ronnieramone

Ask a single comic dealer at one convention? That's not terribly scientific. If a person were only ever going to buy 1 slabbed comic, they would buy it at one show, once, and then not even talk to the other dozen dealers or any at all on the next visit. My mention of the number of people attending just SDCC alone was merely a demonstration of the scale and market penetration of this hobby, which I think you underestimate. If we're going to use heuristics, let's at least look at some established concepts like the Pareto Principle, aka the 80/20 rule. Prolific throughout economics and nature as well, it states that 80% of outcomes result from 20% of all causes. In CGC terms, that means that 80% of CGC slabs are likely sold to only 20% of the most avid collectors. That means that the other 80% of slabbed comic owners are much more casual in their collecting habits. These are not people who have 1,000 slabs or even 100 in a single collection, but a dozen or fewer, maybe even only a single graded comic that means something to them personally. By that estimate, you're looking at 20% of all graded books (as many as 1.6 million slabs!) in the hands of either mainstream consumers or casual collectors who do not often buy comics, but do own a few. I can only imagine how many of these people assume the slab they paid for is UV protected as part of CGC's "superior preservation." Except we all know that it isn't. Yes, I am passionate about comics and protecting them, especially those in my collection. I feel that not including UV protection in graded slabs is a huge oversight on the part of all the major grading companies, and at a certain point it is just plain irresponsible and short-sighted. There is room for disruption in the space.

Depends on how long it was left there. 8 months in direct sunlight, you'd be correct. Even 99% UV protection cannot guarantee against that sort of carelessness. Direct sunlight over shorter periods of exposure or ambient UV in a room with blinds? 99% UV protection would do a lot to maintain the grade.

They already have that confusion simply with the word "protection" in that they don't really offer any at all when it comes to UV. Absolutely. Easily. Handily. Without question. Comics publishing is a billion dollar industry. Batman alone sells like 80,000 issues monthly. 130,000 people attend San Diego Comic Con daily. If every comic book fan had just 1 slabbed comic, their absolute favorite book on display, you would hit 80,000 without breaking a sweat. Many people have entire walls full of comics on display, showcasing dozens or even a hundred or more slabs in just one collection. There are well over 2,000 (last count I saw was like 2,300) comic book stores in North America alone, and I think it is probably fair to say that most of them have at least a few graded books on display for sale at any given time. Many stores have substantially more graded inventory than that on walls or in display cabinets. Stores alone probably have a combined minimum of ten thousand graded books on display at any given time. I imagine it is probably closer to 20k-30k on average. These are only the books on display at any given moment in time, though. Displays change as collections change hands. Books that weren't on display before suddenly go up on walls, while others that were on display disappear into a box or storage unit somewhere. This happens constantly, all the time, every single day. That means that the number of graded comics that have ever been displayed (and therefore would have benefitted from UV protection at some point) is a much higher percentage of all books graded than just the 1% you suggest. I would estimate that at least 20% of all books ever graded could have at one point or another been served well by having UV protection built into the slab. Over time, that percentage will only climb higher as more books cycle through more collectors' hands. Eventually, you'll end up closer to the exact opposite of your estimate, where 99% of all graded comics will have been on display at one time or another. Feel free to run the numbers yourself, though. I doubt there is any way for one of us to prove the other wrong definitively.

