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THE AMAZING FANTASY #15 CLUB
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14,479 posts in this topic

48 minutes ago, VintageComics said:

You CAN handle comics without damaging them. Collectors have been doing it for decades.

I agree but it's the cracking part that scares me with the new slab design. It's way more dangerous than the old slab design. Not to mention the original design that you could open without any tools. 

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On 12/3/2018 at 7:09 PM, jason4 said:

SLab this bad boy. Cooler in the slab and better protection. High value book. Preserve it. In fact I would slab everything in that picture you have. Nice books

This is where it was originally purchased! (Stamped)

Edited by silentassassin
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6 hours ago, Sweet Lou 14 said:

But all kidding aside, even just from the standpoint of content, quite a lot is lost in the reprinting -- the colors aren't right and you don't have any of the ads or other non-story pages.  If it's a book like, say, Tales of Suspense #39, you only get the story with the superhero in it and you don't get the rest of the material.

You have probably already done this, but if you haven't you should check out the Omnibus editions - they include at least the letters column and the bullpen bulletins which is a nice touch besides the stories. I only own the Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2 butI have really enjoyed reading the stories through them.

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1 hour ago, SECollector said:

You have probably already done this, but if you haven't you should check out the Omnibus editions - they include at least the letters column and the bullpen bulletins which is a nice touch besides the stories. I only own the Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2 butI have really enjoyed reading the stories through them.

I don't have those, but I have an entire shelf full of Marvel Masterworks volumes -- and another shelf full of the black-and-white paperback reprints they did a few years later.

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14 hours ago, VintageComics said:

Because some people like actually collecting the comic books themselves and not plastic cases with comics inside of them.

There is no comparison to handling a decades old artifact compared to reading a cheap reprint.

 

1000000% percent the texture, the smell, the history...............Priceless. 

 

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21 hours ago, peewee22 said:

That Action #1 was probably 9.0 unslabbed for many decades and it was obviously well taken care of. I bet the owner from time to time looked (drooled) at it. Slabs have not been here forever. And comparing a 9.0 Action 1 to a low grade AF15 is probably not a good comparison. (thumbsu

Ok compare to any comic worth 10k or more. Worth the risk of handling? Just to smell it and touch it? For me 10k is like a 100k book. The amazing fantasy 15 I own that’s worth 10k I will never deslab. 

And some 9.8 books you can’t handle at all I don’t care how careful you are they probably, almost definitely according to what I’ve read, will not be 9.8 after your fingerprints are all over it. They look at these books with magnifying glasses. 

I’m 34 years old and do get some of the appeal of reading and flipping through the actual book vs a reprint but I just don’t like to do it. Maybe the appeal would be greater if I was older. 

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On 12/2/2018 at 6:04 PM, Dark Knight said:
On 12/2/2018 at 5:14 PM, Bomber-Bob said:
On 12/2/2018 at 11:21 AM, Jaydogrules said:

Agreed.  Perfect centering and deep colours.  

-J.

But Cr/OW pages, yuck. Surprised it sold for that much.  :baiting: 

Don't even start..  :frustrated:

+1

And as Jay would say, the consignor was lucky CGC gave it the Cr/OW page designation. 

The book definitely would have sold for a whole lot less if it had the much dreaded White PQ page designation on the label.  lol

Edited by lou_fine
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4 hours ago, jason4 said:

Ok compare to any comic worth 10k or more. Worth the risk of handling? Just to smell it and touch it? For me 10k is like a 100k book. The amazing fantasy 15 I own that’s worth 10k I will never deslab. 

And some 9.8 books you can’t handle at all I don’t care how careful you are they probably, almost definitely according to what I’ve read, will not be 9.8 after your fingerprints are all over it. They look at these books with magnifying glasses. 

I’m 34 years old and do get some of the appeal of reading and flipping through the actual book vs a reprint but I just don’t like to do it. Maybe the appeal would be greater if I was older. 

It's not so much about your actual age as it is about the era you grew up in.

Most older collectors grew up reading and handling comics (obsessively I might add - I was crazy about comics from the age of about 5 up) and so handling comics is not a big deal. The first thought that goes through my head is not 'oh, this is an expensive comic book I shouldn't handle it'. The first thought that goes through my head is 'oh, this is a cool comics it's so neat to handle it'.

