dam60

Glad you liked it! There a limited number of color catalogs like this so I thought it might be fun to post. I own a number of auction catalogs and I have fun browsing through them every once in a while and wishing and I had enough sense to bid on a few of the items. When I think of what I bought instead ... I love stuff like this. I am working on a full run of Overstreets and have a bunch of different auction catalogs (mainly Heritage) and want to fill in a few of the Sotheby's / Christies and CBMs later on down the line. I saw the Diamond Galleries last September and it rocked my world. DAM

Great stuff - thanks for sharing!

Thanks Jbud! yeah, the $$$ went to some of the original art sketches that I got in TO and to further line the coffers when the Batman 48 cgc 8.0 comes up DAM

And here I thought that all this talk was about my auction: $257 paid immediately

Gman, that's really cool - when I have my own house I want to have a set up just like that!

Here's something else to consider: Let's talk a little bit about CONSUMPTION in the broadest sense. BlazingBob needs a house. He needs it now. So what does he do? He sells his FFs. Think of it like this - are his FFs or anything for that matter such a great investment that you wouldn't eat for a day? That you would forgo your need for food because the money could be better invested in a different endeavor? Of course you wouldn't. Why would it be any different with Bob selling his books to raise $$$ for his downpayment? He needs the downpayment $$$ NOW and therefore needs to raise CASH. By selling his collection it isn't a trigger that the sky is falling and that as the all knowing dealer that Bob is he has to get out RIGHT NOW to a bunch of high end collectors who don't know anybetter but rather he needs to CONSUME. In this instance if we take the term broadly we can see how it would relate to him transfering his assets from his comic portfolio to a real estate asset. Something to think about . . . DAM

If in fact this is true, it seems very plausible to me that this was due to the knowledge that Ian would pay almost anything for the book, and therefore some profit was assured regardless, if/when Metro decided to sell. Look, once you say "the wheels are in motion and etc. etc.," you lose a lot of credibility in my eyes. I wouldn't be surprised if someone willing to make this threat in earnest was also willing to take a LOSS on a particular book, if such a transaction would indirectly fulfill some previous threat. I don't know about that, but I do know that Ian's offer didn't knock the socks off of JoeC and JoeC thought he could do better elsewhere. Let's be fair to Joe here too and respect his desire to maximize his profits. Furthermore, I don't understand why everyone thinks that Ian is the only one looking for this book? And here's some more food for thought: if Ian was willing to pay any price, why wouldn't he have paid Mark Wilson $50K for his cgc 9.0? DAM

Here are the FACTS 1 - Joe C submitted this book to CGC at the NYC National Convention held over Thanksgiving weekend. At that convention Joe C received offers from several MAJOR dealers but decided to have the book certified before deciding on anything. 2 - I personally called up Vincent and therefore he is being 100% factual and honest when he writes: "Let me state for the record that I was offered a book for sale-I was solicited-I did not go after this book out of a grudge or anything of the sort-simply offered the book." 3 - since the start of this thread Vincent has received a phone call from a very interested customer (in addition to the one that he had previously mentioned) about this book. All this talk about this book seems to be making people realize just truly how rare it is and is forcing people to ratonalize buying it now or holding out on the hopes of possibly seeing one again. Couple of other things to consider: 1 - Joe C is a local comic store owner, this Double Action 2 is his lottery ticket. We all talk about finding an Action 1 at a garage sale or what not, and here Joe is and he gets a big break! So what would you do if you are him? Thoughts: -Ian is a "dead end" customer - once he fills his 40 books do you think he will ever give Joe any repeat business? -Metropolis is the biggest buyer and seller of golden age comics. I would advise strongly to go with the 800 lbs gorrilla in this case for the next GA deal that Joe comes across -Ian isn't the only person who wants this book. Let me tell you, while he may be the most vocal, Ian is NOT the only person who wants this book. Metro has the best contacts in the GA world and can place this book EASILY - and I am not sarcastic when I say that since this thread they have gotten ANOTHER very seriosly interested party. and then if you want to put in in dollars METRO PAID MORE. Something to think about before you crucify Metro, Joe C or Foolkiller. DAM

Here's something to consider (all my numbers are courtesy of FactSet data systems). From 1/1/90 to 12/31/03: the S&P 500 increased 326.74% the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased 279.70% the Nasdaq Composite increased 340.48% just wanted to throw that out there - cold hard facts about the return on traditonal investments in a 13 year time frame. DAM

Bruce, thanks for the kind words!! Thanks to Bruce I not only have Batman year 1 in 9.6 but he also hooked me up with some marvels! (who would have thunk it? ) Bruce has bomb proof packaging and always throws in some nice "extras" - with year 1 he threw in a great "Untold Legends of the Batman" book and cassette! One of these days if I can ever figure out how to transport them, I will take all three boxes! Thanks again Bruce, DAM

HarrisonJohn - you said what I was trying to say - with the exception of Venom, who else is a MEGA star (and Venom is no Wolvie)? Please dear God don't say Rogue / Gambit / Bishop, X-Flavor of the month . . . Kinda sad, huh? It seems like the superhero genre was much more vibrant in the golden/silver age. Flip side - who would have even imagined a Vertigo 25 years ago? DAM

Just to drive this point home, I have never ever heard of any of these less Fish Police. . . . DAM

The only thing that I would add here is that Wolverine thanks to extremely talented professionals has become a Marvel franchise. I can't think of a $40 book that features anyone nearly as important - worse, I can't think of anyone that was introduced recently that would be a franchise player even with a good creative team, but I am also not as down with my comics as I could be . . . DAM

Joanna - great stuff!!! How did you know that blue and green are my favorite colors? DAM

