Messages posted by: starman

Here's what I do. For a book I consider worthy of archival protection, at least within my budget, I first put the book in a 1 mil mylite. I then place behind this an oversized board, sometimes two boards for extra sturdiness. Note the board is outside the mylite. I then put this whole thing inside a full-sized, flapped mylar. With this system, there is no need for the expensive acid-neutralizing boards, since the board never touches the book. You can (and I often do) put an anti-aging preservation sheet in the centerfold before putting the book in the mylite, if you want to keep acidification at bay. But cool and dry will be your best help here.

Why flapped mylars? I've seen golden age collections that have sate in "open tops" for 20 years, and the top 1 inch or so of the books are often tanning. Which answers your other question - whether to pack tight. Again, many will say pack loose - "let the books breathe". I say no - pressure is good. Take the best-preserved Golden Age collection as an example - the Edgar Church Mile High books were stored under heaps of pressure. 6 foot piles in the basement. That's pretty tight, and those on the bottom were bone-white.

I hope this helps - feel free to ask further questions and maybe we can get some of the preservation experts like Jef Hinds (who I buy my flapped mylars from - not easy to find) to chime in.

ultimatejezebel wrote:How many of you have rebuilt collections by shopping on eBay?

I've picked up almost everything I had in the early 80s when I was small . Probably have about 1,500, mostly high-grade The fun part is winning a good auction lot, say around 15 - 40 books and having a unit cost that's about 10% or less of the back-issue price charged by an established dealer (no names called but one just had a flood sale)

Dunno about you guys but when I get a NM back-issue about 28 years old for less than the cover price of a current new issue, I'm happy...especially if it retails for considerably more than a current new issue.

Buying on eBay can be an incredible bargain, as ultimatejezebel suggests. The key is finding a handful of
known, trusted sellers and monitoring their listings closely. Some sellers are still riding on name-brand from
the glory days, and still somehow get people to pay "guide" for their stuff in eBay stores. But if you root around
there are bargains to be had. For example, eBay seller cclonborisnbela (link here: http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewListedItems&since=5&userid=cclonborisnbela
is currently running a no-reserve, 1 cent open consignment of a major collection. I see bargains being picked up every week!
The guys currently picking up the bargains would not appreciate this mention, but the point is the deals are out there
and you can assemble some good runs on eBay if you are patient and shop smart.

Not at all, as far as the technical grade. Yes, a book can still be NM with arrival dates.
Arrival date stamps were part of the normal distribution process for comic books, and
should not factor in to the technical grade.

Personal preference may be a factor of course. Some collectors actually like arrival
dates. They give some clue as to the provenance of a book. Others dislike them -
they don't want any markings on their books whatsoever. It's true placement of the
stamp can sometimes be unfortunate, but it's usually unobtrusive.

So there's the long answer - the short answer is "yes".

The one-shot, Raphael, is in the Nostomania database, including a 2nd print. No actual sales shown, but the Demand Meter reads "Hot" (which simply means several people have registered this item on their Nostomania Wantlists).

As for the TMNTs, determining which printing is not as easy as a series like Bone makes it (i.e., clearly labeling 2nd printing!). The dates help, for example 2nd print of #1 is June 1984 while 3rd printing is dated February 1985. Post the relevant info here and someone can probably help you.

Whether to get them graded - the answer everyone hates to get is "it depends". If they are 1st printing and very high grade, then yes, consider it. If not, probably not worth the grading fees.
To get books graded,
for CGC: http://www.cgccomics.com/
for PGX: http://www.pgxcomics.com/

Agreed, it doesn't make sense. One possible explanation is because it is easy to list many items in a run in a single page/form, specifying only the issue number and grade. You have to later add the details (description, image, etc) individually. Apparently most sellers on Nosto don't bother with that step for some reason. Perhaps an additional Search criteria (filter out anything without pictures) would be useful? Weed out the lazy sellers. While the Nosto search facility is very flexible (can filter by grade range, grading service (none, CGC, PGX), and more, BKomoski makes a valid point, with over 150,000 comic books for sale, you don't want to waste valuable time not knowing if there is a scan.

Overstreet lists this as a promotional comic (although with a 10c cover price for the
1983 edition), and they have it valued at $25.00 in NM- 9.2.

The sweepstakes page shows
you won Dreams of Dawn 1/2, Wizard Edition. Use Contact Us, the notification probably ended up in your Junk folder.

Great resource, thanks HappyGold.

Question - do you know how the numbers would translate for the instrinsic value of an equivalent
weight U.S. coin? For example, I see from clicking your link the current spot price for gold is
$864.70 / ounce. What, then would be the current bullion value of a U.S. double eagle? Ignoring
grade, scarcity, etc. - just the value of the gold?

You can definitely get a good idea for current value right here at Nosto.
Just go Comics -> Pricing and search for the books you have. It should
be noted however that 1978 is really not considered that old for comic
books. And when you view the high values above NM, don't fool yourself
into thinking you have books in this condition. To get the computed values
at these grades, you would need the comics professionally graded and
certified to prove the grades.

Hi Rival61 -

Assuming you mean the Trade Paperback, right? The problem is this item has no actual
sales in the database, so it's just following pricing ratios for "similar items" where there
were actual sales captured. Which, when CGC'd, are actually quite high. I only did a quick
scan of the Dawn title, and saw a Dawn 1 9.6 sale at over $30, and we all know how sharp
the curve goes up from there for CGC graded books.

Regardless, this problem should be fixed automatically for you next month. Right now
pricing is weighted highly toward professionally graded items. After next month, there
will be separate pricing for graded versus non-graded books, and users will be in for a big
reality check when they see the values of the non-graded items in their collections take a
sharp drop.

blackterror wrote:how about some topics ...

how bout that iron man movie
- have not seen it yet.

what book is the king of it's genre
westerns...gene autry 1 fawcett
goodgirl...phantom lady 17
heroes...action 1
war??? horror?
- those are tough, would have to ponder it a bit. For horror,
probably some of the peak "Ghastly" Graham Ingels covers for
EC's Haunt of Fear

do all silver age collectors eventually convert to golden age?
- definitely not all. for many it's a natural next step, but many collectors are
initially intimidated by the Golden Age. For those collectors, getting a set of
Gerber Photo Journals in their hands is the icebreaker they need.

is current pricing turning the silver age into the golden age and the golden age into the silver age?
- in many cases, yes, this is true. Many of the 2nd and 3rd tier Golden Age characters will be
soon forgotten for the most part, while the current Hollywood love affair with Silver Age characters
is buoying pricing there to new heights. Amazing Fantasy 15 is now #12 on the Nosto
Nosto Top 100 List.

who is the best cover artist?
- probably Frank Frazetta

where all the people demanding a forum on this site? I've never demanded it, but here I am the second user after a week of existance
- Good question! I think part of the problem is it wasn't actually working correctly until two days after launch, so some of those folks
probably came, kicked the tire, and went away for now a little frustrated.

The affect on value of signed books varies a great deal. A lot of it has to do with timing - value will
fluctuate with the current popularity of that creator. And authenticity is a big deal - people grew skeptical
of autographs once forgery became so easy, so certificates or proof of authentication are important.
If I had to throw out an average I'd say a signed book will boost the value around 20%.