Moderns that are heating up on ebay! 70 70

[williamblood]

53 minutes ago, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

Funny. I saw this on the shelf at Midtown and considered buying it. Looked up the character and apparently she appeared in Green Arrow first? How's that book doing?

think your confused naomi 1 is her 1st

[darkstar]

On 2/15/2019 at 9:40 PM, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

Can anyone verify the highest number of copies that have been available for a variant in any of these variant cover dumps?

There were hundreds of copies of the 1:100 hip hop variant for All New Inhumans #5 available during one of them. That book was over 300 dollars raw at one point and was "sold out" everywhere from day 1. The price tanked and it never came close to recovering. Currently there is more than 1 seller on eBay with double digit copies available, something that was unheard of at the time of the book's release. One of those sellers is midtown and the other looks to be a relatively low volume amateur seller who primarily deals in used video games, which should be a good indication to you that at one point in time it was relatively easy to obtain a book that was advertised as super rare when it was initially sold. 

[spreads]

13 hours ago, Wolverinex said:

9.8s hitting new highs the past two weeks.

Dollar-wise nothing spectacular by Valiant standards....

[spreads]

10 hours ago, RogerRoy said:

Nah  I only bought that second lot because he had a bunch of Spiderman stuff that I wanted, Like I said I didn't even really know what the Valiant stuff was until I started going through it. Im not going to hold onto any of that stuff so it will all be going 

You should keep a run of those books, the best storyline of that era (Harbinger especially)….

[WolverineX]

13 minutes ago, spreads said:

Dollar-wise nothing spectacular by Valiant standards....

No, but the sudden increase is just being noted.   

 

12 minutes ago, spreads said:

You should keep a run of those books, the best storyline of that era (Harbinger especially)….

Agreed.  Harbinger rocks

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

10 hours ago, kairos70 said:

That's a different Naomi, Naomi Singh appeared in the Green Arrow series. Naomi #1 is the first appearance of that Naomi character.

Ah. I haven't read any DC in years so I wasn't familiar with the character. I did a quick search online when I was in the store and was led to believe it was the same character

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

27 minutes ago, Wolverinex said:

No, but the sudden increase is just being noted.   

 

Agreed.  Harbinger rocks

I remembered the books as being excellent from when I read them when they released, but they don't hold quite as well on a re-read. But then I'm comparing them to the new line, which I think captures the feel of the original V perfectly but tells better stories.

[ygogolak]

2 hours ago, spreads said:

Dollar-wise nothing spectacular by Valiant standards....

$500 isn't significant?

 

13 hours ago, followtheleader said:

Hmm, interesting series. 

But it's early and too common to be pulling that cash. 

Patrick 

26k over two covers is common for a Big 2 book #1?

Edited March 2, 2019 by ygogolak

[WolverineX]

On 3/1/2019 at 10:54 AM, ygogolak said:

Possibly, but it's also the 1st Joker's Son? Something weird is going on. Or is Geriatric Joker the son? The last page has a different character.

Yeah, I read it this morning, and it is pretty enjoyable.   I guess the last page shows joker's brain in some machine and Jeriatric Joker is the son.  The two appearances in that issue is probably leading to the hype.  

[spreads]

9 hours ago, ygogolak said:

$500 isn't significant?

 

26k over two covers is common for a Big 2 book #1?

Harbinger #1 hit $2500 ten years ago.....

[gradejunky]

Just sold a raw 9.6 Umbrella Academy FCBD for $150!!!  I knew years ago that I should have scoured for more of these but hindsight is always 20/20.  I have another copy raw 9.8 that I'll have graded maybe at some point.

[ygogolak]

On 3/2/2019 at 8:51 PM, spreads said:

Harbinger #1 hit $2500 ten years ago.....

Yes, that's one book. Any others?

[BAT MAN]

On 3/2/2019 at 8:51 PM, spreads said:

Harbinger #1 hit $2500 ten years ago.....

I believe that sale was an anomaly. The back story was that the particular individual wanted that slab and was tired of waiting/losing out and was willing to pay anything to have it. At that point in time Harb 1 9.8 slab carried a mystique and rarely showed up. There was an uber tiny census population on this issue for years. 

