Originally Posted By: DrWatson
 Originally Posted By: lou_fine
How long have you been collecting and are you a collector of comic books or are you only interested if you can flip the books for more money?

I would say about 28 years give or take. I sell books I lose interest in, usually at the same price I paid for them. Maybe a little higher, maybe a little lower, but I would hardly call it flipping. What would you call it when you sold those restored books back to Mark Wilson for a substantial profit?


Watson, you old-timer;

Didn't realize you was collecting for such a long time until I saw a later post from you commenting on Danny and his Eastern Color file copies. I remember picking up one of those file copies back in the early 90's from Danny. Needless to say, it certainly left a lot to be desired, but worked out very well for me and not so well for Danny in the end, by the time it was all said and done. Ah, the good old days and it still brings a smile to my face everytime I think about it.

Actually, my comment about flipping was just in reference to your "buy me, press me" scenario which sounded more like the speculator or investor point of view. As for selling books back to Mark, it's really more selling something in order to put the money into something else. After a awhile, it just didn't seem like a good idea to keep putting more new money into books. After all, I didn't want to come home to find that the locks to the house had been changed. lol

With respect to "substantial" profit, I guess that really depends if you look at it from a percentage point of view or an absolute dollars point of view. Everything always looks better when you expressed it in terms of percents. If you only spend a few hundred on a book, it's easy to make a substantial percentage profit even though the actual profit might only be a couple hundred dollars. Don't forget about the holding time to make this profit.

As for restored books, I guess you must also hold the same blanket assumption that all books from Mark have been restored. Personally, I always thought that was a bit of a ploy on the part of other dealers to try to talk the price down on a book. Except for the one Cap book that I sent to Manning, the few from Mark that I did send in came back clean. I also found that Mark seem to appreciate his own books more than the other dealers did. Like I said, Mark always offered a very fair price if he wanted one of his books back.

 Originally Posted By: DrWatson
 Originally Posted By: lou_fine
If I buy a book from a true OO collection, I would be buying it for the integrity, originality, and history of the book and I would most certainly want to keep it that way. The absolute last thing on my mind would be to juiced it up and bastardized it (whether it be through pressing, micro-trimming, or what have you) just so I could sell it for a few more dollars.

Again, your basis for buying the book is still based on the word of one individual who may or may not be telling you truth. Juiced up and bastardized? Sounds like a little sensationalism on your part there, Dean.


Yes, you are absolutely right in that you have to still do your due diligence even when it comes to primary OO collections. No argument there.

As for sensationalism, that was just done on purpose for fun. Everybody else seems to be doing it when they say that micro-trimmed books sitting in blue slabs are destroyed while pressed books sitting in blue slabs are a thing of beauty. Aesthetically, they both look the same to me. I guess what they really mean is that the dollar value in one has been destroyed while the dollar value in the other has been maximized. This divergence in views seems totally silly to be since they both tend to look exactly the same, both have been worked on with the exact same intention to decieve, and both are virtually impossible to detect. \(shrug\)

 Originally Posted By: DrWatson
 Originally Posted By: lou_fine
I guess collectors are in the game for the books themselves while the non-collectors only real interest in the books are to generate more money in their pockets.

So, if and when you sell these "OO" books, are you going to sell them for exactly what you paid them?


Don't really understand your point of view here!

Are you implying that the only people who should make money on a book are speculators or those who are willing to juiced them up and then laundered them. Sounds like you are saying that any collector who buys a book and holds onto that book for an extended period of time because they want to have that book in their personal collection should only be allowed to sell them for the exact same price they originally paid for them.

To tell you the honest truth, I have much less problems with collectors making money on a book naturally over a period of time as opposed to a non-collector who simply "buys them, juices them up" and without any disclosure, flips them for a profit.

But I do understand your point of view that one is more interested in the book while the other is more interested in the money. So of course, its more important to ensure that the latter gets as much money as he can out of the game, while the former should make absolutely no money at all when he does decide to sell.