Mags get no respect so I am selling my high grade EERIE mags raw instead of CGCd

[dekeuk]

I have been trying to decide what to do with my high grade EERIE mags for a long time. About a year ago I bought a collection of about 100 high grade issues. I sold off the ones that were not of the highest grades immediately and held onto 30-40 really high grade issues.

 

At first I was going to send them to PGX because they promised me they would be casing mags soon, but they still don't do mags, and its a year later now. It looks like they never will. Meanwhile CGC charges $25 per mag and the mag market does not seem to give any respect to vintage mags in CGC cases. Unless its a 9.4 or above, nobody is interested at this point in time.

 

Some of my mags are probably 9.4 copies, but I am not going to pay CGC $25 and end up with a 9.2 I thought would be a 9.4, only to find nobody wants to buy my 9.2, which seems to be the case with mags. Its hard to believe it does not make financial sense to slab 1960's Eerie mags that are in 9.0 or 9.2, but the market does not appreciate just how hard it is to get even a 9.0 on a 1960's mag. If these were 1960's superhero comics, they would get a lot more respect as 9.0 and 9.2 CGC, but mags don't get the same respect.

 

So I am selling them off raw unslabbed on ebay, the first 4 just went up for auction with huge photos. If you are curious as to what they look like, here they are:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3752&item=150019172034

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3752&item=150019172636

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3752&item=150019173336

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=3752&item=150019173718

 

 

One day the market will wake up and realize just how rare these old 1960's mags are in 9.0 and better condition.

[Fandango]

Great books, but this thread belongs in the marketplace

[dekeuk]

 

Perhaps it belongs in marketplace, but its also a MAGAZINE issue. Because it seems mags don't get the same respect that comics do that are of a similar age.

 

It's frustrating because I have dozens of pre-1975 Eerie mags with art by famous artists like Wrightson, etc. I know many are 9.0 and better but with mags it seems you need CGC 9.4 and better to get buyers for slabbed mags. Slabbed 9.0 and 9.2 gets ignored.

 

But if I had pre-1975 comics with art by Wrightson, anything 9.0 and better would definitely get CGC slabbed because there are buyers for those 9.0 and 9.2 slabbed grades.

[Calamerica]

Hello and welcome to the Boards -

 

I would like to take this opportunity to say:

 

It might be worth a gamble to get your best one of the four CGC'd. List it, and see how it goes. What is the worst thing that could happen? You're out $35 bucks w/grading fees/eBay listing fees, etc.

 

The upside is that you can say in your auction that you have SEVERAL more high-graded mags and maybe a few Buyers will bookmark you for the future. I did this with my Silver Age stuff and I think it worked well, even though I do not sell on a regular basis. It also helped w/ my National Lampoon CD's.

 

CAL

[joe_collector]

Perhaps it belongs in marketplace, but its also a MAGAZINE issue.

 

Just delete the message and move it to EBay Marketplace.

 

This is an area to TALK about magazines, not pimp them.

[joe_collector]

The moderator has already been notified about this post.

[Fandango]

Perhaps it belongs in marketplace, but its also a MAGAZINE issue. Because it seems mags don't get the same respect that comics do that are of a similar age.

 

It's frustrating because I have dozens of pre-1975 Eerie mags with art by famous artists like Wrightson, etc. I know many are 9.0 and better but with mags it seems you need CGC 9.4 and better to get buyers for slabbed mags. Slabbed 9.0 and 9.2 gets ignored.

 

But if I had pre-1975 comics with art by Wrightson, anything 9.0 and better would definitely get CGC slabbed because there are buyers for those 9.0 and 9.2 slabbed grades.

 

The relative affordability of these larger format books is a great draw for me (they still represent a terrific bang for the buck), though it's been noted that prices have been on the up for some time now (as our own Record Magazine Prices thread shows). Perhaps the market hasn’t yet established itself to the point where prospective buyers are ready to pay a premium for slabbed books in the VF+\NM- range (perhaps when more hit the census, our little community will have a better idea of just how scarce some of these books are in HG)?

[dekeuk]

Hello and welcome to the Boards -

 

It might be worth a gamble to get your best one of the four CGC'd. List it, and see how it goes. What is the worst thing that could happen? You're out $35 bucks w/grading fees/eBay listing fees, etc.

 

CAL

 

 

I considered getting the very best ones CGC'd, but I don't think any of them can get 9.6 or 9.8, the best they will make it 9.4 in my opinion. And there just isn't enough of a premium paid for a 9.4 Eerie mag (except for #2 & 17) to make it worth the "risk" of getting the best ones CGC'd. With my luck they will come back as 9.2 and I will end up selling them for less than the cost of slabbing them. I might as well just sell them as very high grade raw copies, in the end, I think that will net me more $$ than if I CGC'd them.

[the blob]

Many of these were sitting in the Warren warehouse and were liquidiated in the 80s so fairly nice copies are not so rare on most of the issues. But it makes sense people don't want to drop $50-$100 on a slabbed 9.2 of some of the more generic issues. That doesn't mean they're not great books with great art great stories and should be collectible, but in reality, you can buy lots of nice 9.0/9.2 copies for less than the slabbing fee. So, $10-$25, sure, but $100, no.