Of course I'm aware of the values but handling comics for a life time has primed me to be careful instinctively. I don't have to think about it.

Do accidents happen? Sure. But if you drop your slab on a hard floor you're just as likely to damage it (and maybe more so) than if it was sitting in a Mylar.

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4 hours ago, jason4 said:

Ok compare to any comic worth 10k or more. Worth the risk of handling? Just to smell it and touch it? For me 10k is like a 100k book. The amazing fantasy 15 I own that’s worth 10k I will never deslab. 

And some 9.8 books you can’t handle at all I don’t care how careful you are they probably, almost definitely according to what I’ve read, will not be 9.8 after your fingerprints are all over it. They look at these books with magnifying glasses. 

I’m 34 years old and do get some of the appeal of reading and flipping through the actual book vs a reprint but I just don’t like to do it. Maybe the appeal would be greater if I was older. 

You can wear white gloves if you are concerned about touching it but keep your sinuses open to capture the aroma. Nothing like the smell of old comic paper. 

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On 12/6/2018 at 8:18 PM, peewee22 said:

You can wear white gloves if you are concerned about touching it but keep your sinuses open to capture the aroma. Nothing like the smell of old comic paper. 

The truth is like or not this hobby has changed, I am 52 and started collecting in the late 1970s up to the 90s crash for many of us from this era or even a decade before the hobby was in its infancy and was just that a hobby, I say this with no question as it is 100% true any of us from the early days to the 2nd wave of collectors which is where I am from could and did have the ability to really complete almost any silver age comic run during this era with just a little bit of hustle & If you were a bit older say in your mid-20s in late 70s to mid-1980s & had a job and were committed you could to some extent complete & afford MOST Golden age books in decent condition, ( the super keys were even still attainable to some extent but even then it may have cost you your income tax check to get a mid-grade Batman #1 ) But the introduction of graded comics has had a huge impact on the hobby imho  ( I will let you decide if its good or bad) but as the books get older, harder to find & the hobby more global & characters even more iconic & the value increases beyond what any of us could ever have believed possible the books are no longer viewed as a hobby but as legitimate investment & that changed everything. I mean let's be 100% straight here if in 1983 you had told me comics would one day be put into sealed plastic cases and be worth more because some other guy decided what the grade was I would have said in my best 1980s cool voice " dude your fuc%in crazy" its a comic its meant to be read! who would want a sealed comic? All this while AC/DC Back in Black was blasting in the background lol.

Edited by Frank Mozz
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4 hours ago, Frank Mozz said:

The truth is like or not this hobby has changed, I am 52 and started collecting in the late 1970s up to the 90s crash for many of us from this era or even a decade before the hobby was in its infancy and was just that a hobby, I say this with no question as it is 100% true any of us from the early days to the 2nd wave of collectors which is where I am from could and did have the ability to really complete almost any silver age comic run during this era with just a little bit of hustle & If you were a bit older say in your mid-20s in late 70s to mid-1980s & had a job and were committed you could to some extent complete & afford MOST Golden age books in decent condition, ( the super keys were even still attainable to some extent but even then it may have cost you your income tax check to get a mid-grade Batman #1 ) But the introduction of graded comics has had a huge impact on the hobby imho  ( I will let you decide if its good or bad) but as the books get older, harder to find & the hobby more global & characters even more iconic & the value increases beyond what any of us could ever have believed possible the books are no longer viewed as a hobby but as legitimate investment & that changed everything. I mean let's be 100% straight here if in 1983 you had told me comics would one day be put into sealed plastic cases and be worth more because some other guy decided what the grade was I would have said in my best 1980s cool voice " dude your fuc%in crazy" its a comic its meant to be read! who would want a sealed comic? All this while AC/DC Back in Black was blasting in the background lol.

Thanks for sharing these thoughts. And yes, I suppose third party grading was a huge game changer. And of course the internet. Both opened the market to collectors that don't have access to cons and who wouldn't dare spending five figures for books without inspecting them in person if they didn't come graded and sealed by a widely accepted independent "authority". I am one of these and I bet there are hundreds or thousands more like me.

