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I think it's appropriate to promote one's new publication here (if not, the Mods can move it). The new Bookery Guide to Pulps has just been released (first one in 15 years!). This is published by Ivy Press and can be ordered through Heritage Auctions here (https://www.ha.com/information/bookery-guide-to-pulps-related-magazines.s?type=surl-bookery). Heritage did a great job on the look and internal design, much improved over previous editions. I also made some improvements to the layout of the listings, which should make it easier to locate specific issues, and there are new paragraphs describing most of the pulp titles. This is the culmination of about 30 years of work, so for better or worse, it's here (finally).

If you are here to enjoy a passion and a love you have had as a kid and are now an adult that can afford the pie in the sky dreams we had when we were young, I say enjoy the ride. If I ever told myself as a 10 year old child that I would own a good number of these magical and truly rare items that are even older than I am, and was able to share them with my children I would have lost my mind. I just won an auction on a book that I thought had escaped me years ago. Did I buy at the bottom? Perhaps not, but it was bright, it was clean, it was rare (only 27 in current grade) and my son lovessss the character. So I jumped on a Showcase 4 in a 3.5 so we can share and enjoy something truly special together. Comics will ebb and flow like all other investments but what investment turns men into giddy children when it touches our hands? Nothing else. I don’t need 5% or 10% year after year returns on my collection. They give me a huge amount of joy and I’m sure the bottom will not ever truly fall out. And if it does I may buy some more. 😉 Happy collecting my friends!

September 1, 2003....the auction was ending at 4:11 PDT. All the usual suspects were out there waiting to snipe. A young man with a family, that is a wife and 2 young kids, had a decision to make. He was due at wok at 4 pm. Money was tight. That young man drew a breath and confirmed a bid that made him the high bidder. He left the computer and went off to work. Arriving home later that night about 1 a m he went to the computer. He had won a Jack Kirby Captain America Cover. Jack Kirby Captain America He viewed the list of bidders. There was Glenbru, ( Glen Brunswick ) a giant on eBay very hard to beat. But just below the winning bid Val@steve (Donnelys) Val@Steve Los Bros Coolines The brothers Grim The winning bid $3,709 Hey guys, after all these years the little David that defeated Goliath wants you to know you lost this cover....by $92. 1) I don’t have the end of auction screen shot to share with you. 2) Recently ran into Glen Brunswick. Mentioned I used to battle him on eBay back in the days of the Wild Wild West. He had a great splash page of Cap at $45,000. I told him it would look great with my Cap Cover. ”Wait a minute, I remember you.” ” Grapeape!” “Captain America 198 cover!” I smiled and offered my hand. We shook and I turned and walked away. He remembered from 17 years ago. I never mentioned what cover I owned. He put the info I gave him together. •we battled on ebay • I owned a cap cover My wife said “that’s spooky.” “He figured that out.” No my love, I told Mrs. Grapeape...not spooky. I like to think of it more as..... r e s p e c t

My latest golden age pick ups!

One of my offers was accepted and now I have a Complete Marvel Godzilla (1977) CGC 9.8 run!!!!!

This might be your only chance for a while to get a entry level , graded on the 10 point scale , copy of Captain America Comics #1 !!! I sold this book almost a couple years back and the seller wants to liquidate it for a new book he’s pursuing ( he’s not on the boards) Been a while since I listed anything so hopefully I remember the rules. Captain America Comics #1. (1941) First Appearances and Origins of......well you know...... UNRESTORED CGC 0.5 ( 2nd “nicest “ 0.5 I’ve seen ) I think the Census has 4 unrestored copies ?? Slightly brittle pages I personally never had an issue with any flakes in the holder the entire time I owned this which is for a number of years Asking $35,000 Buyer pays shipping and handling of their choice Will ship anywhere Accepts PayPal or certified check No return on graded books Time payments available - inquire within

All-Negro Comics 1- CGC 3.5- $6500 Absolutely important comic as the first known comic written and drawn entirely by African Americans.

