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Incredible Hulk #181 - is it *that* red-hot?
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1,931 posts in this topic

On 1/25/2019 at 9:16 AM, delekkerste said:

Yep.  Just because one can afford to overpay and look :screwy: doesn't mean one should open one's wallet and remove all doubt, just as you don't pay $1800 for an $18 pizza just because you're Jeff Bezos. 

I held the 9.9 in my hands at an SDCC sometime in the early 2000s (2001-03 timeframe).  Back then I was known as a big Bronze/Copper comic guy and the then-owner saw my name on my badge and invited me over to check it out (I forget what price he had on it at the time, but, it was way out of my league back then).  It didn't look like a 9.9 to me even before the SCS.  It's been too long to remember specific details, but, I remember my impression of it:  gift grade from early days of CGC grading. Not that it matters to the label-chasers out there. 

Poor scan, but OLD Label>not pressed 2c

IH181(99w)$150k(2011).jpg

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On 1/27/2019 at 11:53 AM, Chaos_in_Canada said:

Poor scan, but OLD Label>not pressed 2c

IH181(99w)$150k(2011).jpg

Thanks for sharing, book looks beautifully centered but I see this copy suffers from the printer roll/smear through "Canadian Super-Hero". :frown:

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On 1/27/2019 at 2:59 AM, lou_fine said:

Gene;

So, I guess you are saying that this particular CGC 9.9 graded copy was probably over graded during possibly one of their soft grading time periods.  Either that or it caught the graders, and most especially the finalizer, in a happy and generous mood that day.  (shrug)

I guess that's why our wallet says that we should really be following the mantra of: "Buy the book and not the label".  Clearly, if what you are saying is true, then the purchaser followed the other manta which is to:  "Buy the label and not the book".  hm

All I can say is more power to him then if he was willing to spend something like $140K more just to get that extra 0.1 increment in the CGC label.  (thumbsu

So, I acquired (either bought or submitted) almost all of my CGC books between 2000 and 2004 before I just quit cold turkey and moved full time to collecting original art.  As a result, however, my grading standards are pretty much frozen in time as to what prevailed back then, which, despite "soft grading time periods", was almost universally more strict than what I have seen has become of grading standards over the past 10 years (to the extent that I have looked).  

The one major exception regarding the older books being, by and large, more tightly graded (even during the "soft" periods) was in the very early days of CGC still figuring things out.  I don't know what qualifies as a 9.9 nowadays, but, back in my day :preach:, there's no way that 9.9 should have gotten a 9.9 back in the period when I was actively collecting, which I can only chalk up to CGC still finding their feet very early on.  Even on the small-ish scan posted above, you can see that the upper RH corner is a bit blunted, and very slight wear on the lower LH corner, along with that print roll artifact (I very vaguely recall noticing some other minor imperfections as well; we'd need a better scan to confirm, though). I am certain that there have been other Hulk #181s as good or better than this one that have passed through CGC and did not get a 9.9 because that 9.9 was a mistake to begin with. 

I think people forget that even a 9.8 used to be a very tough grade to get back in the first few years of CGC grading (I'd send in cherry-picked off the stands Moderns and many would come back 9.6s!)  If you were collecting slabs from the outset, surely you remember when that nothing book, The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #15 CGC 9.8, hit eBay and sold for stupid money back in the day, just because a 9.8 was so rare.  Remember "danten311" who was scooping up all the PPSS #1s 9.8s for ridiculous money? We had some chats off-line where he said, sure, it's a common book, but, he felt safe with the 9.8s... :whistle: 

All of which is to say that the Hulk #181 9.9 should not have been a 9.9 either then or now, just as the "Gretzky" T-206 Honus Wagner confirmed through court testimony to have been cut/trimmed from an uncut sheet shouldn't have been a PSA 8 either over in baseball card land.  And, yet, in either case, it hasn't really mattered - for better or worse, there's only one CGC 9.9 Hulk #181 and only one PSA 8 T-206 Honus Wagner card, and people want them.

