n2wdw's comic book room

5 5

Modesty Blaise

newshane - Very interesting, thanks for your comment. I certainly see your point as to Modern and Bronze, but obviously I'm on the other side as to Silver (especially higher priced keys). I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

Last night I bought a few Modesty Blaise books from eBay. The seller was accepting 50% best offers. I was happy to get these inexpensive books (less than $4 each) to fill some holes in the collection.

New Matt Baker

Picked up one of my favorite Matt Baker covers this weekend. I got it on eBay, for a good price (less than half my max bid). One of those times on eBay when I was one of the few shopping for Baker comics.

The seller advertised it as 2.0. It looks alot better than that to me, despite the chunk out of the lower right corner. Of course, I haven't seen the inside yet. Either way I'm adding this comic to the pile for my next Value submission.

Batman's Alfred

I won this book on the Heritage Sunday auction this past week. It's one of my favorite kinds of comics, a minor key of an important supporting character. And what character could be more important than Batman's Alfred? This comic (Batman 22) is Alfred's first solo story in the series. Of course, the holy grail of Alfred is Batman 16, his first appearance.

When you add in Heritage's high buyer's premium, I probably paid too much for it. It'll depend on the grade. At 3.0 I'm a little ahead. So we'll see. This one is definitely going into my pile for my next Value submission.

I really don't like Heritage. Or more accurately, I like it as a seller, but hate it as a buyer. Their buyer premium is almost 20%. The bidding strategy is to include that premium in your price when bidding. But that takes alot of discipline. I also collect wine. Earlier this year I sold a couple bottles. I used Heritage, because they shift the fee to the buyer (the other house I was considering made the seller pay). I think the price realized by Heritage (before commission) was the same as I would have gotten from the other auction house. So I made alot more with Heritage than the other auction house. I don't think buyers fully take into consideration the buyer's premium when bidding. I try to, but I'm not always successful.

Batman's Alfred

 

I won this book on the Heritage Sunday auction this past week. It's one of my favorite kinds of comics, a minor key of an important supporting character. And what character could be more important than Batman's Alfred? This comic (Batman 22) is Alfred's first solo story in the series. Of course, the holy grail of Alfred is Batman 16, his first appearance.

 

When you add in Heritage's high buyer's premium, I probably paid too much for it. It'll depend on the grade. At 3.0 I'm a little ahead. So we'll see. This one is definitely going into my pile for my next Value submission.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really don't like Heritage. Or more accurately, I like it as a seller, but hate it as a buyer. Their buyer premium is almost 20%. The bidding strategy is to include that premium in your price when bidding. But that takes alot of discipline. I also collect wine. Earlier this year I sold a couple bottles. I used Heritage, because they shift the fee to the buyer (the other house I was considering made the seller pay). I think the price realized by Heritage (before commission) was the same as I would have gotten from the other auction house. So I made alot more with Heritage than the other auction house. I don't think buyers fully take into consideration the buyer's premium when bidding. I try to, but I'm not always successful.

Gotta say as a buyer I absolutely hate Heritage and the buyer premium. Got hit with it on my first time ever buying and decided to never go back again.

Congratulations on the pick up.

I had no idea HA had such a buyers premium. For auctions I generally stick to ComicLink; but I rarely win and get outbid and beyond my value comfort zone.

Nowadays, eBay is where I mostly troll, but occasionally I go to Pedigree Comics, Metropolis, World Wide, and Greg Reece.

Perhaps HA should split the high buyers premium and make it a fair service charge to both buyer and seller... 10% on each side as opposed to 20% on one side. I know I wouldn't be happy paying 20%, but I could live with 10%.

Anyway... nice cover of Alfred. I wonder what the solo is all about.

SW3D

I had no idea HA had such a buyers premium. For auctions I generally stick to ComicLink; but I rarely win and get outbid and beyond my value comfort zone.

Nowadays, eBay is where I mostly troll, but occasionally I go to Pedigree Comics, Metropolis, World Wide, and Greg Reece.

 

Perhaps HA should split the high buyers premium and make it a fair service charge to both buyer and seller... 10% on each side as opposed to 20% on one side. I know I wouldn't be happy paying 20%, but I could live with 10%.

 

Anyway... nice cover of Alfred. I wonder what the solo is all about.