[CatskillMike]

I hear what you're saying, dekeuk. I think I am in a similiar situation. I've been sitting on quite a few high grade Warrens for 20 years waiting for the market to realize their true worth, but only recently has there been any real movement on prices.

 

The CGC conundrum is perplexing. Should you or shouldn't you slab them, hoping for some 9.4's? If they come back 9.0-9.2's, you're screwed. I came to the conclusion that I should hurry up and wait (hopefully not another 20 years).

 

Mike

[the blob]

seems that a lot of people are sitting on nice copies..get my point? they're terrific books and they have a market, but huge premiums for 9.0/9.2 that would justify spending $25 to encapsulate them? probably not unless we're talking about a really early one, a frazetta issue or some low print-run issue.

[dekeuk]

seems that a lot of people are sitting on nice copies..get my point? they're terrific books and they have a market, but huge premiums for 9.0/9.2 that would justify spending $25 to encapsulate them? probably not unless we're talking about a really early one, a frazetta issue or some low print-run issue.

 

 

There are a lot less 9.4+ Eerie mags out there than titles like pre-1975 X-men, Spiderman, Batman, etc. The print runs were lower and mags are harder to preserve than comics. But demand is so much higher for superhero comics, the mags just do not have the high demand factor. Maybe this will change, you would think collectors would want the Wrightson art?

 

The thing about all collecting fields is that they are driven by ever larger groups of people wanting what they cannot easily get. In the 1980's when it was easy to get very high grade 1970's non-primary titles, this material was ignored by everyone. When people realized how scarce true high grade early 1970's had become, all of a sudden everyone wants the stuff dealers couldn't previously give away.

 

So it all gets bought up, prices go up, and even more people want it. The whole thing becomes a self fulfilling prophecy after awhile. The same thing could happen one day with these Eerie mags. Right now, very few people want them, but the reason they do not want them is because nobody else wants them. If one year it is perceived by the market that prices are going up and they become "hot", then all of a sudden everyone wants them all at once, prices go higher, which makes even more collectors want them even more.

 

Like I said, all collecting is based upon people wanting the items they cannot easily attain.

[joe_collector]

Like I said, all collecting is based upon people wanting the items they cannot easily attain.

 

Wow, what a incredibly stupid statement.

[ft88]

The market is the market. Magazines in general just don't have the following. Collecting is the ultimate in prices feeding collectibility feeding prices etc. But this affect doesn't last. Even within comics there are hundreds of hot comics that have risen and fallen hard. Comics have an overall following that B&W mags will never have. Maybe they should from an artistic impression but the fact is; they don't and they never will. Add to that, the warehouse finds on Warrens and there just is no financial interest. 9.0's aren't a dime a dozen but be happy with $10 each.

 

Accept this fact and if you don't want them, sell them for what they will sell for.

[the blob]

"There are a lot less 9.4+ Eerie mags out there than titles like....."

 

Well, don't the 9.4+ books command decent money whereas the 9.0/9.2 books aren't worth slabbing? Actually, the unslabbability of 9.0/9.2 books pretty much afflicts most comics from the late 60's and later.

 

Seems like pre-'75 issues are probably worth slabbing with a 9.4 pre-screen provided that you can get some sort of bulk discount or whatever.

[dekeuk]

Like I said, all collecting is based upon people wanting the items they cannot easily attain.

 

Wow, what a incredibly stupid statement.

 

Oh really. Then try to explain why few people want to buy "classic" paintings from artists when they are still alive (when they are easiest to acquire). But after the artist dies, there is suddenly more interest, sometimes much more interest. The more difficult is is to collect something, the more people want to collect it in general.

[the blob]

"Then try to explain why few people want to buy "classic" paintings from artists when they are still alive (when they are easiest to acquire). But after the artist dies, there is suddenly more interest,"

 

Examples, other than Van Gogh or Grandma Moses? (actually, Grandma's work did sell in her lifetime) Sure, there are wack jobs who get "discovered" (via clever marketing) after they die, but that's something else. Dropping dead doesn't create the "interest" if there was none to start with, it just maybe drives up prices because now there's a finite supply. While the artist is alive they can still crank out 100,000 more paintings and when you're buying a living artist's work, that needs to be factored into the equation.

[RedRaven]

ft88, your user icon is exceedingly wrong!

[ft88]

You're the only one to notice

[joe_collector]

Like I said, all collecting is based upon people wanting the items they cannot easily attain.

 

Wow, what a incredibly stupid statement.

 

Oh really. Then try to explain why few people want to buy "classic" paintings from artists when they are still alive (when they are easiest to acquire). But after the artist dies, there is suddenly more interest, sometimes much more interest. The more difficult is is to collect something, the more people want to collect it in general.

 

How old are you, three?

 

You seriously have no idea on what drives collectibles, or the motives of those who collect. To state "all collecting is based upon people wanting the items they cannot easily attain" is the height of stupidity, and assumes that collecting is solely based on this factor, and no others.

 

If you truly believe your statement, then you need to get out more, talk to people, understand human interaction, hit a few collectible shows, and discover why people are collecting common, virtually worthless (monetarily) things today.