Are prices still climbing or have they eased up a bit??? 41 41

[MAY1979]

On 8/1/2024 at 1:09 PM, LordRahl said:

This isn't a good explanation but I suppose it's possible that 2 people mistakenly looked at the Newsstand GPA prices of the book, which are coincidentally around $4600 

I've seen this on many CLINK books over the years. Some go for way more than FMV , while sometimes books go for way below. 

Just this week I've won 3 books from CLINK at 40-50% below GPA and lost out on others that went for 2x GPA and can be had for less money as BIN's on eBay. AKA the usual for me

Edited August 2 by MAR1979

[Microchip]

On 7/31/2024 at 9:25 PM, Mississippi Mudcats said:

 

Dam!!  Thats the most passive aggressive...beautiful, stunning burn I've seen in a very long time!  

An utterly ridiculous copy of this book!!!  

[chrisco37]

I remember when Doug brought that book to one of the early Philly Forum Dinners.  There's a picture floating around somewhere of me holding this book and the FF#1 9.6.  

[Telegan]

I'll just dump this here while I'm watching it.  It's about 50 minutes long, but like you have anything better to do :

 

 

[LordRahl]

On 8/2/2024 at 11:53 AM, chrisco37 said:

I remember when Doug brought that book to one of the early Philly Forum Dinners.  There's a picture floating around somewhere of me holding this book and the FF#1 9.6.  

Floating around somewhere? Floating around you say? Why don't YOU have that picture? That thing would be up on my wall if I were you, since that is the closest I will ever come to either of those books in anything approaching 9.6.

[1Cool]

On 8/5/2024 at 2:05 AM, Telegan said:

I'll just dump this here while I'm watching it.  It's about 50 minutes long, but like you have anything better to do :

 

 

Good Bob vs Bad Bob made me laugh.  Love to hear how the big dealers are doing.

[Stefan_W]

I was watching this one. A 9.6 copy of X-Men 266 with the Mark Jewelers insert just sold for $1499 (add 3% for fees). I noticed through a GPA check that this exact comic sold at My Comic Shop on 6 May 2022 for $1975 (GPA has the sale $2034 so that must include fees). That seems like a pretty big hit but it could have been worse - the bid amount doubled in the last ten seconds of the auction. A part of what made this interesting is Mark Jeweler books were a part of the switcheroo scam, and it is interesting to watch how the community now reacts to these books even though copies like this are not tainted. I feel this was a pretty strong sale all things considered, but the seller who just lost a few hundred bucks on their investment probably disagrees with me. 

 

[MyNameIsLegion]

He's lucky he didn't eat a 50% loss. Gambit is now dead weight.  Little prospect of it going up in the foreseeable future as influenced by movies or TV now. 

[Chip Cataldo]

On 8/8/2024 at 6:13 AM, MyNameIsLegion said:

He's lucky he didn't eat a 50% loss. Gambit is now dead weight.  Little prospect of it going up in the foreseeable future as influenced by movies or TV now. 

Not entirely true. It could have received a bump given what came out last weekend, but I think it's more due to the fact that the movies don't drive the prices on certain books anymore. It has nothing to do with the character.

[KCOComics]

On 7/30/2024 at 8:20 AM, Hepcat said:

Huh?! First? I still clearly recall seeing a Fantastic Four movie back in 2005.

I have tried very hard to forget a FF movie from 2005! 

[Mississippi Mudcats]

On 8/1/2024 at 9:09 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

Hahaha well we could play this game all day and I'm not sure there are very many issues for which my copy is nicer than yours.  That 9.6 is insane.

 

Sorry, Lou, I did not mean it as a put down, in fact I never said it was our book. Your collection is great, Lou, I view it often and as I told you last year, I expected you to win the overall award in 2023. It is very extensive and you have done an excellent job of assembling complete sets of books in a consistent high grade. In many ways, I wish we had adopted your approach to collecting. It is true that we have more high grade books, but we also have less consistency and have settled for some restored books, while in your infinite wisdom you have eschewed that option. 

I hope you don’t think my disdain for the way CGC scores sets and the frivolity with which they approach the annual awards is in any way a put down on your achievement. Yes, I do wish CGC would take the awards seriously and judge sets on merit rather than making them participation certificates. There was a time when most winners were knockout sets, today I have no idea what they are trying to do, as there were thousands of better sets based on points, completeness and presentation than many of this year’s winners-and some of those of the past few years for that matter. I don’t know when exactly they changed the awards from being merit based to some basis that is totally undefinable, but I defy anyone to justify what was done by the judges this year.

As I related to you, our issue was over the fact that we were told by CGC that, if we made our sets public, they would be fairly graded irrespective of any past awards. If they had just told us you are maxed out and we are trying to spread things around, we would not have entered. Now we never expected to win another overall award or have any set win that had won before, but we did have a number of sets that have never won anything, which we thought would compete well in a fair competition. 

So we spent a couple of hundred hours updating and improving our registry sets this year only to have over 25 long sets with over 100,000 points, which were complete, fully pictured and described, lose to some very short incomplete sets with 3,000 or so points. But it was not just our sets that got screwed, I did not take the snub personally because in many cases you would be hard pressed to find any less deserving sets than the ones chosen: what the Hell are these awards recognizing? They have honestly become a big joke, even if we are the only ones to say it.  I guess most on here want the awards to be participation certificates, which is fine, let’s just be honest about what they have become. 

