Messages posted by: starman

cbeal628 - For issues 1-4, the title was "Super Richie" (with the space).
Starting with issue 5, the title changed to "Superichie" (no space, one "R").
Go to the Pricing section and search for the title as shown above.

minimaxi wrote: Avengers #4

Good call. The Golden Age revival books are pretty cool, and of those, this is one of the best.

Went Xmas day, and to say I was pleasantly surprised would be a huge understatement.
Yes, I went in with low expectations, but this movie rocked. Essentially a classic comic
book pasted to the big screen, as only Miller seems to be able to do.

Loved the many comic who's-who references. The ones that come to mind right away:

Iger Avenue (streen sign)
- after Jerry Iger, who I believe founded one of the first comic production shops in America
with Will Eisner

Ditko's ...? (on the back of the truck at the end)
- after Steve Ditko, famed artist best known for co-creating Spider-Man with Stan Lee

Donenfeld (character who commits suicide)
- character named after Harry Donenfeld, publisher who ran the original DC Comics (named
something else back then - even before it was National Periodical Publications).

Others anybody caught?

If you thought it was worth it, we could create a separate forum thread and see if we can draw people out...

gandy08 wrote:I have a number of signed comics some with and some without certificate authenticity. Most are dynamic forces.

How can i show these on the site as the price shown is just for a normal comic?

If you are a Premium Subscriber you can request Dynamic Forces issues be added to the database.

gandy08 wrote:Do i just double the price to work out how much its worth?

No, you can generally figure 25-50% more. But of course this will vary a great deal depending on how hot the creator is, whether the certs are present, etc.

gandy08 wrote:If i put this in the notes can people view that?

If it's listed as a Collection item, no - Notes are private - this is your private collection List. If it's listed as a For Sale item, there is a Description section you can fill in.

omerniar wrote:The three I would be interested in are: 40, 60 and 300.

Ok, but as paglinitattoo mentioned, there is much more to an overall grade than examining the covers, so keep that in mind. Also, for better accuracy, and this is very important when selling, make sure your scans go beyond the actual edges of the comic. Some scanning software does you a "favor" by cropping right up to the edge automatically - you don't want that. It's a "virtual trim".

ASM 40: Hard to tell what's going on in the lower left corner, but this book appears to be in the FN 6.0 ballpark

ASM 60: This one too looks to be somewhere between FN- 5.5 and FN+ 6.5.

ASM 300: Looks like a possible NM 9.4. The right edge seems a little rough in spots, but it appears to be a manufacturing defect - what commonly happens with a dull cutter near the end of print run. In order to try and assess anything potentially higher than 9.4, you really have to hold the book in your hands to examine it close enough.

omerniar wrote:If somecould tell me how to post pics in a blog i am all ears.

omerniar - one way to do this is post the image right in the Pricing section of the site. Navigate to
ASM 40, click on the issue number or "issue detail page". You'll see a link "Upload Image". Do this,
and now your comic is the reference image for the site!

My most prized comics are not those with the most street value, but those that mean the most to me - had the most influence on my. I've owned and sold some pricey books, but there's nothing like a great story or a great cover. Some favorites are: the Barry Smith run on Conan, the James Robinson run on Starman (big surprise, given my Nosto handle), Neil Gaiman's Sandman run, and Baron and Rude's Nexus. I also have a soft spot for Bronze Age from the early 1970s to around 1976.

omerniar - let's try to keep it somewhat simple to start out. Which 3 are you most interested in getting opinions on?

omerniar wrote:Thanks for the opinion. So what would be the best way to find out if my book is 9.4 or higher. I have started going to the local shop but I was never big on them. I know they need to make a profit but they are hard for me to work with. The shops remind me of the buy back game stores, they buy the game for a buck and will put it right back on the shelf for $25. Would posting a scanned copy in the forum be to much on the server? It would be fun to see other peoples books and give opinions on them.

Not at all, I'd be happy to give an assessment based on a posted scan.

omerniar wrote:So starman, what is your opinion on grading books in general. I have a good start but not anything very expensive. A NM Amazing SM 300 and some poor 31, 35, 40 and so on. Is it worth getting them graded, for preservation. I am saving then and not looking to sell but I want them to have resale value for my son.

omerniar - meaning opinion on getting books professionally graded? Ok, but remember, just my opinion. I only have books professionally graded that I plan to sell in the near future. Some reasons for this - 1. Professional grading is expensive. I don't like to lay out all those grading fees unless I'm going to recoup them. 2. As I said in an earlier post, I believe you can preserve comics long-term better when unslabbed (see Top-loading mylar post, I think). 3. I'm confident enough in my own grading. I'm not the type of collector who needs someone else telling me my run of XYZ Comics is all 9.6 or better - I trust my own grading to make a close enough determination.

