Ace comics lack of slabs for later issues/rarity etc 0

[Real Elijah Snow]

I just got a run of Ace comics starting around #130-150. What I've noticed after a little research is that there are very few of these issues slabbed. 

I'm not super familiar with this title, so my first assumption was that it was a title that few people cared about and that is why there are no(or few) slabs for these books. Then I looked at GPA and saw the following:

#150 3.0 sale for $312 in September 2018

#148 5.0 $155 in June 2017

#147 6.0 $264 in September 2018

#146 6.5 $384 June 2018

Beyond that (ignoring a triple cover of #139 that sold in November) there are no sales of anything really after #100. 

Looking at the census there are no slabs for #129-138,140,141,143.

The common factor that I can see with the ones that have been slabbed and ultimately sold were the ones that had the Phantom on the cover. That, however, would make me think that #143 and #145 would have been slabbed by someone at some point..But they haven't been. #143 is even the first Phantom cover of this series. 

I would be slabbing these for resale purposes, as I don't collect these, and I also need to make the $ back from the larger deal these came from. At a cursory glance these all look to be in the 5.0-8.0 range. 

Questions I have for you guys that have more knowledge on this title:

1) Are these just super hard to find? OR do they fall into the category of not enough demand to slab?

2) The Phantom is on a little circle on the cover of #140-142, so would these have more demand than the preceding 10 issues that have no Phantom on the cover at all?

3) The #130-141 have those goofy kids on the cover, but still have Phantom, Prince Valiant, Brick Bradford stories in them. Would these still be slabworthy in 6.0+

I'm looking for opinions or insight from you guys that have more experience with this title. I'm pretty stumped, so I appreciate any insight.

 

 

Edited January 8, 2019 by Real Elijah Snow

[Robot Man]

In general, there really isn't much interest in these any more. There are a few exceptions but just not really collected any more. Thus the lack of graded copies. The Phantom, although very cool is not really a big draw. He is collected more out of the US than he is here. The super early large ones might be an exception to the rule in nice shape.

[Real Elijah Snow]

Thanks for the insight. 

Just found this auction that ended less than a week ago for a raw #145. $187 isn't too shabby.

I think I'll just stick to slabbing the ones with Phantom covers as there are some raw sales for those the last couple of years in the $150-$250 range.