Bottom line, they are CGC’s awards, they can be as arbitrary and capricious as they like. I just wish they had been honest with us so we did not waste all our time updating and upgrading our registry for this year’s so-called competition LOL. But again, Lou, despite my disdain for the way registry scoring and the registry awards are done by CGC, in your case the award was very much deserved and in no means was my post above meant as a put down; I just thought you might enjoy the scan. 

 

 

Edited August 14 by Mississippi Mudcats

[Stefan_W]

Not my bag, but it will be fun to watch and see what this set goes for. 

 

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 8/15/2024 at 9:00 PM, Stefan_W said:

Not my bag, but it will be fun to watch and see what this set goes for. 

 

This is a legitimately cool set.  Yes, there are approximately 8 billion copies of these books out there.  But the set was still a very significant moment in the context of its time.  I thought about owning a full set in 9.8 but decided not to bother, ironically because it wouldn't have cost much money and therefore wouldn't have much value.

A 9.9 set?  That's something special.  But my OCD cannot handle the three different generations of slabs represented here and submitting for reholdering would be too risky.

Summary verdict:  Brief hesitation followed by hard pass.  

[MAY1979]

On 8/15/2024 at 9:41 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

A 9.9 set?  That's something special.  But my OCD cannot handle the three different generations of slabs represented here and submitting for reholdering would be too risky.

Summary verdict:  Brief hesitation followed by hard pass.  

Agreed, not very appealing on the eye with the different labels.

At least the certs are pre 2023 otherwise bending caused by the slabs would prevent them from being true 9.9's

Edited August 20 by MAR1979

[Stefan_W]

On 8/15/2024 at 9:41 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

This is a legitimately cool set.  Yes, there are approximately 8 billion copies of these books out there.  But the set was still a very significant moment in the context of its time.  I thought about owning a full set in 9.8 but decided not to bother, ironically because it wouldn't have cost much money and therefore wouldn't have much value.

A 9.9 set?  That's something special.  But my OCD cannot handle the three different generations of slabs represented here and submitting for reholdering would be too risky.

Summary verdict:  Brief hesitation followed by hard pass.  

OMG, I completely went through all of the stages you are describing right down to also ruling it out because of the different generations of slabs. Hahahahahaha!

[lou_fine]

On 8/10/2024 at 8:39 AM, KCOComics said:

On 7/30/2024 at 7:20 AM, Hepcat said:

Huh?! First? I still clearly recall seeing a Fantastic Four movie back in 2005.

I have tried very hard to forget a FF movie from 2005! 

Are you saying it's even worst than the Fantastic Four movie from 1994 which didn't even ended up being officially released save apparently for some pirated bootleg copies:  

[KCOComics]

On 8/19/2024 at 12:29 AM, lou_fine said:

Are you saying it's even worst than the Fantastic Four movie from 1994 which didn't even ended up being officially released save apparently for some pirated bootleg copies:  

 

Well - this is my big concern for the new FF movie. Hollywood has tried and failed.  

FF was my favorite of the SA marvel comics. And it's the most important of Stan and Jack creations. It's a shame Hollywood can't get it right. Let's hope they do this time. 

[Sweet Lou 14]

On 8/19/2024 at 1:01 AM, KCOComics said:

 

Well - this is my big concern for the new FF movie. Hollywood has tried and failed.  

FF was my favorite of the SA marvel comics. And it's the most important of Stan and Jack creations. It's a shame Hollywood can't get it right. Let's hope they do this time. 

I agree that it's the most important of Stan and Jack's creations, but it's not because of the four heroes themselves -- or rather, it's not because of three of the four.  Ben Grimm is one of the most important characters Marvel ever created, and if Marvel ever did it right he should be a beloved fixture in the MCU.  If there's any justice in the world, there should be almost as many kids with Thing pajamas as Hulk or Spidey.

The FF (and to a lesser degree Thor, but let's stick with FF for now) is where Jack Kirby did his greatest imagining, and that put them always at the outer frontier of an ever-expanding universe and multiverse, at least in the Silver Age.  By the time people like Jim Starlin were taking things further in the Bronze Age, it was other characters (Avengers and Captain Marvel) charting that frontier.

With the FF movie I hope Marvel brings back that sense of wonder and allows us to feel the sense of adventure and limitless possibilities that permeated the original comic.  Plus of course the family dynamic which is core to the story.  Just please, for the love of all that is holy, don't give us Franklin.

[Chip Cataldo]

Not sure if you guys saw the trailer that was leaked, but they've got the look, mood and vibe down pat for a perfect FF movie.

I was extremely certain they'd screw things up until I saw that. Now, I'm very hopeful they've done my favorite comic book justice.

[VintageComics]

On 8/19/2024 at 5:44 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

Ben Grimm is one of the most important characters Marvel ever created,

Can you elaborate on this?

On 8/19/2024 at 5:44 PM, Sweet Lou 14 said:

I agree that it's the most important of Stan and Jack's creations, but it's not because of the four heroes themselves -- or rather, it's not because of three of the four.  Ben Grimm is one of the most important characters Marvel ever created, and if Marvel ever did it right he should be a beloved fixture in the MCU.  If there's any justice in the world, there should be almost as many kids with Thing pajamas as Hulk or Spidey.

He would fit perfectly into Marvel's MCU mold of having a lovable monster with a great personality on each team. In fact, you can argue that they put Groot and Hulk into a mold that was formerly reserved for The Thing in comics, so I agree.