lighthouse

I doubt it’s all that rare. But this was the romance book that got me starting collecting them. I have a half dozen catfight covers. But this one is easily my favorite.

(image is not my copy, I’ll dig mine out at some point)

You might notice the “409” written on both Actions. There are a couple dozen Actions all with that same pencil/pen notation. A mystery I’m unlikely to solve.

On 4/12/2022 at 5:42 PM, Lightning55 said:

This is probably exactly why they won't show you the images pre-shipment.  You see something you don't like, you have an opportunity to contact customer service and gum up their works. 

Just like not releasing the grades until the box is G-O-N-E.  Thought that 8.5 was going to be 9.6?  Want to know how it could be so far off?  Sorry, it's out of here, can't help you.

Agreed that releasing images before shipment is a terrible idea.

But (now) 14 business days after shipping? Not much better than terrible.

Greggy reacted to multiple posts in this thread with something other than confused. Can we have someone go do a welfare check? I’m worried he might be in trouble.

I’ve submitted a few thousand books to CGC over the years. But had never paid for imaging until a couple submissions last month.

I had assumed (without actually researching) that I would receive the images the day the books shipped out. Or maybe the next day. Obviously the images have to be taken before the box gets packed. And the “processing” after that is minimal.

Even if they needed cropping (which wouldn’t make much sense… you just shoot the images at the size you’re going to send them… easy to do when the process is the same thousands of times over), it can’t be more than a few seconds per image. You already have the email address connected to them (I’m clearly getting email alerts when boxes ship out).

Current status on my two submissions with imaging? Books shipped March 24th and March 25th via registered mail. No images yet received. In one case I’ve had the books back in my possession for 13 days already. In the other I’ve had them in hand for 6 days (sometimes registered mail gets really slow). I emailed customer service about them four days after my books shipped, since I assumed by that point they were already late. It took two days to get an email response and the response was:

”Imaging is running about 10 business days in addition to the regular grading.  You should receive those via an email by the end of next week.”

I admit I’m more confused than anything else. I assumed I was buying the ability to share images of books well before I had the books in hand. And $5 a book seems a bit high for that service but I was willing to pay it in this case. Mostly I’m confused about how there can possibly be a backlog of (now) 13 business days to email out images that were taken before the box was packed? If that’s the turnaround time going forward I doubt I’ll be ordering it again. And maybe that’s a goal for CGC, to discourage people from ordering images because it’s not profitable. But I have a hard time believing it’s not profitable to have someone pressing a button to email images at 5 bucks a pop. If ever there was a task that screams “automated task” it’s that one.

On 4/12/2022 at 11:21 AM, awakeintheashes said:

I purchased a large collection last year, which was from the 80s. It included a lot of the Viz versions of the Manga popular back then (Fist of the North Star, Justy, Pineapple Army). Wonder if any of that stuff will get love with the recent interest boom in Manga. 

It may in the future. But right now it’s absolutely dead.

I can sell Akira. And I can sell a little bit of Lone Wolf and Cub. But literally any other comic-size manga there is no traction at all from manga customers. In their eyes it’s just not manga. I’ve tried putting out boxes of that stuff and encouraging folks to check it out. I may as well be offering 8-track tapes for the blank looks I get.

Someday slabbed manga will be a thing.

And some people are going to get rich.

On 4/12/2022 at 10:19 AM, Wolverinex said:

Thank you for the info.  That's very helpful. 

Are you holding onto any books yourself as speculation for the future? 

I haven’t done much. But there are a LOT of manga selling at 3x-8x cover price on eBay. Random titles go out of print for a few months and prices skyrocket. I’ve had customers tell me “yeah I just bought volume 1 on eBay for $80, I was so happy you guys still had volume 3 at cover price”.

On 4/12/2022 at 9:46 AM, Wolverinex said:

Incredible. Glad to hear it's working out for you. That's my thought too because I saw my nieces and nephews all reading manga Christma8s morning and thinking it was such  a generational shift.

Did you advertise at all or did the news of manga at your store travel by world of month?  

 

I think it’s briefly mentioned on our website. But usually it’s just people calling and asking if we have a manga section.

Barnes and Noble is still far and away the area leader for them. And I redirect folks there all the time. (We’ve taken a Macy’s Gimbels Miracle on 34th Street approach from day one. I send people to my competition all the time.)

I can’t compete with B&N on inventory. They have preferred arrangements with Viz so that if production runs are limited, B&N will get their entire order and other dealers get nothing. So if My Hero comes back in print and my distributors have seven random volumes out of the first twenty? I don’t wait around hoping for volume 1. I just order whatever is available. And it sells anyway.

On 4/11/2022 at 2:21 PM, Wolverinex said:

One of my LCS owners has been asking if I think adding a manga section would help  his store.  he did a lot of magic the gathering but is moving out of that.

I see kids at Barnes and Noble all the time but what do you all think?  Has anyone seen manga be successful in a LCS setting or would it just be extra inventory?

It depends on how much casual foot traffic the store gets.

But I can tell you that for my store, all manga sells. All of it. My distributor only has volumes 4, 9, and 16 in stock? Order four copies of each. They will all sell. Volume 1 of (insert important title) is back in stock? Put me down for 40 of them.

I have eight linear feet of wall devoted to manga. Starting at knee height and going to about 7’ 6” up the wall. That section generated over four months rent in sales in 2021. And it generated about 1.5 months rent during the first quarter of 2022 so the pace is still accelerating.

Yes the obvious choices like My Hero and Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man all sell. And anything Junji Ito will sell forever. But I ask customers all the time “what else should I carry”. One of them mentions Blue Period (new manga currently on volume 5 or 6). I order it in, gone in two weeks. I’m now on my fourth reorder.

Manga sells.

On 4/12/2022 at 8:28 AM, rube11 said:

Thats me!!

Those prices are still available right?

I like GoCollect for a quick and dirty triage of which issues may be worth slabbing.

The three big reasons to use a site like GoCollect or GPA are:

What should I slab?

What should I charge?

What should I pay?

The interface on GoCollect is better than GPA for the what should I slab question, in my opinion. It’s much easier to compare potential grades quickly and evaluate whether this books that might be 50% likely to get 7.5, 20% likely to get 7.0, and 30% likely to get 8.0 is going to be worth slabbing or should just be sold raw.

GPA is definitely better than GoCollect on the what should I pay question, assuming you are targeting a specific book in a specific grade. Much easier to look at past results and trends.

For the what should I charge question, they both have merits. I understand why more people prefer GPA. But I find GoCollect gets me to an answer faster on 80% of my books, and points out the 20% where I really need to take more time.

Any love for the Nembo Kid?

On 4/8/2022 at 6:43 PM, lighthouse said:

I’ll ask Heritage to hurry up.

They might listen to me. When you give them a $1.5 million book to sell, the customer service level is as sweet as a pile of Greggy’s Bronze Age DC Romances.

Was chatting with my consignment director today about upcoming books. He told me the April auction was a new record at $27m. I was $2m of it.

It’s crazy to me to even type that. But there it is.

On 4/9/2022 at 7:35 PM, THE_BEYONDER said:

Got a raw scan?

 Would love to see a sweet NM copy

It really is such a great mix of colors on that cover.

Correct. The “big” book in June has never been offered in that specific grade with white pages.

A separate piece of information is that two of the seven June books have just a lone copy above them in the census.

On 4/9/2022 at 2:29 PM, namisgr said:

Hammer price with premium was $336,000.  Those were the days.

Never see a copy that well centered. Blue to the left of “Fantasy As You Like It” AND to the right of “Man or Monster”. Never see it.

That is one beautiful book.