I think that the DC logo in your sig line is AWESOME!!!! DAM

I am a HUGE Batman fan, but that price at over $800 seems a bit high - I would say $600 for a NM 9.6 and maybe even a grand for a 9.8. $800 is some serious money . . . DAM

POV - I had ordered the Tales Too Terrible to Tell set from NEC for $25 and finished up all of the issues. What great stuff! It had some cool stories and I really liked the anthology of the different publishers and titles that were around at the time. A great horror cover gallery too. I would recommend to all, DAM

Luckily, I have not lost very often in general to date (knock on CI's head... just a ribbin'), and less so on very HG with exception of a few more modern 9.8's (and 9.6 BM's ) If I may be a big egotistical, it is kinda cool to be one of (if not "the") major buyer in terms of modern Batman books. And once they enter my vault they will never come out! I am almost at the full run to 200 onwards too - just missing 8 all pre-236!! If anyone has a copy of 208, 209, 217, 227, 228, 235 in raw 7.0 and above or a 232 or a 234 reader please let me know. The only thing I would caution about is chasing a bad investment with good money. Tons of people bought more worldcom when it had dropped from $50 to $15 thinking that it would then "only" have to clear $32.50 to be profitable. Those people lost the original $50 and the "good" money of $15. Instead of worldcom please insert any dot com stock, k-mart, adelphia, etc. DAM

Bruce, I do see where you are coming from in this statement with the MF 15: If I always wanted, let's say... a Marvel Premiere 15 in 9.8 because I love the book AND also believe I will do well with it regardless if I sell it someday. If I bought a 9.2 and profited $50 on it when I bought a 9.4... and profited $75 on it when I bought a 9.6... and then profited again $100 when I bought a 9.8. Then factor in that I also bought 4 other 9.2/9.4s when I happened upon an opportunity and sold those for $200 profit total.... isn't my price paid on the 9.8 a lot less in one way of thinking?... especially if I upgraded at a pace that was ahead of the market decline on the lower graded copies (even if there was some luck involved and I did not see all of that coming)? My thinking is... even IF my hunches/beliefs are proven wrong and I took a loss on a 9.8 in a disastrous crash scenario... I really had a buffer (sometimes significant) off the price "that seems to have been paid". But I would look at it that you made money off of some smaller investments (ie the lower grades that you sold) but are long a bigger investment (eg the uber-HG copy). So if you do take a loss on a 9.8 in a disastrous crash scenario you don't really have a buffer in that case - just some profit from other ventures that you used to buy the book to make it be less "new" money. A loss is a loss and a gain is a gain DAM

"you should only invest as much as you are willing to lose is a good phrase to go by. " I completely agree - you should only be willing to invest what you would be willing to lose - which is why I only spend my discretionary income (ie the money that I would otherwise be spending on alcohol, movies, cds, dvds, etc) on comics. If someone were looking to invest $5K into any investment vehicle / option of their choosing, I would not recommend comic books. I think that the peak has been hit for most if not all books and now we will be entering into a decline / stabalization period. Does that mean that I like my comics any less? No, but it does mean that if someone came up to me and told me they had $5K to invest and could invest anywhere with it, comics wouldn't come to mind. DAM

I used to love the Punisher and Deathlok when I was younger but as I have come back to the hobby this past year I found out that Batman is really my number one character now. I agree that people's collecting interests can expand beyond what they read at the ages of 8-10-12 but if kids don't start reading any comics at 8-10-12 I find it hard to think that they will all of a sudden want to pick up a comic book at the age of 30. I do think that comics will always have signficance from the Americana aspect, but regarding investment I agree that the returns of the last 10 years cannot be extrapolated to the next 10 years. Personally, I only spend my discretionary income on comics now. I would recommend to all board members to only spend an amount that they are comfortable with. To get back to the original question, if I had $5K I would also focus more of several $50-$500 books to spread my risk. I would avoid all modern books and would look more towards attractive covers, well known artists, and time tested characters. All my Deathlok books, and God knows I love 'em, are not worth too much these days. I would focus on a more main stream character with good movie potential (or any other cross selling for that matter, ie video games) such as Wolverine, Spider-Man, Superman (and my personal favorite) Batman. And of course - pay attention to the price paid. At a certain price almost anything becomes a good investment and almost anything becomes a bad investment. DAM

POV - thanks for the tip. Just ordered the $25 set. Am waiting to get a little more cash before I order the Tales of the Crypt EC reprints ($110 + sh). I am a big fan of the DC title "Ghosts" and am 2 issues away from filling my full run! I also have some other bronze age horror like HOS, Witching Hour, etc. and really like Morbious (and have a nice ASM 101 and 102). Even though Batman is my collecting specialty #1 and Hulk is #2, horror is up there at #3. Anyway, what other pre-code horror / horror in general would you recommend to a relative new comer to the horror game? The $25 set of cheap reprints is good as I don't have all that much to spend on this stuff. Thanks!! DAM

This has been a really great thread and I have really enjoyed reading everything! My one comment would be that if you are a collector with no desire what so ever to sell, why slab? Some of the best copies in the hands of long timer collectors would probably still rate a NM+ (I don't think that we'll ever see a NM/MT again) but I think that the NM to NM+ range still has a few hidden gems somewhere out there . . .

Even if someone does have a case there is no guarantee that those will be NM+ copies. I have a few cases of different books (okay, don't laugh - XO Manowar 14 and 15 and Turok #1, heh, I love 'em and got 'em for almost nothing) and more than half of them have a few dinged corners or some other defect that's keeping them from being perfect. I am sure the same would apply even if someone did have a box of Hulk 181s straight from the distributor . . . DAM