But, in any case, the 9.9 copy is no longer at the top of the Hulk #181 heap now that the original cover art has been confirmed to exist (not widely known, but, the word has been out for the past 18 months among the OA cognoscenti).  The complete story also exists; contrary to erroneous reports, it was not destroyed in the Len Wein house fire, it was merely damaged and has been restored. :whistle: 

Edited by delekkerste
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1 hour ago, delekkerste said:

But, in any case, the 9.9 copy is no longer at the top of the Hulk #181 heap now that the original cover art has been confirmed to exist (not widely known, but, the word has been out for the past 18 months among the OA cognoscenti).  The complete story also exists; contrary to erroneous reports, it was not destroyed in the Len Wein house fire, it was merely damaged and has been restored. :whistle: 

Sorry, all restored comic-related items are automatically 10% of their original value. :kidaround:

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22 hours ago, drbanner said:

Thanks for sharing, book looks beautifully centered but I see this copy suffers from the printer roll/smear through "Canadian Super-Hero". :frown:

It looks like a smash on the black blanket...the "printer rollers" don't touch the paper. The ink goes from an ink fountain onto a metal roller (ink ball), to another metal roller (Metering roller) to the ink transfer rollers made of rubber onto the printing plate and then onto a blanket cylinder (blanket is made of HQ rubber) so if the blanket has a tear in it or a hole, there will be no ink on that spot on the paper, black is almost always the first color printed on the paper which is why you see white there, cause the paper is white before it's printed on.  
 

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3 hours ago, delekkerste said:

So, I acquired (either bought or submitted) almost all of my CGC books between 2000 and 2004 before I just quit cold turkey and moved full time to collecting original art.  As a result, however, my grading standards are pretty much frozen in time as to what prevailed back then, which, despite "soft grading time periods", was almost universally more strict than what I have seen has become of grading standards over the past 10 years (to the extent that I have looked).  

The one major exception regarding the older books being, by and large, more tightly graded (even during the "soft" periods) was in the very early days of CGC still figuring things out.  I don't know what qualifies as a 9.9 nowadays, but, back in my day :preach:, there's no way that 9.9 should have gotten a 9.9 back in the period when I was actively collecting, which I can only chalk up to CGC still finding their feet very early on.  Even on the small-ish scan posted above, you can see that the upper RH corner is a bit blunted, and very slight wear on the lower LH corner, along with that print roll artifact (I very vaguely recall noticing some other minor imperfections as well; we'd need a better scan to confirm, though). I am certain that there have been other Hulk #181s as good or better than this one that have passed through CGC and did not get a 9.9 because that 9.9 was a mistake to begin with. 

I think people forget that even a 9.8 used to be a very tough grade to get back in the first few years of CGC grading (I'd send in cherry-picked off the stands Moderns and many would come back 9.6s!)  If you were collecting slabs from the outset, surely you remember when that nothing book, The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #15 CGC 9.8, hit eBay and sold for stupid money back in the day, just because a 9.8 was so rare.  Remember "danten311" who was scooping up all the PPSS #1s 9.8s for ridiculous money? We had some chats off-line where he said, sure, it's a common book, but, he felt safe with the 9.8s... :whistle: 

All of which is to say that the Hulk #181 9.9 should not have been a 9.9 either then or now, just as the "Gretzky" T-206 Honus Wagner confirmed through court testimony to have been cut/trimmed from an uncut sheet shouldn't have been a PSA 8 either over in baseball card land.  And, yet, in either case, it hasn't really mattered - for better or worse, there's only one CGC 9.9 Hulk #181 and only one PSA 8 T-206 Honus Wagner card, and people want them.

But, in any case, the 9.9 copy is no longer at the top of the Hulk #181 heap now that the original cover art has been confirmed to exist (not widely known, but, the word has been out for the past 18 months among the OA cognoscenti).  The complete story also exists; contrary to erroneous reports, it was not destroyed in the Len Wein house fire, it was merely damaged and has been restored. :whistle: 

Very interesting insight, and for the most part, I agree with all your points.  I have read numerous accounts of this 9.9 not really being a 9.9.  But let me ask this question - Would you rather have that "perfect" 9.8, or this 9.9?  I'm seriously curious what people would say..... 

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8 minutes ago, tdotcbc84 said:

Very interesting insight, and for the most part, I agree with all your points.  I have read numerous accounts of this 9.9 not really being a 9.9.  But let me ask this question - Would you rather have that "perfect" 9.8, or this 9.9?  I'm seriously curious what people would say..... 

I'll take the 9.9 any day of the week 

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19 minutes ago, tdotcbc84 said:

But let me ask this question - Would you rather have that "perfect" 9.8, or this 9.9?  I'm seriously curious what people would say..... 

The 9.9...the illusion has become reality.  The label says 9.9 and, so, a 9.9 it is.  

Plus, I'd be selling it anyway, so, I'd want the one that would fetch more money, which would be the 9.9 because the label trumps the book. :idea: 

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1 hour ago, Kevin76 said:

It looks like a smash on the black blanket...the "printer rollers" don't touch the paper. The ink goes from an ink fountain onto a metal roller (ink ball), to another metal roller (Metering roller) to the ink transfer rollers made of rubber onto the printing plate and then onto a blanket cylinder (blanket is made of HQ rubber) so if the blanket has a tear in it or a hole, there will be no ink on that spot on the paper, black is almost always the first color printed on the paper which is why you see white there, cause the paper is white before it's printed on.  
 