First of all, you sort of changed your argument midway in that last post, I don't know if you realized it. You assert that you did not say that only 1% of collectors want to display their books, but then later say something roughly equivalent by claiming that the people who would take advantage of UV protection are only a small minority. You have not proven this. You are simply making extreme statements about the percentage of customers who would want a thing based on a heuristic at best. I strongly suspect that your math is wildly speculative and probably very wrong. You do not know for a fact that every single person with 1,000 slabs each only displays ten or fewer at a time. You do not know that every dealer has 99% of their slabbed inventory hidden away. I don't expect that you have done nearly enough research to be able to authoritatively make any such claims. Even if (giving you benefit of the doubt) you are correct on those percentages at this very moment, values change over time. I recall when CGC first started the people who graded books at all were a minority group. The argument back then was along the lines of, "why would I lock a comic book in a plastic prison so that I could not open it and appreciate the art and story inside?" Many people still feel the same way today, but look at how popular slabbing has become despite this argument! Even if the sheer number of comics stored in darkness purely for investment purposes on its own vindicates your estimate, value still exists in having those comics UV protected by default, well in advance. Eventually, those books will be sold to collectors who may choose to display them, and many buyers will perceive greater intrinsic value in those books if the slabs include UV protection without them having to worry about it. UV protection also serves to support the long-term value of the grade itself, in that fading can damage a book. Grading companies are already on record saying a book is a certain grade, then encapsulating it to preserve the integrity of that grade. I argue that a lack of UV protection has already introduced an integrity problem with many of the graded books being sold online. Many graded books may have been improperly displayed without UV protection for perhaps years at a time. Some of these books have likely faded (some severely) as a result. Education about the danger of sunlight to books is not universally communicated to new collectors. Those faded books are then sold online as though they were higher grades because they are still slabbed with their original number. If you re-graded them today, you might take a value hit as a result of the undisclosed fading. This factor alone introduces legitimacy concerns about the grade and diminishes the value of the core product. Hopefully, we don't start asking for "expiration dates" on grades, but if you're a futurist, you are maybe already thinking of that as a possible outcome. You said it yourself: this would make the old slabs obsolete. I completely agree. Thing is: companies would much rather make their own products obsolete with a newer version than allow a competitor to force them into obsolescence. Before you say it can't ever happen to CGC, remember the lesson of Netflix to Blockbuster Video. Try to appreciate that there are already grading competitors in this very field who are well-positioned to take such a step. I think it would be wise of CGC to anticipate this potential threat. I suggest doing the actual market research to evaluate whether there really is only a small minority of customers who want and would pay for UV protection. What if you're wrong? What if the demand is much higher than anyone realizes? I also agree that older slabs would be worth less: their perceived value would certainly take something of a hit. This is already a pre-existing problem, though, with people wanting to re-slab a book just to get a new case, or a custom or "matching" label. This minor devaluation is not, in my opinion, a legitimate enough reason to not do it. Many people buy the latest smartphone every couple years because they simply want the latest and greatest product. Some people don't, because their old phone serves them well and still works fine for their needs. This would be no different. I believe that UV protection is an inevitable evolution of grading to offer greater long-term value and more overall stability and integrity to the product. WATA is already doing it for video games. Other grading companies, CGC included, are simply behind the curve here. In order for CGC's new video game grading service to be competitive, they will have to offer everything WATA does and more. This means that the research into UV protected plastics is likely going to have to happen regardless as part of that initiative. It will make its way into card and comic slabs before long. Even if no one working at CGC today has any plans for it to happen, I expect that UV protection will become a standard feature of all graded slabs on all collectibles. People will expect it in much the same way as they expect their phone to also have a built-in camera.

Take a look at Youtube and see all the videos of people with walls full of slabbed books on display. Go to a convention and check out all of the slabbed books on display for sale at dealer booths. Are those convention halls lit with LEDs or UV-producing fluorescent lights? I think your guess about percentages kept in boxes is probably wrong. I think there are many, many people who would appreciate an option to offer UV protection built into the slabs. Investors and speculators may be content to hide their books in vaults, but many collectors (far more than 1%) would prefer to display their treasures and immerse themselves in their collection, if they felt it was reasonably safe to do so.

Speaking as a comic book collector, I too have been wondering why the industry leader, CGC, has not actually taken any true leadership position in offering UV protection in their slabs. To me, it seems like the obvious place to do it, and kind of what we are paying for to protect the grade of the books. Would not a slabbed 9.8 comic left in direct sunlight no longer be a 9.8 ? Maybe with the new ownership, someone will catch on and invest in this badly needed improvement. Think of all the re-holder submissions you'd get almost immediately! No grading needed, just crack the old slab and drop it in a new UV-protected one! I will tell you the lengths I have gone to protect my collectibles, and you can tell me if I am crazy or not. First, I pulled all 3 south-facing windows (ugh) and replaced them with Renewals by Anderson to get 94% UV protected glass windows. Not quite the museum grade 99%, but the best I could find. There was one arched (rounded) window on the west side that they could not replace because of the arch, so I covered that with 99% UV reflective film, and used 2x 98% UV arch fans, doubled up on the rounded top. I have blinds on all 4 of those windows, pretty much always closed. Light still gets in through the cracks in the blinds, so it is not quite a dungeon, but filtered as best I can. Then, every comic on display (mostly CGC with a smattering of other grading services mixed in) is separately protected from UV on the comic itself. The really expensive books are in either the older Gweedo's frames with Tru Vue 99% museum glass or newer ECC frames with 99% museum quality UV-protection acrylic. Gweedo's vanished one day a few years back and I started buying ECC instead. There are one or two other frame brands, also with UV protection from companies that I tried but did not like as much as the ECC ones. Finally, all graded, un-framed books have a 99% UV protection film that I stick over the slabs to protect them because CGC does not do this on their own. I buy these from Comic Skin, even though they are not the original manufacturers. They have a supplier who is frequently out of stock, so I try to buy a hundred or so at a time. Older CGC frames look great with this UV "sticker" shield, but the newer frames with the depressed well cause the sticker to have disappointing bubbles along the edges. In my opinion, the front of the slabbed book should always be flat, but the newer CGC frames have the label raised higher than the comic so they don't run flush. This is a really frustrating problem for me and causes me to dislike the new CGC cases. For this reason, I tend towards buying either older CGC frames or their competitors' slabs at auction, at least for cheaper books. If I am going to buy a more expensive book, I am fine to buy a newer CGC slab because it will likely go in an ECC frame and the level change won't make much of a difference. It also would not make a difference if the materials used were UV protected from the start. It is a silly thing, maybe, but I am adamant that all of my comics receive UV protection and because the industry leader does not offer this on their own, I find my own ways of making it happen. I have even tried purchasing UV shield plastic in rolls and cutting them to shape. That didn't work out well, so I abandoned that idea. The other thing I do a fair amount of is the slab-it-yourself method on raw books using the Comic Skin product. I've seen some UV tests of that and the plastic they use does offer UV protection. Even so, I still use additional UV shields on the DIY slabs. I do this for raw books I want to display but have either not yet sent in to be graded or do not intend to send in for grading. Oh, one more thing... there is an arched doorway leading from my kitchen into the comic room that allows ambient sunlight to bounce in from the north side of the house... I bought a 99% UV curtain (not blackout, but "sunsafe") that allows light into the room and used a tension shower rod to hold it up in the archway. I am entirely with you that CGC should offer UV protection in their slabs. WATA does that for video games and I love their product for it. I do not need to purchase any additional protection when I get a game graded with them. The very second that any comic grading service includes UV protection in their slabs, they will be the only service I go with. In my opinion, custom labels with characters on them are just cheap gimmicks. Include UV protection instead. Make the actual product better!