 

SW3D

I agree, in my noobiness day's I won what I thought was simply an amazing page of art for a high but fair amount of money. Next thing I know I get the bill and... what the hell is this extra $400 for... buyer's what??? and in the words of my sons favorite movie Despicable Me... "Oh, Poop"

So what can I guy do? Paid it and have since stayed away. Very rarely will I ever go onto the HA page during Auctions knowing this. While many auctions end on what I think are very reasonable prices, that buyers premium added almost always keeps me away.

Scaling Back My Collection

Well, I’ve finally come to the conclusion I need to scale back my comic collection. Right now we live in a house with a big basement, and my current comic book room is about 400 square feet. But we plan to retire to our 2nd home at the beach. That house is much smaller and doesn’t have a basement. My comic book room there will be just 175 square feet, a reduction of 56%. There’s no way I can get all my comics into that room, while still being able to access them, and also being able to store and display my statutes, some of my CGC books, original art, toy collection, etc.

So I’ve decided to scale back on my comics. Right now I have 181 long boxes and 46 shorts. My goal is to scale down to about 80 longs and 30 shorts. That’ll still leave me with 30,000+ comics.

Even though I have a number of years before retirement, I’ve started the process of weeding through my collection to eliminate 100 longs and 20 or so shorts. I’m finding this process to be somewhat liberating. Comics – especially long boxes – are hard to handle, especially as I get older. I’ve been collecting for 40+ years, and in that time I’ve accumulated a lot of stuff that I have little interest in. If I had all the space in the world I’d keep it all. But faced with my storage issue, I’ve found it doesn’t bother me to set them aside.

After I’ve identified the comics I’m weeding out (the 100 longs and 20 shorts), I’ll cherry pick the ones with any value and maybe sell them individually on eBay or here. The rest will probably be the stuff you find in dollar boxes at cons. I’ll probably contact one of the big comic stores like Mile High or Lone Star and sell them all together.

Here's a picture of my basement as I try to sort through the comics I'm keeping and getting rid of.

What a picture! Best of luck in scaling back, I hope you get some good returns on what you sell.

Thanks Brandon. I doubt the comics I weed out will be worth much. Most I bought for a buck each, so if I get even 20% back (from Mile High for example) I'll be lucky. I guess I might be able to get more if I sell at cons, but the thought of lugging around a couple dozen long boxes to sell at a buck a comic isn't appealing at all. What I'll get out of it the most probably is writing about it in this journal .

Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone. I'm actually in Peru on a vacation with my family. Being so close to the Andes is really an amazing sight. Right now we're in Cusco, one of the largest cities in Peru. It sits at 11000 feet above sea level. Being at such a high attitude really does a number on your body. But tomorrow we go to Lima (Peru's capital), which is at sea level. The locals say going from 11000 feet to sea level will make you feel like Superman.

I agree, in my noobiness day's I won what I thought was simply an amazing page of art for a high but fair amount of money. Next thing I know I get the bill and... what the hell is this extra $400 for... buyer's what??? and in the words of my sons favorite movie Despicable Me... "Oh, Poop"

 

So what can I guy do? Paid it and have since stayed away. Very rarely will I ever go onto the HA page during Auctions knowing this. While many auctions end on what I think are very reasonable prices, that buyers premium added almost always keeps me away.

Yeah I agree. I sometimes browse the Heritage Sunday auctions, but rarely bid. With the buyer's premium it's just about impossible to get a good deal. Original art might be the only justification to buy on Heritage since they're one of a kind. That might be why Heritage now puts all the original art at the front of the pages.

Planning My New Comic Book Room

I wrote above about how, when we retire, I'll be moving from my current comic room (400 sf) to my new comic room (175 sf) in our vacation home at the beach. I've got to fit into this small space about 80 long and 30 short boxes, plus my book, statue, toy and original art collections (that I don't plan to reduce). I've also got to leave room for new stuff that I'll buy.

Being an anal planner, I'm playing around with the space using a drawing program called SmartDraw. Below's my current plan. Each rectangular represents 3 side-by-side long (or short) boxes. The gray rectangles are shelves where I'll put my toys, books and statues. On the walls I'll display CGC books (green lines) and original art (blue).

