Leo's Pop Culture Palace

My buddy Leo "The Listmaker" has a great new blog, Pop Culture Palace.

You see, Leo is one of those people obsessed with making Top 10, Top 20, Top-whatever type lists and he's channeled his obsession into a fun blog chock-full of videos, music and more. Definitely worth a bookmark...

Fantastic Four 12 13 14 15 VF 8.0 Glossy High Grade Run

This auction will be fun to watch.

I don't think the 12 or 14 grade as high as 8.0, but they are still great copies of tough books. The 13, however, is the pick of the litter... that is a real nice copy of an extremely tough book in high grade.

That said, these books would command so much more if they were slabbed. I'm not implying these books are restored in any way, but how could anyone drop major coin on raw books after all we know about trimming scandals?

Merry Christmas To Me

Thanks to Ted at Superworld for a good deal on a nice book. One more Action Comics war cover off the want list.

One of my favorite early Action covers. From April 1941 with Wayne Boring cover art...

The Collectibles Trainwreck

I'm coming to the frightening realization that the collectibles market is a sad, sad joke.

I've been trying to sell a number of items on eBay and it has been an eye-opening nightmare.

I've listed Diamond Select Medium Fantastic Four statues numerous times and I can't get rid of them at HALF of what I paid. The "retail" on these is $85 and I'm lucky to get a bite at $30. Between the numerous relisting fees and the Paypal fees, I'm lucky to net $10 on something for which I paid $62. It seems as though the only statues that appreciate in value are the old Bowens. Everything else is disposable and worthless the second you click the "pay" button.

A Babe Ruth Salvino figurine cost me $25 ten years ago, and it went unsold after numerous listings at $9.95.

Midgrade comics have less value than toilet paper... midgrade Bronze books gather dust at less than 50 cents a book. I'd get more value by throwing them in the wood burning stove and heating my home.

A Michael Collins (Apollo 11) signed NASA Litho was selling for $400 years ago, but he has since started doing private signing with a memorabilia dealer ($300 a signature) and I can't get a bid over $50 because mine is personalized. No joke... 4 years ago I could have sold this for $400 in a minute, now I can't break $50. I'd rather let it rot in my closet than give it away for less than $200.

I have binders of authentic quality entertainment autographs that I paid $20 - $50 each that I can't get a bid at $9.99. So many forgeries have flooded eBay that you have to dump the real stuff at pennies on the dollar. It's truly a nightmare that makes me want to pack it all up and ship it off to an auction house.

Good God... I'm depressing myself.

Wonderful 70s Cheese

One of my guilty pleasures is Machine Man. I loved this series as a kid and still have a soft spot for it. Kirby and Ditko art... what's not to love?

So, Machine Man is a series that I'm looking to collect in 9.6/9.8 condition. Here's the first book off the checklist:

I also picked up a copy of Machine Man 12 CGC 9.6 for $10! Gotta love getting books for less than the slabbing fee!

Grail Obtained

Once in a while, you have to throw caution to the wind and go after a once-in-a-lifetime type item when it becomes available. So, when my buddy Kevin decided to sell his copy of Superman 11 signed by Joe Shuster, I knew I had to make a play for it.

Happily, we were able to come to terms. I scrambled to sell a bunch of stuff that didn't mean much to me... so, in effect, it was a great "trade." I am happy to say that this is now in my collection and will be for a long time.

A Tale of Two 9.2s

I've been in the market for a 9.0 or better copy of Amazing Spider-man 151 for some time. I recall having this book as a kid -- in fact I still have my beater original copy. It's a pricey book in high grade due to the fact that the dark cover is notorious for showing the slightest spine stress. A CGC 9.8 copy recently sold on ebay for around $1,000. Obviously, that is way out of what I want to spend on this book, but one can occasionally find a 9.2ish copy for a small fraction of the 9.8 price.

So, I ordered a copy advertised as 9.2 from a major metropolitan dealer. At first glance, it looked great.

But then my eye caught this on the right edge:

Obviously, a 9.2 NM- can't have a 2 inch thumb crease and a tear. So, I sent it back.

Next, I found a 9.2 copy being advertised by SoCal Comics. A gorgeous true 9.2... I'm not crazy about miswraps, but I can live with this one:

High Grade Bronze

I've been thinking about my collecting goals and, more and more, it seems like Silver Age comics are not the way to go. High grade Silver Age is prohibitively expensive to anyone making less than 6 figures a year, and the midgrade stuff just doesn't have much of a future in my opinion. I have boxes and boxes of nice midgrade Silver Age books I bought in the 80s and 90s and I'd be lucky to recoup my original price paid today.

These are not new thoughts to me and this is why I started collecting low/midgrade Golden Age Action/Superman comics a few years ago. There appears to be great demand for these books and one doesn't have to be so grade conscious... a 5.0 is a very respectable grade for these books and my thinking is there will be long term demand for them, unlike midgrade Silver which is just too common.