So we can call this defect "HULK SMASH!"? lol

giphy.gif

It's a common printing defect on this book, affecting maybe a quarter of the copies (guessing)?

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3 hours ago, delekkerste said:

So, I acquired (either bought or submitted) almost all of my CGC books between 2000 and 2004 before I just quit cold turkey and moved full time to collecting original art.  As a result, however, my grading standards are pretty much frozen in time as to what prevailed back then, which, despite "soft grading time periods", was almost universally more strict than what I have seen has become of grading standards over the past 10 years (to the extent that I have looked).  

The one major exception regarding the older books being, by and large, more tightly graded (even during the "soft" periods) was in the very early days of CGC still figuring things out.  I don't know what qualifies as a 9.9 nowadays, but, back in my day :preach:, there's no way that 9.9 should have gotten a 9.9 back in the period when I was actively collecting, which I can only chalk up to CGC still finding their feet very early on.  Even on the small-ish scan posted above, you can see that the upper RH corner is a bit blunted, and very slight wear on the lower LH corner, along with that print roll artifact (I very vaguely recall noticing some other minor imperfections as well; we'd need a better scan to confirm, though). I am certain that there have been other Hulk #181s as good or better than this one that have passed through CGC and did not get a 9.9 because that 9.9 was a mistake to begin with. 

I think people forget that even a 9.8 used to be a very tough grade to get back in the first few years of CGC grading (I'd send in cherry-picked off the stands Moderns and many would come back 9.6s!)  If you were collecting slabs from the outset, surely you remember when that nothing book, The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe #15 CGC 9.8, hit eBay and sold for stupid money back in the day, just because a 9.8 was so rare.  Remember "danten311" who was scooping up all the PPSS #1s 9.8s for ridiculous money? We had some chats off-line where he said, sure, it's a common book, but, he felt safe with the 9.8s... :whistle: 

All of which is to say that the Hulk #181 9.9 should not have been a 9.9 either then or now, just as the "Gretzky" T-206 Honus Wagner confirmed through court testimony to have been cut/trimmed from an uncut sheet shouldn't have been a PSA 8 either over in baseball card land.  And, yet, in either case, it hasn't really mattered - for better or worse, there's only one CGC 9.9 Hulk #181 and only one PSA 8 T-206 Honus Wagner card, and people want them.

But, in any case, the 9.9 copy is no longer at the top of the Hulk #181 heap now that the original cover art has been confirmed to exist (not widely known, but, the word has been out for the past 18 months among the OA cognoscenti).  The complete story also exists; contrary to erroneous reports, it was not destroyed in the Len Wein house fire, it was merely damaged and has been restored. :whistle: 

The PSA8 T206 Wagner was sold for $2.8 million in a private sale to Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick in 2007.

The Wagner card was not cut from a sheet. The Wagner T206 was originally "football" shape & trimmed/cut to size (0:22 / 2:19).

There is an episode on CNBC's American Greed.   

 

T206-HonusWagner (PSA8).jpg

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47 minutes ago, Chaos_in_Canada said:

The PSA8 T206 Wagner was sold for $2.8 million in a private sale to Arizona Diamondbacks owner Ken Kendrick in 2007.

The Wagner card was not cut from a sheet. The Wagner T206 was originally "football" shape & trimmed/cut to size (0:22 / 2:19).

 

It was originally cut out from an uncut sheet purchased at a flea market in Florida in the early 1980s (as per the book "The Card").  That's the only way you would get a "football shaped" version of the card, as it would never have been cut out that way except manually from an uncut sheet.  

Mastro trimmed it down to size when he acquired it, to disguise the fact that it had originated from an uncut sheet and was never in circulation to face the ravages of time and human hands (much like the Mile High II Hulk #181s... :whistle: ).

In their book "The Card: Collectors, Con Men and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card," Daily News staffers Teri Thompson and Michael O'Keeffe wrote that the Wagner card had been cut from a printer's sheet before Mastro bought it in 1985 at a Long Island collectibles shop for $25,000.

The indictment says the card was further trimmed by Mastro to make it appear as if it has been carefully preserved for decades after it was removed from a pack of cigarettes in 1909, an act Mastro repeatedly denied for many years. The upgrade not only improved the appearance of the card, but it increased its value significantly and helped spark the trading card and sports memorabilia boom of the 1980s and 1990s.

