it still is a legitimately tough book to grade out at 9.8.

 

It is tougher than other books from that period, but at an estimated 48,000 print run there are plenty of potential 9.8s out there in long boxes and store stock that have not come out to play yet. The question is how many people are willing to pay the $250-$350 for it if the current series fails and there are no movie/tv prospects to inflate prices?

 

When I look at the number of so-so Image books being optioned, I keep wondering if Valiant will ever get something on the big or small screen.

 

Harbinger 1 doesn't have a TON of downside in CGC 9.8 in that price range. It's a relatively tough 9.8, has a very low print run for its era, is a classic book that a lot of people have some nostalgia for, and the characters are back in print for now. Even if the current series died, it's already renewed some interest in the book.

 

Certainly. You don't need to be a Valiant collector to want a H1 9.8 in your collection. It is a legit modern era key book. I would put it in the top 10, and I can't see it out of the top 20 in any serious list.

 

[Dukes40]

My opinion is that the last ~10 years cast doubt on this scenario.

 

When you have high dollar sales for a "common" book they get graded in droves. See Batman Adventures 12. There was quite a lot of publicity when there were ~$1000 prices for CGC 9.8 copies of H1. If they were going to come out to play, why not then? The mythical sealed case has never surfaced - this is not Wolverine 1.

 

 

 

So true regarding the "Mythical Case". No one would sit on something like that for so long. If they could be making 300, 500, 1000 bucks per issue, it would have happened. Just regarding space even, like,

 

a Mythical Case X every book that that rumour pops up about = a TONNE of boxes.

[Dukes40]

Certainly. You don't need to be a Valiant collector to want a H1 9.8 in your collection. It is a legit modern era key book. I would put it in the top 10, and I can't see it out of the top 20 in any serious list.

 

EXACTLY!

 

(thumbs u

 

Action Comics #1 has probably atrocious writing and a boring story, but no one's passing that up EVER.

 

 

HAHAHAHA!!! Could you imagine???

 

"O, sorry, I don't really collect Superman comics"

 

"Naw, I'll pass. I'm more of a Marvel guy".

Edited February 5, 2014 by Dukes40

[kimik]

Unfortunately, the ratio is killed by pre-screening. I have personally submitted over 100 copies of H1, all pre-screens. Only a small number of those appear on the census.

 

The census is also thrown off by nothing ever coming off the census. How many 9.8s also appear on the Census as 9.6s or lower grades? Must be a few that were CPRd successfully or just resubbed. Many of us (Valiant CGC nuts) feel that CGC is much more lenient with H1s than they were 5 years ago.

 

Like you, I estimate (based on handling hundreds and hundreds of copies over the years) only about 10% of the original run was 9.8 worthy. If you erode that number through the coupon program, time, handling, and general mayhem, I usually use 1000 as a theoretical top end number of what might be left.

 

But in reality that seems high to me. We'll see how the trickle of census number grows.

 

 

It will be interesting. Even at 5% of the print run, you are looking at 2400+ 9.8 copies. The question is how many will ever be submitted. There are very few Copper/Modern collectors that buy slabs from me at shows. The vast majority prefer being able to hold the book in their hands, even if you gouge them on the raw copies.

 

FWIW, CGC is way easier now on books across the board. That is another big part of why I see Harby #1 9.8 numbers creeping up. The amount of printing defects that they allow in 9.8s is scary.

Edited February 5, 2014 by kimik

[Dukes40]

I never got sucked into the Valiant 90's hype, though I bought Dr Solars & Magnus because I had some old ones as a kid. My BS detector went off back then when Wizard's "price guide" had every Valiant book listed at insane prices, all the while half the ads in their rag were for Valiant books.

Image was able to shed their '90's glut rep by doing top notch quality books, Valiant may have a ways to go to do the same IMO

 

Never picked up any Valiant as a kid (was around 10-12 at the time), just Marvel.

 

I did pick up X-O Manowar when it relaunched, though, based on the premis of the book. Thought it looked interesting, and am glad I did. It's pretty good.

 

Picked up Harbinger, Bloodshot, and Shadowman as well. (to read, plus as a bit of speculation).

 

I've kept Harbinger (have read maybe first 6 issues).

 

Read the first 2 issues of the others, and just haven't got around to the rest. I ended up cutting them for budget reasons. They weren't bad though, but only so much Moo-La to go around.

[Dukes40]

 

I think the Valiant book that should be on people's top 10 modern lists is VH1 X-O Manowar 1. The title outsold Harbinger back in the day (X-O Manowar was published for over a year after the original Harbinger title folded), it was one of the few titles revived by Acclaim (Harbinger did not make the cut), and is the top selling Valiant title for VEI.

 

1-About the wannabe X-Men thing, I mean, most Superhero comics are just copies of previous stuff. Not much you can do with them after so many years.

 

2-Regarding the Acclaim books, since there seems to be a few Valiant fans. Anyone know which Acclaim book had the first use of the Hip Flask character in a Comicraft advertisement??? I will be ETERNALLY grateful for this information. FYI Starkings couldn't even tell me. I just can't seem to find this info on the web.

[Dukes40]

 

I don't think it's fair to say the variants are selling for more is right or wrong, the 1:50s are getting ridiculously hard to find. If I only have $50 or $100 to spend on a book, do I choose a high grade copy of a book I already own multiples of, or 1 or 2 variants that are extremely limited, just playing devil's advocate....I would also like to add that I think X-O and Harby VE1 is a lot better than their VH1 counterparts.

 

Harbinger in particular, is an amazing book, so for people questioning the quality of these books I really wonder what they're reading (I assume they're not).

 

Very true for the variant thing. Only so many to go around. Especially for the ones that are very limited, or the ones that are actually cool and in demand.