My First Sketch Op Almost Done

 

I'm hesitate to post this as I don''t want to jinx it -- but it looks like I might be getting the books from my first sketch op in the near future. I signed up for it last November (!!), and after drama involving the facilitator it looks like it's on track to be completed soon - finally! This, only after some good souls pitched in to get it done.

 

Both sketch covers are done. Hopefully they'll be submitted to CGC soon. I commissioned 2 covers, both homages to this Batgirl cover:

 

 

Hurrah, I finally got my books on this sketch op! (I actually got them a few weeks ago but just now getting around to writing about it.) I want to thank kaholo1256 for stepping in to finish this op when the original facilitator didn't follow through. This being my first op, I've learned an important lesson. Never get involved with an op if you don't know and trust the facilitator, either personally or by reputation. I'll add kaholo1256 to the people I trust on these boards.

Anyway, here are my 2 commissions:

Fun Key! First Mention of Batmobile and Gotham City

 

This comic was offered for sale here a few weeks ago. It caught my interest because the notes say it's the first mention of Batmobile and Gotham City.

 

 

 

I did some research. Overstreet confirms this comic is the first mention of the Batmobile, but says Wow #1 is the first mention of Gotham in comics. Huh? Wow is a Fawcett book, not DC. As far as I can tell, Wow #1 is the first mention of Gotham in comics, but it's not Batman's Gotham. Batman's Gotham is first mentioned in this comic, Tec #48. This is confirmed in a few places. For example, here's the review of Detective 48 by the ComicVine: "This is a pretty good crime story - a nice meaty plot involving a surveyor who finds a limestone cavern under the nation's gold reserves and the gangsters that frame his daughter for murder in order to blackmail the man into revealing the entrance to the cave.It also marks a number of firsts. Prior to this issue, the city which Batman operated in was New York - sometimes referred to as a 'gotham'. But in this issue, it is expressly named 'Gotham City'."

The above is a post I made in my journal earlier this year about buying Detective 48, that has the 1st mention of Gotham City. The complete post (including what I had to trade to get it) is here: http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=7287580&fpart=25

But today I was browsing the Comics Marketplace here and saw Batman 4 for sale. The label of Bats 4 says it contains the "1st mention of Gotham City." So which comic has the 1st mention of Gotham City, Detective 48 (published 2/41) or Batman 4 (published Winter 1940)? If both mention Gotham, I guess it's Batman 4, but then why does a number of sources list it as Tec 48? Does anyone know?

Batman 4 is my 'must-by' of 2015!

Batman 4 is my 'must-by' of 2015!

Me too. But it's pricey. The CGC 1.0 I posted above sold last night on eBay for $547. It was kind of beat up but had a bright clean cover (congrats to the new owner for getting an interesting piece of comic history).

Planning My New Comic Book Room

 

I wrote above about how, when we retire, I'll be moving from my current comic room (400 sf) to my new comic room (175 sf) in our vacation home at the beach. I've got to fit into this small space about 80 long and 30 short boxes, plus my book, statue, toy and original art collections (that I don't plan to reduce). I've also got to leave room for new stuff that I'll buy.

 

Being an anal planner, I'm playing around with the space using a drawing program called SmartDraw. Below's my current plan. Each rectangular represents 3 side-by-side long (or short) boxes. The gray rectangles are shelves where I'll put my toys, books and statues. On the walls I'll display CGC books (green lines) and original art (blue).

 

I can really appreciate this level of nerdery!

Looks like something I'd do myself.

Thoughts on The Walking Dead market

So for a Christmas/birthday present for myself I bought 3 WD keys, #2 (1st Lori and Carl), 6 (death of Shane) and 7 (1st Tyreese; Lori reveals she’s pregnant). With my end of year bonus I decided to splurge on 9.8s. I picked them up from a boardie here who was looking to sell his WD collection.

I arrived late to the WD scene so I’m having to buy mostly graded copies of the early issues (other than #19 – 1st Michonne – that I bought raw from another boardie last summer; I’m hoping to get Danai Gurira’s signature before submitting to CGC).

Right now, though, when I buy expensive Walking Dead comics I feel like I’m jumping off a ledge. Am I buying at the top of the market? Is TWD comic market going to crash? For these 3 books, the GPA last sale / 90 day / 12 month are $1361 / $1314 / $1343. But all 3 stats are lower than the 2013 average ($1466). It feels like prices are trending down. This, despite the fact that last sales for #2 and 7 were pretty strong.