As an aside, flipping through my copy of "The Card", I forgot that Rob Lifson was with Bill Mastro when he bought The Card back in 1985. Lifson (who now runs Robert Edward Auctions) once had one of the largest collections of Warren-era original cover art (from Vampirella, Eerie, Creepy, etc.); I bought a few pieces from him when I was collecting Vampirella covers back in the day.  Small world!

Edited by delekkerste
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23 hours ago, delekkerste said:

It was originally cut out from an uncut sheet purchased at a flea market in Florida in the early 1980s (as per the book "The Card").  That's the only way you would get a "football shaped" version of the card, as it would never have been cut out that way except manually from an uncut sheet.  

Mastro trimmed it down to size when he acquired it, to disguise the fact that it had originated from an uncut sheet and was never in circulation to face the ravages of time and human hands (much like the Mile High II Hulk #181s... :whistle: ).

In their book "The Card: Collectors, Con Men and the True Story of History's Most Desired Baseball Card," Daily News staffers Teri Thompson and Michael O'Keeffe wrote that the Wagner card had been cut from a printer's sheet before Mastro bought it in 1985 at a Long Island collectibles shop for $25,000.

The indictment says the card was further trimmed by Mastro to make it appear as if it has been carefully preserved for decades after it was removed from a pack of cigarettes in 1909, an act Mastro repeatedly denied for many years. The upgrade not only improved the appearance of the card, but it increased its value significantly and helped spark the trading card and sports memorabilia boom of the 1980s and 1990s.

As an aside, flipping through my copy of "The Card", I forgot that Rob Lifson was with Bill Mastro when he bought The Card back in 1985. Lifson (who now runs Robert Edward Auctions) once had one of the largest collections of Warren-era original cover art (from Vampirella, Eerie, Creepy, etc.); I bought a few pieces from him when I was collecting Vampirella covers back in the day.  Small world!

:foryou:

T206-Wagner (5 card).jpg

Edited by Chaos_in_Canada
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On 1/30/2019 at 2:02 PM, Chaos_in_Canada said:

:foryou:

T206-Wagner (5 card).jpg

Good stuff. 

The sports card market on fire!

Trading Cards Continue To Trounce The S&P 500 As Alternative Investments

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidseideman/2019/01/18/trading-cards-continue-to-trounce-the-sp-500-as-alternative-investments/#3dffefba2f6e

Dont know if true but according to this above FORBES article. 

 

"If a decade ago you had put your money in vintage and modern trading cards instead of the stock market, your payoff would be more than twice as big.

As of December 31, 2018, theTop 500 card Index yielded a 10-year return on investment (ROI) of 165% compared to 71% for the S&P 500 (adjusted for stock splits and other corporate actions) since December 31, 2007."

hm

Edited by COMICCONNOISSEUR
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6 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Good stuff. 

The sports card market on fire!

Trading Cards Continue To Trounce The S&P 500 As Alternative Investments

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidseideman/2019/01/18/trading-cards-continue-to-trounce-the-sp-500-as-alternative-investments/#3dffefba2f6e

Dont know if true but according to this above FORBES article. 

 

"If a decade ago you had put your money in vintage and modern trading cards instead of the stock market, your payoff would be more than twice as big.

As of December 31, 2018, theTop 500 card Index yielded a 10-year return on investment (ROI) of 165% compared to 71% for the S&P 500 (adjusted for stock splits and other corporate actions) since December 31, 2007."

hm

Putting your money into Hulk 181s would have been a better play....... :applause:

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Generally speaking, I can't notice a difference between a 9.8 and a 9.9. Then again, this is just with the naked eye. I also have owned 9.8's that should have been 9.6's.

Regardless, the grading system has never been and will never be perfect, hence the classic phrase, "Buy the book, not the grade.". That's sound advice, unless you plan on flipping the book for a profit. 

In regards to Hulk 181, I remember several years back when people were complaining about how expensive/overpriced it was, and that the bubble would burst, and blah, blah, blah. I'm so glad I didn't listen to those people, because I've made thousands off of H181 (i just stayed away from this book in the 9.8 grade).

So, if the bubble bursts, it's several years away from happening, and it's not going to be a burst, but rather a slow leak that leads to its value deppreciation. I don't even see this happening though.

The very fact that Disney is going to be making X-Men movies for the next 10 years is all the reason one needs to hop on the Hulk 181 investment train.

Putting that aside, Wolverine isn't a character that was made popular through movies. He's one of the most iconic superheros in comic book history, and that alone will prevent a Hulk 181 bubble from ever forming. 

Edited by Darkowl
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