Collecting for the purpose of future resale value for your son: I think that is very cool, very admirable. I have done the same and my collection will at least get one kid through college. I collect for fun but I also have from over 35 years of collecting gotten to the point where I can recognize a money-maker pretty easily. Market timing is a big factor here. Don't invest in pan-flashes. Pokemon was once a $7 billion / year industry. However, your interest in Spider-Man is good from an investment standpoint. There will always be demand for iconic heroes like Spider-Man, Superman, and Batman. Your ASM 300 is not a scarce book, yet demand remains strong on it for some reason. Although to warrant professional grading, again IMO only, it would have to be better than NM 9.4. The Nosto Top 100 list is a great resource to follow trends. For example, from the list you can see high-end Disney comics are selling for crazy dollars right now. My belief is many high-end Disneyana collectors are just discovering professionally graded Disney comics, and are driving up those prices. I have a bet with Lon Allen at Heritage Galleries right now - they will have a CGC NM 9.4 Walt Disney's Comics and Stories in an upcoming auction, and were speculating at how much over the Overstreet top value of $33,000 it will go for. Lon says 2X or 3X that. I say minimum 4X that, based mainly on actual Nosto sales data.

telitor wrote:I listed almost the same question on another forum site just yesterday. I didn't get much help and received the typical "PGX is the devil" answer. Not very helpful when I am trying to improve the longevity of my golden age comics. I have figured out that PGX has the better case but CGC is the better choice for grading golden age. My real question is whether encapsulating is better than bags, acid buffered boards, extenders, etc. for preserving comics? The ones I have in question I won't be selling unless I am desperate so that issue isn't a factor for me but I do agree, the market holds out that CGC comics sell better than PGX.
-Teli

I don't know why these guys get so violently anti-PGX. It's pretty damn immature. We all should be glad there is some competition. Why would anyone want a monopoly? Sure, those directly involved with CGC might. I applaud the failed attempts too (ACE and 3PG). But to answer your question - sadly, no - you can always maximize preservation by means other than slabbing. You can get these four key factors only unslabbed: 1. an acid-neutralizing material like a buffered board or anti-aging preservation sheets, 2. an inert holder like mylar or barex, 3. a cool, dry, climate, and 4. the one you cannot get with slabbing, compression. Again, think Mile-High collection. The best books were near the bottom of
big stacks - compressed tight in a cool, dry climate for years.

paglinitattoo wrote:Anyone who collects comics, loves rare variants. It is just so cool to own a 1 in 100 variant edition. And the rarer the comic is, the more awesome it feels to own one. I personally digg the whole variant cover concept. It keeps us fan boys shelling out are hard earned cash so, and fuels are addiction to hoard all of those hard to find items that we think are so cool.

I don't know - I have some issues with the whole variant thing. One is that it's often really hard to tell what makes it a variant. On some of these, after a few years, just looking at the book, would anyone but an expert even be able to tell it's a variant? IMO it would be a lot better if it were clearly noted on each, why it's a variant, and how many were made. I realize that's not always possible, as sometimes latent demand causes multiple printings and there is sometimes no clear way to distinguish the original.

The bad news is, as you state, print runs continue to dwindle, and there are fewer and fewer "comic shops". The good news is sales of graphic novels continue to grow, and they are becoming more and more accepted by the mainstream. You see big graphic novel sections in regular book stores now like Barnes and Noble and Borders. In August alone, the Watchmen graphic novel sold 43,000 copies. This is an amazing number! Total dollar value close to a million dollars. And this is a book that came out in the 1980s. I wonder what printing it's on now? I can remember seeing "14th print" in a copy a flipped through awhile back. Frank Miller predicted this scenario several years back at ComicCon San Diego. If comics adapt, they will survive. But yes, you really can't blame kids for not wanting to shell out an average of $3.00 apiece for new issues.

I also agree the Bronze Age holds huge appeal, but to each their own. I do think there is a unique quality and appeal to Bronze age books from about 1972 to 1976.

paglinitattoo wrote:So does anyone else out there think that the mylar comic bags with the open tops are dumb?

For long-term storage, yes. These should only be used by dealers when for stock they are actively selling (and therefore need to easily get in and out of the back at shows, etc.). I have personally seen high-end collections that sat in open-top mylars for 20 years, and the top 1-2 inches on all the books were tanning!

paglinitattoo wrote:One of the reasons of putting a comic away in a bag is to protect it from the air. This design leaves the top half of the comics vulnerable to air or whatever. So I have been putting my valuable comics in a standard bag and board, then putting that in the mylar bag. I would appreciate anyone elses idea's on how to to deal with the problem of the open top mylars. I thought about taping the tops of the bags closed, but decided the comics could get stuck in the tape.

You are close here, but you can do better. Two suggestions: 1. Your inner bag needs to be archival quality as well. Spend the extra 10 cents, when warranted of course, and use a mylite (1 mil is fine) instead of a polyprope or polyethylene bag. 2. For the outer bag, they actually make flapped mylars. I use these myself - I get mine from dealer Jef Hinds.

My method for books I plan to keep quite awhile: 1. put the book in a 1-mil mylite. 2. put an oversized board behind that (e.g. put a golden age board behind the silver-age mylite). 3. put that whole thing in the flapped mylar. Best solution IMO.