duncan36

I can see your point, so why is Steve telling me to support this action because "Jan needs the money" - it makes no sense. And to anyone simple-minded enough to think that Danny is going to leave money lying around for authorities to find (in the event he goes to jail). Danny is a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them. You've watched too much tv he isnt going to be able to bury his money in the backyard and live like a king when he gets out of jail. The court will know every detail of his living situation post jail and will make him answer for how he is paying for his living arrangements if he keeps his money out of the banks. They will make his life so miserable if he doesnt pay child support that he will make these payments just to keep them off his back.

Yeah dont forget she will immediately get a huge check for all his missed payments. Also I imagine he will still be liable for child support if he goes to jail. The courts will seize all his assets should he go to jail, which seem to be sizeable, and distribute it to the wife and child. Thats why its important to figure out his financial web before he goes to prison so the wife and child will have access to those funds. So really you were wrong Joe and the insult against the child was out of line.

Well anyone with eBay and some common sense knows that if they have a high grade copy, slabbing the book could very easily double what their book brings in auction. I don't think your argument is a valid argument, if someone has a high grade copy and wants to sell it, he's going to slab it if he has any sense. I think a more persuasive argument about the number of Hulk 181's out there would be thats theres an absolute assload of high grade copies on eBay at any given time. This would be a warning sign to me, anyway you look at it, its not a good sign, either dealers are buying up the ultra high grade copies to hold for a short time and then profit fromm quickly because they're sure the CGC effect will continue or theres so many copies out there that demand of high grade copies can be easily satisfy collectors. Theres got to be some collectors socking these things away right?

True i'd say a decent percentage of the books are lost or hidden, but even if say 50,000 books are in dealers hands, invariably these 50,000 copies will be the high grade 8.0+ copies that the dealers started accumulating as some have said as early as the late 1970's. So in this context its not surprising that a lot of these books arent coming to light: 1.)dealers dont want to kill the goose that lays the golden egg by releasing too many copies 2.)if dealers have any confidence in the overall stability of the back issue market they're happy to hold the most stable of the bronze age books: Hulk 181 3.)Some people have probably determined(rightly or wrongly) that the peak in demand for hulk 181 wont occur for some years and are holding their stashes back. Hulk 181 is certainly an interesting book to watch.

Well murph thats the beauty of CGC and their excellent census work. In the next couple of years we'll get an excellent picture about just how many Hulk 181's are out there, if the flow of 9.0+ 181's continues at a strong pace this year, its safe to assume that there are many, many more 181's out there than people assume.

I think to some degree Hulk 181 is a good gauge of the overall strength of the collectors/dealers market, if Hulk 181's start coming into CGC at a much faster pace then that will give a better idea of just how many are really out there as well as being a warning sign for people who expect this and other 'hot' books of the time to substantially increase in value from their current positions.

By the 1980's people who track comic trends knew with some certainty that Wolverine key's would appreciate dramatically. In fact it was the most obvious trend in the 80's comic market by far. So logically a number of speculators of this sort amassed a substantial number of Hulk 181. This isnt some form of fairy tale, theres money involved, big money, if you don't realize this i'm not going to sit down and educate you on the ways of the world.

I could have sworn there was a large wharehoused collection of books from the 40's but I could be wrong, its happened before. Anyway the point stands when you take into consideration the relatively large number of wharehoused collections out there by the 70's coupled with wharehousers/dealers who hoarded wolverine books in the 80's, its safe to say the hulk 181's we see on the market is the tip of the iceberg of whats actually out there. If a good portion of those books was to hit the market at once hulk 181 would lose a substantial portion of its worth. I think thats just a fact everyone has to come to terms with in this business.

I agree with Gene totally. Also with books like Hulk #181 its amazing how dealers kind of form a Borg collective, they sell just enough to satisfy demand and if theres too many selling at a certain point they're happy to hold. I think if the economy continues down the toilet then this sort of Borg mentality will be shattered and people could start dumping relatively common books on the market to save themselves. All it would take is several massive wharehousers to get in severe financial/stockmarket difficulties and flood the market with books and prices on relatively common books like Hulk 181 could be cut in half overnight. Even the high grade books arent safe IMO if people had the foresight to mylar books and wharehoused them in the 30's and 40's by the 70's the number of people doing that probably increased by a factor of 100x.

I'll take my allotment of 10 please.

Sabretooth was seen as Wolverines number one enemy and I think its fair to say that they're forever connected somewhat in Wolvie fans minds. Regardless of whether you believe this to be true, its undeniable that the limited series is cooling off. In my experience when books on the periphery of a popular character start to cool down thats a definite sign of a cooling down of the character itself.

Well I think the key sign that Wolverine will cool down is that Sabretooth's first appearance is cooling down quite a bit. Plus even his quite early apperances are cooling off, demand seems to be dropping for the mini-series also. In this environment its inevitable that Hulk 181 will cool off eventually.

I disagree, I sense Wolverines popularity is waning somewhat. I don't think the movies are actually helping him too much as a character, which Wolverine would you rather have in collectors minds? The Claremont Wolvie and the limited series Wolvie, or an Australian actor trying to act tough? Unfortunately the latter is starting to become 'Wolvie' for a lot of people. Plus lets face its face the older and hopefully wiser you get the character becomes less appealing I mean you can recapture your youth with a heroic Superman, but will you put your kid on your knee and show him a characters thats sometimes portrayed as a psychotic killer? He's had great moments, and his 1st appearance will always be big. But everything thats ever been viewed as 'on another level' has cooled down if they get too big. Happened to Arnold after Terminator 2, and it will happen to Wolverine, its just a question of when and how cool his comics will get. Dealers are quite happy to perputate that Wolverine is the biggest thing ever and deserves to be $10,000! Its been said so many times amongst dealers that Hulk 181 is bulletproof and will track upwards indefinitely that I think that if no actual collectors bought them that Hulk 181 would happily sell amongst dealers for a year without worry. But the question is how much is a staunch Wolverine buff willing to pay for the first appearance of Wolverine given its relative lack of scarcity. Personally I see VF's going for about $500 as a reasonable long-term price.