On the flip side, Aunt May has aged quite well.

take

Sensation Comics 1- CGC 3.0- $24,000 This book just seems to be drying up lately Beautifully centered. Nice color

Got my Dale Roberts holiday thread haul in

Sourced these today. 536 extraordinarily high grade Big Little and Better Little Books. I am quite sure that some of these are the highest graded copies existent. Am pretty sure these will be going to Heritage but I need to talk to them on Monday. It takes a great deal for me to go "wow" anymore, but this did it. those are all first printings from the late 1930s.

...which (thanks to the inter-webs that all the kids are crazy about these days) suddenly jogged your memory to the point where you had to have it. Such is Batman #109 for me! Sometime during the summer of 1976, at the ripe old age of ten, my best friend and I once again found ourselves at our favorite flea market in south central Pennsylvania, courtesy of my mom and my friend's mother, both of whom were unabashed and inveterate bargain hunters. Ah...those were the days -- to be allowed to roam free and easy and unsupervised among the toys and junk and auto parts and baby clothes and snacks and hippies and bikers and carnies and weirdos! Our favorite vendor back then was a nondescript fellow who looked quite a bit like every dentist I have ever known, and his stout wife who looked very much like a red-faced fire hydrant. Their specialty was novelty items: joy buzzers, sneezing powder, squirting water-gun flowers, snapping mouse traps disguised as packs of gum, plastic mechanical figurines which took a p!ss when you dropped their pants, fake dog cr@p and vomit, etc. ... you get the idea. We almost never bought anything, and laughed our @sses off at all of it. It's hard to believe now that so much innocent fun could be had, for free and free of any meaningful consequences, before the advent of sex and booze and dope and rock & roll and heartbreak and everything else which, in one way or another, would eventually conspire to ruin our lives in some measure. Then there were the comic books. Old comic books, and plenty of them, in stacks on tables or in crummy old moving boxes or wooden crates. I mean REALLY old comic books, like from the 1950s! You can laugh now, but when you're a ten year-old kid in 1976, the 1950s might as well have been the Cretaceous period. That s--t was OLD! So, long story long, that's where and when I first saw Batman #109, in a crummy old brown fruit box. "The 1001 Inventions of Batman!" Batman flying over Gotham on the wings of Icarus! And a thousand other inventions I've never read of! This was surely the Ur Text which would unlock the secrets of...something, and it was nearly as old as the pyramids, too -- magic! It was, needless to say, "raw" and un-bagged, and I have no idea to this day what the vendor was asking for it, but I'd be surprised if it was more than 50-cents or maybe a dollar. Unfortunately, the day itself was also getting old, and the mothers were winding down, so the answer to that particular riddle of the sphinx is lost to the golden age of time. But so what anyway? Well, my long-winded point is this: I hadn't thought about ANY of this until a few weeks ago when a random and capricious search for '50s Batman comics on eBay returned an image of the cover for Bats #109, and then it all came flooding back. The book...the flea market...my mom...the era...the fun...the discovery...the innocence...and everything else -- all long gone. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the comic itself means nothing; but what it represents means everything. So, yeah: it ain't like the old days, but it'll do, and it's nice to finally recapture a small part of the world as it was, which I finally did when this arrived in the mail today...

Gave up nm98 9.6 and nyx 3 9.4 and a couple sports cards to get this basically for free with the trade... Feels like such a better book to me and way undervalued. And white pages lol. Now with the top ten group: Iron man is next...

First one of these I have ever had in hand:

Silly comic link sticker, but price was good....

I have been wanting to get an ASM #14 for a while now. I finally got a low grade copy with nice eye appeal. The white markings by the arrow are some kind of glare. I wish I had brought my black backdrop with me, that I use for taking pictures of books.. I had a little cash left over so, I bought another book as well.

I am so excited I had to share!!! I just got in the mail a piece of comic history. Huge X-Men fan here so this is perfect: I decided I wanted to get a piece of art from each major artist on the title and here is a big first step. Jack Kirby - twice up from X-Men 10 .. full Kirby pencils and Chic Stone inks. The intro to the savage land and while not in full costume all the X-men are present and cyclops is using his powers. This wouldn’t have happened if not for these boards for a lot of reasons but the biggest is @Grant Turner who not only allowed me to buy this but gave me the time to pay it off!! thanks

My latest addition. I think this almost completes my quest for all the Major key books from Marvel, so stoked! Many thanks to mycomicshop.com! I sell a lot to them, but have also made two pretty big purchases, this being one of them. As always a flawless transaction!