You can imagine that $2500 sale really was really a bat signal bringing out future subs and sellers to cash in for a pay day. As the census population exponentially grew over the next period of time, I want to say only a few years ago you had all you could eat on Harb 1 CGC 9.8's in the $500 range and lower. 

 

Edited March 5, 2019 by BAT MAN

[Nico Esq]

On 2/28/2019 at 10:37 AM, valiantman said:

Valiant is such a small name that any publicity is good publicity. They're looking for name recognition more than trying to protect against possible bad press.

In today's world, I am confident that you are correct.  Every couple weeks or so I think about picking up some high grade original Solar & Magnus books just because they are so cheap.  I know they have licensing issues, but don't remember what I read is exactly going on with them.  I think unfortunately there are two groups of people when it comes to Valiant comics: (a) the people who passed on Hulk 181s to buy high grade Valiant keys in the 90s, sold those books for pennies on the dollar and hate Valiant comics as a result; and (b) the people who passed on Hulk 181s to buy Valiant keys in the 90s and still have those books and are waiting to get top dollar for them.  I am afraid that there are very few people like yourself that have a reasonable view of the books.  I've got a buddy Brandon who I think is an undercover Valiant homer who is sharp about Valiant comics too.  I still have a soft spot for that original Harbinger run I read when I was 12-14 years old, but a lot of there best titles like Archer and Armstrong are still associated with people's trauma from the 90's crash.  It will be interesting to see if they can overcome that as a publisher.  

[spreads]

10 hours ago, BAT MAN said:

I believe that sale was an anomaly. The back story was that the particular individual wanted that slab and was tired of waiting/losing out and was willing to pay anything to have it. At that point in time Harb 1 9.8 slab carried a mystique and rarely showed up. There was an uber tiny census population on this issue for years. 

You can imagine that $2500 sale really was really a bat signal bringing out future subs and sellers to cash in for a pay day. As the census population exponentially grew over the next period of time, I want to say only a few years ago you had all you could eat on Harb 1 CGC 9.8's in the $500 range and lower. 

 

It was a high point, but leading up to the sale harbinger 1 was notoriously impossible to get in 9.8s.  It's been widely regarded that CGC might have loosened up grading a bit (either in general or for that book) so gradually a few joined the census.  I agree with you that Harby dropped down to the low point of almost all Valiant/Acclaim back issues, but this was more than a few years ago.  Myself and several others were watching those auctions like hawks, I was thinking about getting a book for my collection but I have several high grade raws (albeit most likely not a 9.8) that I didn't bother....

[spreads]

23 hours ago, ygogolak said:

Yes, that's one book. Any others?

There are MANY books that have hit over $300-500 in 9.8s...check GPA I'm not doing all your homework for you.

[valiantman]

37 minutes ago, spreads said:

11 hours ago, BAT MAN said:

I believe that sale was an anomaly. The back story was that the particular individual wanted that slab and was tired of waiting/losing out and was willing to pay anything to have it. At that point in time Harb 1 9.8 slab carried a mystique and rarely showed up. There was an uber tiny census population on this issue for years. 

You can imagine that $2500 sale really was really a bat signal bringing out future subs and sellers to cash in for a pay day. As the census population exponentially grew over the next period of time, I want to say only a few years ago you had all you could eat on Harb 1 CGC 9.8's in the $500 range and lower. 

 

It was a high point, but leading up to the sale harbinger 1 was notoriously impossible to get in 9.8s.  It's been widely regarded that CGC might have loosened up grading a bit (either in general or for that book) so gradually a few joined the census.  I agree with you that Harby dropped down to the low point of almost all Valiant/Acclaim back issues, but this was more than a few years ago.  Myself and several others were watching those auctions like hawks, I was thinking about getting a book for my collection but I have several high grade raws (albeit most likely not a 9.8) that I didn't bother....

 

Compare to ASM #300 over the same period of submissions:

 

It's hard to believe that both Harbinger #1 and Amazing Spider-Man #300 would have suddenly been so easy to find in CGC 9.8 compared to prior years -AND- the fact that CGC leadership changed at the exact same time that the CGC 9.8 percentages shot up.