Okay, see you know exactly what I am talking about. The one I lost I had a max bid of about 30% over GPA and would have gladly bid more if I'd only realized I needed to. Had I been able to do it again, I would have put a much higher maximum to try and guarantee the win. Depending on who I was up against, I still might have lost, of course. Under those circumstances, though, all it takes is two people who really want something (and for whom money is a minor obstacle) to drive up the price to record levels. They may close at prices neither bidder realistically thought they might need to pay, but there you have a very simple explanation for your spiking auction results. When you look at these... someone or multiple people are clearly trying to buy the highest grade keys available and the cost of having those in their collection is a trivial matter. Think about it, what are you going to do if the CEOs of two major mega-corporations decide on a whim that they want to hold a friendly competition to see who can amass the best comic book collection in thirty days? The pandemic is manifest boredom even for the ultra-elite. I'm just saying, I wouldn't rule it out.

Paying 10%-20% more doesn't bother me in the slightest. My time is worth a lot more to me than that. Who knows how much of it I have left? Wasting that time on a frustrating user experience with a high probability of serious disappointment is not how I'd like to spend it. My situation is probably different from yours. The other sites give me the opportunity to outbid would-be snipers. That style of auction gives me the advantage of often (though not always) being able to spend more money than my opponent -because I am given the time to do so- and that gives me a much higher win percentage there. Winning the thing that you want leads to a much more gratifying experience over all. It is a much better experience than being sniped at the last second without so much as an idea of how much you would have needed to outbid them by. I would argue that other people in much better financial situations than myself share in my frustrations there, and that is why you are seeing such enormous prices on 9.8s or higher, especially on Comiclink. The people with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on comics very likely could drop millions if they so chose. If they want a book bad enough and they don't understand the market or how much they should bid, why not enter a ridiculous number like a hundred grand? Or two hundred grand? That's the only way to guarantee you will not be outbid when the timer goes off. Trouble is, all you need are two such individuals to drive up the cost of the high-end books to the maximum. It's exactly what I would do if I had that level of income.

Thanks, but I am probably inconsolable at the moment. This one wasn't exactly affordable, but I still would have paid more than the final bid price if I'd had the opportunity to even realize that I needed to. I've been hunting this book for years and this copy was the one. Now it is gone. I am the opposite when it comes to Comic Connect, though. I have had fantastic success with them. I've almost certainly spent more with Vincent's group than any other dealer or auction site over the years. I don't think it is even close. A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of Comiclink because he gets stuff from there a lot. I've had an account open for a while and I made a throw-away bid once just to try it out, but this was my first time seriously using it. For me, last night was a truly awful collecting experience. I am not in this hobby to experience such disappointment and failure and to feel so helpless about it. First and last time for me. I am afraid I will never get the rotten taste of this out of my mouth. I did reach out to Harley by email to see if maybe he can help locate a comparable copy through other means. Someone out there is willing to sell if the price is right. I just need help to widen the search. Waiting around passively for the next one to come up at auction is not working for this book. I need to be more aggressive than that to get what I want.