I wish people would realize GPA is not a STORE. It reflects the last sale and history of the book that sold in that grade. It is all well and good that the last person sold it for that but that doesn't mean the guy/woman in front of you has to. GPA also isn't the only "STORE" with pricing/sales information. Since most of the data in GPA is coming from auction houses/ebay that are collecting sales tax you can basically assume an additional 8-10% on top of the GPA number. Now the person in front of you may or may not be charging sales tax on your purchase. That either helps you or doesn't. I agree with the one poster that it is my choice to set up at a convention and I have costs to do the show. I also have costs in running my website, in taking electronic payments and other costs of doing business. Auction houses and dealers will always have competition issues with weekend warriors who don't pay sales tax or fly under the radar. To me Ebay is a electronic flea market and if you are looking for common books (like white socks) you will always be able to get the 12 pack for a great deal when paying cash. But if I'm looking for something a little harder I'm not so sure the flea market is the best representation of what the book is worth.

I haven't picked up a new book in awhile. I (foolishly) sold my other 9.0 copy and when I was offered this one, I grabbed it immediately !

Also, rest assured that all the kind comments and thanks you guys left me in PMs were read and appreciated. Just haven't had time to answer each one. To answer a question a few people asked, I've left a "Got 'em! " for all contestants across the board. The is neither celebratory of your grades, nor ironically mocking you. Sometimes a is just a , dammit!

Presents nicely for the grade

Just back from the framer. Deadly Hands of Kung Fu by Neal Adams circa 1974

Yes. Who gives a flying fornicate what anyone else thinks? Who cares about how someone else got into collecting? All this social media garbage is just navel gazing nonsense. It has zero effect on you and your collection. Collect what you want. Enjoy your comics and your collecting journey. That's all that really matters.

Yeah, my new favorite thing in my collection is probably this original George Gross painting used for two pulp covers. Sorry to hi-jack your thread Jeff.

both per PM.

Here's my single best comic. The best part is I found it raw locally.

My favorite in my collection ....some here have seen ...not sure on this thread...

A CalComicCon pickup from Harley Yee (who had an accurate grade on the raw book). I’ve been after the right copy of this issue for a long while now, many thanks to @Ricksneatstuff who helped me with pricing (I’m not familiar enough with the Duck market) and again to Harley for being easy to work with/amenable to my offer.

Beautiful as the day it was born. Found a stash of these that have never been touched.

Just got this oddball

Got this book in the mail today. Very happy to add it to the collection. I have been wanting one for awhile. A big shout out to Reece’s Rare Comics for this to happen.

Commission I got from fellow Filipino artist Kim Jacinto. Told him I want Thor and you can go crazy with it. he didn’t disappoint. He was visiting my city for the weekend and we met up and talked a bit and gave me the art. Awesome guy. Days later he asked if he could post the commission he did for me on his social media. I said sure. After a few more days he messaged me again saying. “Dom marvel wants it!” I told him Jokingly “ok but you got to make me another one and better”. He later said they just want a scan so I told him no problem I’ll send him the scan. So here it is. King Thor #1 Walmart Variant.

TERRORS OF THE JUNGLE #20 …… CGC 9.0 SOLD BY PM !! A simply beautiful cover from LB Cole. Bathing suit beauties tangled up in octopus hell. Tied for 5th highest out of 34 Universal copies. Very few recent sales.

OP has 38 posts. 12 of those were starting new threads. OP needs to search and read more.

Posted this in the Adventures in the dollar box thread but thought it would fit here as well.... Got this at a Flea Market today in a $1 or 6/$5 box..... Same Flea Market last August found a NM New Mutants 98.....I love that place!

The colors on this Whitman cover are too cool! Finally nabbed one of these.

Can't remember if I ever posted this in this thread, but the posts above reminded me.