Another area I've begun focusing on is high grade Bronze books -- specifically the series that I first read as a kid getting into comics. Stuff like 2001, Super Villain Team-Up, Machine Man, and Spider Woman. These books can be obtained in high grade for prices that us mere mortals can afford.

So, the next question is, 9.8 only or 9.4 and 9.6 as well? What is "high grade" in the Bronze Age? I'm going to try for 9.8s, but when nice 9.6 presents themselves for a fraction of the 9.8 price, I can live with a 9.6. Frankly, I believe that 9.6s and 9.8s are very close to being interchangeable and the difference is so minimal that I don't have a lot of confidence anyone could consistently differentiate between the two anyway.

So, let's start off with the latest acquisition: Super-Villain Team-Up #8...

Have You Seen the Fantastic Four #1 That Was Stolen From Me?

I know this is a long shot and it happened years ago, but I just found some images on a disc... so here goes.

This copy of Fantastic Four #1 was stolen from me in an ebay transaction that occured on May 12, 2003. Supposedly, hijacked ebay and Paypal user IDs were used and the transaction was charged back to me well over a month after I shipped the book.

The book was shipped to the verified Paypal address which was:
Trey McDaniel
26849 172nd pl SE
Covington, WA 98042
User ID: trey-autumn
Name: The Silver Age

McDaniel later claimed that it wasn't him, he never received the book and someone else was using his accounts.

So, on the off chance anyone ever runs across this copy of FF #1, please let me know. I originally purchased it from Stephen Ritter and it grades about GOOD+ in my opinion. It has very distinctive water damage/chipping on the bottom edge of the back cover.

A NOD to the Network of Disclosure

Regular readers know that I have devoted a great deal of effort in fighting fraud in the collectibles hobbies. I am an investigator for the UACC Ethics Board, I've published articles on fraud and forgery, and I've done my best to educate autograph and comic collectors about the various scams and pitfalls that are all too common.

I have recently joined the Network of Disclosure (NOD.)

NOD's pledge is simple: To promote Integrity, Security and Education between the Seller and the Buyer of any comic book.

It's a good organization with honorable goals... you can learn more at the Network of Disclosure website.

I also recommend that you support NOD dealers whenever possible.

CGC Grading and the State of the Hobby

A few weeks ago, Skybolt (Ed) made a great post on the CGC Message Boards. With his permission, here it is:

...we as collectors need to evolve beyond this current state of the hobby. If a CGC graded book can double in value from $10,000 to $20,000 by erasing a small smudge of dirt and raising the grade by a couple of notches, then something is wrong. I truly believe that eventually reality will catch up with perception, and people will wake up to the fact that they're shelling out thousands of hard earned dollars for a minor press job or dry cleaning, to raise a book's value 2-fold. This realization will ultimately have a huge impact on the state of the hobby once collectors are informed about what an 8.5 vs. 9.2 CGC graded copy really entails.

I mean it's like basically taking an authentic vase, that's in great condition, and rubbing off the dirt to increase its price from $100,000 to $200,000! For instance, if I asked a bunch of high end collectors to step into a room and handed them a nice looking CGC graded 8.0 copy of ASM #1, and said this will cost you $10,000. As they reached for their wallet, I tell them to hold on a second. I grab the book, erase a few dirt smudges and apply some minor pressing in front of everyone. I then grab the book and hand it over to a CGC grader. Since they have to go through the proper protocol and grade the book in front of them, they hand the book back to me with a 9.0 grade. I then turn around to the same potential buyer and say the book will now cost you $30,000. How many buyers would jump at the chance to pay that amount when they saw the procedure being performed first hand?!

I'm sick and tired of blaming CGC, dealers, etc. for what they perceive to be a legitimate cause, instead of bringing the truth to the masses. It's just too hard to investigate every little hole or crack. I'm not talking about putting down the main players for using this system to their advantage, but basically revealing what's behind the curtain so everyone can see. I can understand that CGC only grades the book in front of them, and I can even understand certain dealers using the current system to their benefit. I'm not even questioning how the book can go up in grade with this manipulation. But my point is that what does the CGC grade really mean, and should it have as much emphasis as whether or not a book has great QP, centered pages, great gloss, etc. There's no reason why an ugly looking 7.0 Fiction House copy with extremely faded colors should sell for more than a nice looking 5.0 copy that has great gloss, excellent presentation, but with a few non-color breaking creases, and a 1/4" tear. That's not CGC's fault, but ours for blindly following the grades given.

People should utilize CGC's grading to their own benefit and not the other way around. I truly believe that in time the CGC grade would matter to the potential buyer, but its significance would drop to maybe 25% to 50% of what the they're really looking for. When all is said and done, what makes the most sense is usually accepted by the collecting community. Hopefully, that day could be reached soon and people start educating themselves so they are aware of their surroundings.

Forever In My Heart

Yes, it's hard to believe that it's been 5 years. In so many ways it seems like yesterday... the day is so crystalized in my mind.

Yet in other ways, it seems like a lifetime ago and it has been a very long 5 years.

Time passes so quickly.