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7 hours ago, Frank Mozz said:

The truth is like or not this hobby has changed, I am 52 and started collecting in the late 1970s up to the 90s crash for many of us from this era or even a decade before the hobby was in its infancy and was just that a hobby, I say this with no question as it is 100% true any of us from the early days to the 2nd wave of collectors which is where I am from could and did have the ability to really complete almost any silver age comic run during this era with just a little bit of hustle & If you were a bit older say in your mid-20s in late 70s to mid-1980s & had a job and were committed you could to some extent complete & afford MOST Golden age books in decent condition, ( the super keys were even still attainable to some extent but even then it may have cost you your income tax check to get a mid-grade Batman #1 ) But the introduction of graded comics has had a huge impact on the hobby imho  ( I will let you decide if its good or bad) but as the books get older, harder to find & the hobby more global & characters even more iconic & the value increases beyond what any of us could ever have believed possible the books are no longer viewed as a hobby but as legitimate investment & that changed everything. I mean let's be 100% straight here if in 1983 you had told me comics would one day be put into sealed plastic cases and be worth more because some other guy decided what the grade was I would have said in my best 1980s cool voice " dude your fuc%in crazy" its a comic its meant to be read! who would want a sealed comic? All this while AC/DC Back in Black was blasting in the background lol.

I think we will always have 2 sets of collectors: the pre slab collectors and the post slab collectors. At 57, I am a stone age pre slab collector. (thumbsu

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10 hours ago, SECollector said:

Thanks for sharing these thoughts. And yes, I suppose third party grading was a huge game changer. And of course the internet. Both opened the market to collectors that don't have access to cons and who wouldn't dare spending five figures for books without inspecting them in person if they didn't come graded and sealed by a widely accepted independent "authority". I am one of these and I bet there are hundreds or thousands more like me.

Although I can definitely understand the rationale here, surprisingly this was not actually true in all cases.  :gossip:

I can still clearly remember back around the mid 90's in '94 and '95 when GA was super red hot and dealers would offer multiples to top of guide for pedigree books sight unseen and simply based upon their reputation alone.  :screwy:

I remembered being offered 4 figures or 5X what I had paid a few years earlier for a book which I had in my personal collection.  When I told the dealer he was crazy since he had not seen the actual book and it was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, he said it didn't matter as he already had ready buyers in place who would be more than happy to pay 50% above what he was offering me for the book.  :screwy:  :screwy:

 

 

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1 hour ago, lou_fine said:

Although I can definitely understand the rationale here, surprisingly this was not actually true in all cases.  :gossip:

I can still clearly remember back around the mid 90's in '94 and '95 when GA was super red hot and dealers would offer multiples to top of guide for pedigree books sight unseen and simply based upon their reputation alone.  :screwy:

I remembered being offered 4 figures or 5X what I had paid a few years earlier for a book which I had in my personal collection.  When I told the dealer he was crazy since he had not seen the actual book and it was not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, he said it didn't matter as he already had ready buyers in place who would be more than happy to pay 50% above what he was offering me for the book.  :screwy:  :screwy:

 

 

OK, wow. Maybe prices were on a totally different level and a difference of 0.5 - 1 grade point wasnt translated to hundreds or thousands of dollars? (shrug)

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On 6/9/2017 at 1:45 PM, drbanner said:

The AF 15 data on the left in the graphic below includes grades from 3.5 to 6.0 and has a couple of the Peak-AF 15 prices, it doesn't include "those crazy CC auction prices" (which I guess Metro will eventually report to GPA) and of course doesn't include the Clink prices since they don't report. The data on the right show Peak-Hulk1 occurring about 2 years ago before prices stagnated. I'll revisit this in six months and we'll see if the AF15 graphic continues to look like it does now...or more like the Hulk 1 data. (thumbsu

Hulk1_AF15_35_60_June%209_zpsmqmwklkm.jp

Ok, a year and a half later and here we are - Hulk 1 continues to show some traction with prices back to/exceeding their 2015/2016 peaks, while AF 15 generally remains below peak prices of a few years ago. The action in 2018 was focused on the other Marvel Silver Age Keys which have all blown up this year.

1001047248_af15hulk1_Dec2018.thumb.jpg.9589807a19da00a3faa96c76efc55ea9.jpg

Edited by drbanner
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