Selling this one for a friend... Manhunt 12- CGC 2.5- REMOVED FROM SALE One of two known copies and this is highest graded

Thank you for the kind words Dino and Brian! I think the point above is very valid. Although I'd love to have an example from each of the above mentioned artists, with prices being where they are for quality pieces they've just fallen lower on my priority list. As far as art and historic appreciation, I am more likely to skip the 60s/70s Marvel stuff for the time being and buy EC pieces or even classic strip pieces from Foster/Raymond/etc. Just from a value perspective, I think pieces from these eras currently feel more worthwhile to me at this time. Does that mean, I'll never get to Kirby/Ditko/Romita? I think I will but I'm willing to wait until I've satisfied a lot of my other itches and/or wait for a deal I can't say no to. I really appreciate @Nexus having me on and I'm glad I didn't put all of you to sleep. Always down to talk art and collecting so feel free to message me and if you live in the Bay Area, grab some coffee or lunch.

i'll take it on thread trumps p.m.'s, but i'll listen to reasonable counters. return will be accepted. s/h on me domestic, actual s/h foreign mailout. will need check, m.o. or the like on this'un. this is the 3rd fox book, period, coming out the month before mystery men 1, and is the first "wonderworld," the first two books being "wonder." fine/Eisner cover collaboration. it’s early, tough, and...wait for it....wonderful. book will separate two camps: the "aw, shiznit, its cover is detached, and i don't buy those," and the "ooohhhh, cover detached doesn't really matter to me since it's slabbed, and i get a mid-grade looking book for 3.5 money"! anyhoo, a 3.5 sold several months ago for $8,700. I'll list this one just short of 10% below that---8K here. one-time price drop; now $7,500.

I decided to blow out a bunch of merchandise in a sale in my side yard this weekend. I did alright but had two very strange encounters. I've owned this property since the end of May so when someone showed up looking for the old owner, I explained this to the seemingly normal fifty year old women. To my shock, I'm hit with an F bomb and called an Fi g insufficiently_thoughtful_person. Woman says she was here last week and wants to return something that doesn't work. I explain the store wasn't open and she starts chanting something under her breath and tells me my store is now cursed. Tells me she would have settled for a refund but now I have earned her scorn and she is going to go on Facebook and tell the world her story. Other one I kind of feel bad about. I had a bunch of Barbies on a lower shelf, marked $5 each. On the upper she were some collectible Barbies with a sign asking people not to handle them. So this grandmother type is looking at the $5 ones,and reaches up to bring two of the upper shelf ones down. I see this and tell her the ones in her hands are expensive. She gets all indignant and tells me she is a collector and knows what they are worth. It's been a long weekend and I was a bit impatient with her so when she asks how much they are, I tell her $50 each, figuring that will end it. She counters at $40 but I don't feel like dealing with her so I tell her I can't do better as they are on consignment. She goes into this rant about how it is illegal to sell consigned items at a yard sale and how I need special permits to sell consigned items in Arizona. I don't have time for this and pick the items up and say then I guess they aren't for sale then. She pulls out a $100 Bill and asks if I have change, that she will take the one for $50 but if I wasn't such a bully she'd have bought both for $100. At this point I was done and refused her money telling her if she wasn't such a pain, she could have had both for $50. Let's just say neither of us were happy. All in all, a reasonably successful first sale.

Lol bare with me This is now my 3rd copy of this book Given that even in 9.0, it's still an upgrade for me! And cost only $331, which is at least $100 cheaper than my other 2 copies hahahaha, I either need to learn to put down the shovel or wave a white flag or something I just couldn't pass up the chance to upgrade at such a low cost, but my other 2 copies I may never get my money back, which is fine, with this book not all its value is monetary with me But at 3 copies, even I'm wondering when enough is enough! maybe since this copy is a "newsstand will make me feel better, haha

New this week! With a sweet date stamp on the back!

This week’s hi lites: always loved the cover to TEC 457 since my brother bought it for me off the spinner rack. The Doctor Strange has a crazy back story to it, being shipped to the wrong customer who then shipped it to me but just shoved it in an envelope instead of the comic mailer it was in originally, causing some minor damage but getting me a partial discount after all was said and done ...had to add that Sub-Mariner 6 is my favorite cover of all time