No, I am a software engineer, so I assumed they have a socket open updating the status in real-time. The ticking clock seemed real enough. Expecting users to refresh the page every second is unacceptable in 2021. I am a bit spoiled in my line of work so I forget how bad some web applications are. Comiclink is pretty miserable, in my opinion. I'll stick to Heritage and ComicConnect.

Last night was my first time trying to use Comiclink. I bid on the FF #4 at 5.5WP and was the high bidder up until zero seconds. Thought I had won until I refreshed the page and it says "you've been outbid." First and last time I ever use that auction site... I prefer real auctions free from bid-sniping software. If anyone has an FF4 they would like to sell, though... I need one to fill a crucial gap in my early FFs.

I am a Silver Age comic collector who still has a job and has shifted to working from home for the past 3 weeks. Probably be doing that for the next month or more. I have not been spending money at bars, restaurants, etc. The last Comic Convention I was scheduled to attend was cancelled. Can't take the kids to Disneyland or go to concerts or movie theaters... I have saved so much money in the past few weeks of being trapped indoors that I just started focusing on curating my collection. Filling in gaps, buying keys I normally wouldn't prioritize... What I noticed from watching some of the auctions recently... there are a lot of other people like me who have money coming in and nothing better to do than attend a Saturday or Sunday comic auction. The prices are getting more and more ridiculous every week. I just watched a TOS39 4.5 with tape on the cover sell for almost 10k yesterday after buyer's premium. That book 3 weeks ago would have been 7k tops. I think the overall availability of vintage books has decreased, because several shops have been ordered to close by their governors, and many eBay stores are on hiatus. Meanwhile, the pool of potential buyers is greater because they are basically a captive audience stuck at home, eagerly seeking out whatever joy they can find. Some of us find it in comics. I see this as a simple supply/demand issue that raises the value of nearly all books. Supply is down because shops are closed and shows are cancelled; even dealers who would normally trade among themselves to satisfy their clients' needs are less able to do so. Demand is up because there is less competition for dollars as other leisure spending is eliminated and people are stuck at home with their collections. Put these two together and you have rising comic prices on most books.

Personally, I am excited about prices dropping, though I haven't really noticed that happening myself quite yet on anything I am hunting for. If prices do drop, that's obviously the best time to buy. I would expect that prices should dip for a bit, though. There's a huge gap between major Marvel films, which cuts out a lot of fly-by-night speculation bumps. It's an election year so many people are holding back from riskier investments due to fear and uncertainty in the economy. Banks are lowering credit limits in anticipation of a recession (which of course manufactures a recession). This activity reduces the spending power of many potential buyers. Also, not all buyers are investors; some are collectors. For many collectors, once they own a book, they are not likely to buy another copy of that same book. The demand for certain issues is therefore permanently reduced. Pressing is absolutely impacting the supply chain, raising the scarcity of lower-end, affordable books while lowering the barrier to entry on many higher-end grades. Really, there are a lot of factors, but they result in lower overall demand, a lower tolerance for high prices and unprecedented variations in supply. I would expect a slight downward trend on many books probably through the election or at least right on up to the next big hype. Obviously, if Keanu Reeves is confirmed to portray any comic character in a film, you can pretty much take that character's first, second and third appearances to the bank. Long-term, though, certain key books are going to keep going up and up. I don't believe for one second that TOS 39 has seen its last big price hike just because RDJ has left the films. There is a whole generation of Iron Man fans who will be getting out of college and finding good jobs, probably in the tech industry, paying off their student loans and who will have grown up dreaming of owning that book. They will be on the market in the next few years looking for a copy and that issue is still a bargain right now. It won't be that way forever.

Dry cleaning might help some of the stains on the back on that Hulk 180, but probably nothing will get rid of the writing. I doubt you would bump the grade up on that, but it sure would look a lot nicer. I'd do it for that reason alone, because the wrinkles reflect light in so many ways it is hard to appreciate the book the way it is. On a key like that (which I do not yet own myself) I would say it is worth the expense, personally. I'd lower your expectations on the grade, though. That might make a 1.8 at best from the look of it.

I've owned this copy for several years, originally purchased raw from Metropolis who had it graded as a 3.0 at the time of purchase. Special thanks to Frank Cwiklik at Metropolis for making the purchase possible way back at SDCC 2013. Got it signed by Stan Lee not long after thanks to Chandler and Sharon at Desert Wind Comics. It came back as a 2.5 instead of 3.0, which was both a slight disappointment over the grade hit but also a tremendous relief there was no restoration. This is framed inside a Gweedo's frame with 99% UV glass from TruVue and displayed only on special occasions. The rest of the time it is locked in a dark vault. Not the first copy I've owned, but selling the first one was one of the biggest regrets I've ever had in my life. I am very proud and happy to own this copy. It is the crown jewel of my collection, without a doubt.