murph0 Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 It's possible there's 500 out there, but that's not what it sounds like some people are trying to say. IMO saying there's tons of hoarding and warehouses and boxes full of stuff..would equivoquate to that person meaning there's thousands more copies of each book in super HG.. Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duncan36 Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Well murph thats the beauty of CGC and their excellent census work. In the next couple of years we'll get an excellent picture about just how many Hulk 181's are out there, if the flow of 9.0+ 181's continues at a strong pace this year, its safe to assume that there are many, many more 181's out there than people assume. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BachelorOfComix Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 One note about the census, it is not 100% accurate as it does not take re-submissions into account. The 8.5-9.2 grades for Hulk 181 may be affected the most. Cheers, Bachelor of Comics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
COI Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 I realize that there are many collectors, and collections that are far away from CGC's hands, but I think collections of books and hoards of single issues are 2 different things. If anyone did hoard Hulk 181's, it's a safe assumption that they did so for investment purposes. Otherwise, what would be the point? Collecting a few nice copies of a favorite book is one thing, but hoarding is another. So it is likely that an investment minded individual would track the performance of their books, at least through guide anyway. And if they've picked up an overstreet in the past 2 years, they know of CGC. I realize it's POSSIBLE, but IMO it's highly unlikely. Also, I was referring to strict NM or higher copies. I'm sure there are a lot of hoarded VF's and even VF/NM's, but I doubt this is the case with NM or higher copies. Again, I don't know for sure, this is just my opinion based on observations. I was not around this hobby in the late 70's and through the 80's so I will not claim to be totally sure of my conviction, but If I had to make a wager, I would say that the majority of NM or higher copies are slabbed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blowout Posted January 8, 2003 Author Share Posted January 8, 2003 "but If I had to make a wager, I would say that the majority of NM or higher copies are slabbed. " I wouldn't stake your house on that one! Although I agree that there probably aren't warehouses full of NM copies of hulk 181 out there, I'm betting there are lots of high grade copies still to come for CGC, and plenty that will NEVER get slabbed. Let's remember that CGC grading is still very much in it's infancy, and it would be a wild assumption to assume that most copies of a book have been slabbed. Even if a collector knows about CGC (many don't) they may not have the desire/means/capacity to send it in for grading at this stage of the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Illiterati-migration Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 off topic, but I saw your quote in the post. Ever read a book called To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust? A great "fantasy/thriller" about the creation of Heaven and Hell and how Lucifer, Satan, etc...started out on the "good" side!! That is a VERY fun read... but I don't think it would go over real big 'round these parts seein' how there's no pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murph0 Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 I must say..this is a no-win situation for us believers that there isn't an infinite supply of books. If the census goes up a ton, it's proof some people are "emptying their warehouse", if it doesn't go up..well those warehouses are still waiting to be unloaded!! It's bs in my opinion, but that's obviously only an opinion. Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugaboo-migration Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 So.....what you guys have basically said in 300 posts is that......some of you think there are tons of these out there waiting to be graded.......and some of you think that there aren't........but nobody has any proof either way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blowout Posted January 8, 2003 Author Share Posted January 8, 2003 Its called discussion and debate bug, you might want to try it sometime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BronzeBruce13 Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 If I wasn't so busy I'd try and contribute more to this cool discussion... I can't prove this, so take it for what it is worth... but I'm fairly certain there is an individual (whom I've communicated with, and had heard about earlier through 2 reliable sources)... that has over 100 high grade copies of Hulk 181. Some of them CGC'd (no less than 9.2 as I recall, but mostly 9.4's). I saw him win around (4-5) 9.2/9.4's myself from Ebay earlier on in the CGC craze and he bid on nearly all of them for quite some time with 3 different ID's. I don't know how many of his "hoard" are CGC'd, nor what the average grade is of the ungraded portion he has, but I got the feeling that projected NM- was his minimum target grade. I imagine it has improved since then although I have not noticed him win any with the ID's I recognized. He may just be submitting some of his hoard now... doing it slowly as not to cause an obvious sudden spike in supply on the census. I did however see him bidding on one in the past several months with the main ID. This gentleman admitted (almost 2 years or so ago) that he was investing exclusively in 3 specific issues in HG for his kids college education. Hulk 181 (primarily), House of Secrets 92 and some other I can't remember. He was not hiding the fact when I asked him what I had heard. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to determine how many of what he had. Considering his objective, I can only assume that he intends to eventually CGC all of them. We had a discussion of what would happen to Hulk 181's value when he sold them all (when his kids were ready for college). I pointed out that he would be cutting his own throat and drastically diminishing the value of his copies and everyone else's if he did it all at once. He claimed that he had considered this and had a plan in place with a big NY dealer who was to buy them all and responsibly offer them into the market as not to harm his investment and the book's value. Obviously he would have more at stake than anyone. Since I never saw the books... who knows how true this is, but I believe it is since one of the dealers who told me about him months before I emailed him, told me that he sold him a few ungraded NM's and saw the collection in person. He was quite excited telling the story. Part of my motivation to speak with him at the time (outside the obvious curiosity) was to see if he would consider accepting my CGC 9.4 181 plus cash for a 9.6. If memory serves, he did not have a 9.6 at that time. I also was trying to locate a 9.6 Hulk 180 and assumed he might have some... he said he had several HG ungraded copies but did not really want to sell them. If it's true.. there should be plenty available in about 8-10 years. Hopefully it will not appear so Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blowout Posted January 8, 2003 Author Share Posted January 8, 2003 "If it's true.. there should be plenty available in about 8-10 years. Hopefully it will not appear so" Bruce, I wondered when you would show up on this thread, haven't seen you around the boards much lately. Your story has a certain ring of truth to it, and certainly my thinking was that 10 years time was a possilble crunch point for this book. I think it is reasonably safe to predict the book rising for the next decade or so, as collectors that grew up with Wolverine will still be feeding demand for it. After this point I'm not so sure, I don't think to many new readers have jumped on board post 1990 or so, no matter what movie hype has done. So the demand factor could start to wane after kids that bought Wolverine #1 of the racks in 1988 have their copy of Wolvie's first app. If, as your story suggests, supply rises also in 10 years time, then post 2013 or so doesn't look too rosy for Hulk #181. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drbanner Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Looking at a 10 year investment horizon, accounting for inflation and an expected "average" return of a traditional investment portfolio, a 9.4 that costs about 2k now would need to be worth about 5-6k to make it a better investment than stocks/bonds/cash. How many people on this board have ever spent 5k on a comic book? How many people period? How about $50? How about $500? I think we need a poll! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murph0 Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 I'd guess there's 4 registered users that have spent over 5k on a book. It does sound like it really drops off after you go over a couple thou..but IMO there's a lot more ppl that would be willing to pay 1 or 2k for a book then most people think.. Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bugaboo-migration Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 Its called discussion and debate bug, you might want to try it sometime. Nah......I can talk in circles with myself anytime I want ya big fart-knocker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
supapimp Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 bruce, that story is almost as good as the brick of butter from the devils lake collection. that was tongue and cheek humour stephen. pimpy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delekkerste Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 How many people on this board have ever spent 5k on a comic book? How many people period? Great point...$5K still goes a long way, enough to buy 20 new comic books a month for about 7 years. I just don't think Wolverine is ever going to reach the iconic status of Superman or Spider-Man nor is Hulk 181 scarce enough to warrant such a huge price, even in 10 years time (maybe in the 9.6 grade, but not in the 9.4 grade). I think the only way it gets there is if (a) the comic hobby as a whole makes a huge comeback, (b) we get a rocking inflationary boom economy in the U.S, © Wolverine is able to grow his current popularity levels. I don't see any of these events, let alone all three, happening. I also knew about the Hulk 181 mini-hoard that BronzeBruce mentioned, which I factored into my price forecast for the book. I also am of the belief that there are a lot of other copies still out there...not saying that people have cases of it or anything, but I could definitely see there being another several hundred copies out there in high grade in various collections, warehouses, etc. There were likely many tens of thousands of collectors in 1974 who picked up this book...what happened to all the copies? Are the copies CGC has seen most of what's out there? I'm not implying this is only the tip of the iceberg, but it seems like a stretch to assume that CGC has seen anywhere close to all the nice copies in existence (nor should we automatically assume that all/most of these nice copies will ever be CGC-graded). Gene Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BronzeBruce13 Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 you lost me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
murph0 Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 I'd also like to point out grading strictness has evolved quite extremely over the past 30 years..a NM then could easily be a VF- or VF now. Hell just before CGC came out NM was probably a VF/NM now. Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rickdogg Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 BB, what is your friend's address? I'll definitely visit his state for site seeing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BronzeBruce13 Posted January 8, 2003 Share Posted January 8, 2003 I WISH he was my friend... communication was always slow and frustrating. Sometimes it took months and 4-5 emails inbetween responses... but I've been known to be persistant on occasion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