TWD is still hugely popular. The 1st half of season 5 beat Sunday Night Football in ratings (especially if you count people who time shift). But, the fear is the Walking Dead comic market will crash once the TV series ends. I’ve thought about waiting until that happens to buy these early TWD keys.

But I’ve decided to buy the comics now for a few reasons:

1. The TWD is my favorite TV show (along with The 100). Waiting to buy would be like rooting for the show to be canceled. I don’t want to jinx it. I hope the show is NEVER canceled.

2. Okay, someday the show will end. But when? I know the TV show doesn’t follow the comic book (hello, Daryl?), but it sorta does. The comic’s going strong, why shouldn’t the show continue for 2-3 more seasons (or more)? And if it does continue, maybe now is not the top of the market.

3. So let’s jump ahead to that point in time when the show does end. Does that really mean the comic market will crash? The comic might keep going. There might be spin offs of the comic. Even more importantly, there might be movies (like Star Trek). So, it’s very likely TWD will never completely end. And as long as it keeps going, and it’s popular, the comic market shouldn’t crash. It might slow down, it might have ups and downs, but it shouldn’t crash. In fact it might have a long term upward trend for the key issues.

So that’s why I’ve decided to buy TWD comics now. I’m focusing on just keys for my graded collection (I’m buying new issues off the stand to read). I’ve got many of them, but I still need #1.

TWD #1 is plentiful (despite sellers on eBay saying it's rare), but of course expensive. GPA last sale/90 day/12 month for 9.8 of #1 are all about the same, around $1900. On these boards it seems like you might be able to pick one up for about $1800, maybe even a little lower. Personally, that’s more than I want to pay. For that price, I can get a pretty nice FF #1 (albeit restored), or a lot of other silver/gold comics on my want list.

So for me, as a buyer, I’m more interested in the GPA range of prices of TWD #1 in 2014. They’ve gone from $1250 to $3346. That’s obviously a huge range, and it says (to me) that a bargain can be had on eBay if you’re patient and get lucky. You need the perfect storm of an auction with a low starting bid, over a time period when no one else is shopping. Will I ever be able to pick one up cheap? Don’t know, but I'm open to a lower grade for #1 if I can't get a good deal on a 9.8 or 9.6. So we'll see ...

Anyway, here are the 3 books I picked up. Thanks for reading.

My First Buy of 2015

I saw 3 copies of this book at Baltimore. Two were high grade, north of a grand and way out of my price range. One was priced at $525 but still too expensive after everything else I bought.

So last night as I was about to board a plan from Peru back to home (my family went to Peru over Christmas), I saw this book on eBay. I made a "low ball" offer (depending on how you define low ball; GPA was little help due to few data points). I boarded the plane in Lima at midnight. I took a sleeping pill, but still woke up at about 530am. The plane had free Direct TV, so I watched "One Chance" (it was pretty good). As soon as we touched down at 730am in Newark, I surfed to eBay on my iPhone and checked the auction. I assumed the seller would counter. But he accepted by offer! (CURSES! I SHOULD HAVE OFFERED LESS!)

Anyway, here's the comic. A little rough along the spine but otherwise the cover is nice with bright covers. I'll submit this with my 4 comic CGC renewal that I've been holding onto for the right books.

More Walking Dead

I bought a few more Walking Dead keys from bffnut off his TWD sale thread. bffnut is easy to work with, gave me a fair discount, and shipped really fast. Here's his thread, I think he still has a few books available. http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=8285222&fpart=1

My goal with Walking Dead is to buy keys in CGC 9.8 or 9.6, plus SS books signed by the actors. Getting SS books from the writer or artists isn't a priority, in fact I'd rather get blues to avoid the SS price premium. bffnut's price on #48 was low enough I could afford to buy his SS copy, and of course it's cool to have a double signed copy.

There are a few sites identifying TWD key comics. I like first appearances better than death keys, but in TWD you can't ignore the latter. Here's a good source of TWD keys I've found: http://www.totalcomicmayhem.com/2014/05/the-walking-dead-key-issues.html

Walking Dead 105

I bought one additional WD comic from bffnut, #105. This one isn't an official key, but it's an important issue to figure out Negan's crazy demented pysche.

Here's the comic:

Here's a page of original art from the comic (owned by Doug Hurley):