The obvious answer is that either CGC was grading Harbinger #1 and ASM #300 too harshly and they corrected the problem, or they were grading them accurately and loosened up the standards.

[valiantman]

1 hour ago, Nico Esq said:

In today's world, I am confident that you are correct.  Every couple weeks or so I think about picking up some high grade original Solar & Magnus books just because they are so cheap.  I know they have licensing issues, but don't remember what I read is exactly going on with them.  I think unfortunately there are two groups of people when it comes to Valiant comics: (a) the people who passed on Hulk 181s to buy high grade Valiant keys in the 90s, sold those books for pennies on the dollar and hate Valiant comics as a result; and (b) the people who passed on Hulk 181s to buy Valiant keys in the 90s and still have those books and are waiting to get top dollar for them.  I am afraid that there are very few people like yourself that have a reasonable view of the books.  I've got a buddy Brandon who I think is an undercover Valiant homer who is sharp about Valiant comics too.  I still have a soft spot for that original Harbinger run I read when I was 12-14 years old, but a lot of there best titles like Archer and Armstrong are still associated with people's trauma from the 90's crash.  It will be interesting to see if they can overcome that as a publisher.  

I think there's a third set of people... let's call them group (c)... the people who never got the best Valiant books like Harbinger #1 back-in-the-day, always wanted the good pre-Unity books but settled for lesser books like Harbinger #10 or Shadowman #8 with the hopes that they would follow the pre-Unity books to the stratosphere.  When those books didn't rise, after the market crashed, group (c) people were relieved that they didn't lose a lot of money on Valiant but secretly still wished they had Harbinger #1 and the other big books in their collections.

What separates the group (c) collectors (since the crash) is when they returned to the back issue market, if they ever did.  I was group (c) but I came back in 1997 on Ebay.  Others came back around 2007, others around 2017... many others aren't back yet, may never be. Prior to 2007, it was basically impossible to get a CGC 9.8 Harbinger #1 (see the chart above), so there were a few that sold for very high prices before the CGC census exploded with (most likely) "lesser 9.8s" across the board (Harbinger #1, ASM #300, etc.).

[BAT MAN]

2 hours ago, spreads said:

It was a high point, but leading up to the sale harbinger 1 was notoriously impossible to get in 9.8s.  It's been widely regarded that CGC might have loosened up grading a bit (either in general or for that book) so gradually a few joined the census.  I agree with you that Harby dropped down to the low point of almost all Valiant/Acclaim back issues, but this was more than a few years ago.  Myself and several others were watching those auctions like hawks, I was thinking about getting a book for my collection but I have several high grade raws (albeit most likely not a 9.8) that I didn't bother....

Thanks for the clarification on that time frame of when the price lows hit. Continual sleep deprivation on my end tends to skew my concept of time periods.  And it's hard to believe we are talking about now, what 15 something years from the days of when the Harb1 9.8 census was a handful or less with none on the horizon? 

Did you by chance pick anything up during the lows?  And do you recall how long that period lasted? I do distinctly recall upon the big news acquisition there being a rapid uptick (2015ish?) It's also amazing that present day Harb1 9.8 population is nearly 3X Solar 10 9.8 but given what a tough cover the Solar is, more so than Harb, perhaps not. 

On the flip side, if one is patient and can wait for bidding style auctions you can get a ton of value in terms of what it could cost for 9.6 slabs and if bidding is on the light side. I have watched pre-unity 9.6 slab auctions where the ending price was the nearly same as the shipping cost. 

[spreads]

4 hours ago, valiantman said:

 

Compare to ASM #300 over the same period of submissions:

 

It's hard to believe that both Harbinger #1 and Amazing Spider-Man #300 would have suddenly been so easy to find in CGC 9.8 compared to prior years -AND- the fact that CGC leadership changed at the exact same time that the CGC 9.8 percentages shot up.

The obvious answer is that either CGC was grading Harbinger #1 and ASM #300 too harshly and they corrected the problem, or they were grading them accurately and loosened up the standards.

We can always count on you Greg for clarity and detail!