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Biggest Regret or Score in the last decade?
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I always enjoy reading amazing scores on this board, and I've seen a lot of people have been members for over a decade... looking back, what was your biggest regret or score?  I'm a small potatoes compared to most of you all but here's mine.

  So far my biggest regret was buying Seven to Eternity 1A at 100 bucks raw back in the summer... ugh... its like 30 bucks now. 

My biggest score was a NM Batman 635 for 10 bucks or so. 

 

  I am a new member but it will be nice  to reread this thread 10 years from now. 

Edited by Wolverinex
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I'm sure you want a post from a longer time member, but I feel the same way about certain books priced at $100. The venom alpha & omega #1's. There have been enough sold that I know that I'm not alone...But it takes a couple of years sometimes and the fewer that come to market makes a perceived rarity. But again I feel the success of some when ratio comics weren't a big thing makes everyone aware now. The main thing is to buy what you like and you'll be satisfied. 

My biggest regret so far, even though I haven't been around 10 years lol, is trading my ASM 129 cgc 4.5 and silver surfer 4 cgc 8.0 for the sideshow wolverine vs hulk statue... I love the statue and would have got it anyway... But it was priced at $700 and after I traded the LCS priced the ASM at $550 and the SS at $500 so they were making $$ hand over fist. But I got the SS for like $300 and the ASM for $450, so I thought it was an even trade ha. I just wish I had haggled for a little more store credit in the deal, instead of just a this for that kind of deal. :foryou:

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My biggest comic regrets are not bidding over $150 for 3 copies of X23 1 dell ottos variants. They exploded right after that. Settling for an ASM 300 in 9.6 when 9.8s were only $500 at the time. Also I missed a Batman 635 last year with the guy next to me pulling it out for only a couple bucks.

Biggest scores :smile: Finding a couple awesome marvel copper age hauls that included new mutants 98, 87, Annual 2, X-men 266, 244, 221, X-factor 6, 24 etc. My last 98 I found graded a 9.6. Other scores Superior 20 campbell that graded 9.8, my hulk 181 that I bought raw grading 9.0. My ASM 129 that I got before the Daredevil show, Conan 1 that bumped up to a 9.6

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Biggest regret is easy -- DEFINITELY it would be buying my first 9.8 copy of the Wolverine 145 Nabisco variant for $2700.  Especially since it was back in the days when I really didn't have the scratch to make that kind of blunder.  It can be had around a grand these days. 

But I guess the flipside -- one score I'm very happy about is the 9.6 copy I bought for about $200, had signed (Yu and Stan) and pressed, and its now an SS 9.8.  The other would be the PGX 9.8 (yes PGX actually got one right!) copy of Wolverine 102.5 I bought for $400 and change.  Sign (Buckingham), on-site:  still the one and only SS 9.8 on the census! 

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Biggest Regret: I went to a garage sale and asked the guy running it if he had any comics. He then explained to me how he sold a giant box of old super-hero comics from the 50's and 60's to some guy the day before for 20 bucks. Sometimes people think there comics are older then they are, but these were his comics from when he was a child. He said they were all ten cents or twelve cents back when he bought them, and they had been in a box in the attic untouched for decades. He was asking 40 but the guy talked him down to 20. I literally drove past that garage sale the day before and thought "nah, I'll check it out tomorrow". 

Biggest score: Some guy was selling 3 long boxes of comics in great shape for $300. I get there and he has every single New Mutants comic from 1 - 100, all the annuals, and the original graphic novel. He also had an amazing flash run (like five 10 cent books, fifteen 12 cent books, tons of 25 cents and up books. He had a Flash run from 223-350, only missing 2 books. (235 & 346). The guy actually was looking up New Mutants 98 on ebay when I pulled up, so I thought he was going to increase the price, but he was happy to let them go for 300. 

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I have had some huge scores in some of my other collecting hobbies, but comics not so much. I did win a storage bin auction like 5 years back that had 6 short comic boxes full of silver age comics, but the condition of the comics were around 5.0-6.0 tops, at least in my estimation. So many still had a decent value, but nothing astronomical. Wonder Woman's increase in popularity since the films release has defintely helped the value on many of those comics as like 3/4 of one of those boxes were nothing but Wonder Woman comics. 

That said, I think my biggest score, at least given the current market, is probably an order I placed with Dynamite Comics like 7 or so years back. This was before Dynamite switched over to each cover having a unique UPC number so just what cover you got when you ordered a particular comic was purely left up to chance. Lucio Parrillo had become one of my absolute favorite artists with his Vampirella, Warlord of Mars and Queen Sonja runs so I got in touch with Dynamite CS by email and told them I was interested in buying a LOT of Vampirella, Warlord of Mars, and Queen Sonja comics, but only if they allowed me to pick which cover I got as I was only after the Lucio Parrillo covers. To my surprise, they actually agreed and I wound up getting around 5-10 copies of like 35 different Parrillo covers including Vampirella #19. And because my order wound up being so large, they actually wound up giving me a 15% discount off the entire order.

The problem is, I don't know the exact value of those comics as I don't have an up to date price guide. I just know by watching eBay that many of those covers today are selling as high as $15-$30+, especially the copies that are in roughly 9.6-9.8 condition and all of the comics I got were definitely in the 9.6-9.8 range. I have seen mint Vampirella #19 covers sell as high as $100 recently. So I really don't have an exact figure that I can give, but I know its SIGNIFICANTLY more than what I paid. 

My biggest regret is spending as much as I did to replace all of the Michael Turner prints I lost when we had our house fire as Aspen wound up tanking the entire Aspen print market and most of those prints have lost 60-70% of their value. 

You win some and you lose some. That's just life. 

Edited by OrangeCrush
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Best buy: getting My Greatest Adventure 8.0w on eBay for $300 in 2013.

 

Worst buy: Oh, there are many.  Watching Roy keep bidding up the 9.2 Mound City copy of MGA 81 well beyond what any sane person would pay and not being smart enough to walk away from it is one burned into memory.  Oy vey gevalt

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59 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

Biggest Regret:  Not buying Action #1 from Cherokee Books for $300 in 1972. (Not that I could have afforded it anyway at the time)

Biggest Score: Several but I've told some of them already here on the boards.

Sometimes, it pays to be a geezer...:preach:

Oh my...Action 1..... what condition was it?

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Best Buy-Buying an AF 15 off these boards for $9500.

Biggest regret-Selling it a year later for $14,500 minus commission. Only bright side was I used some of the money for a TTA 27 I flipped for a 120% profit, and some for an Avengers 4 that I had signed by both Stan and Joe Simon.

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In the last 10 years. Biggest Scores a small run of All Stars including the 8 in 2.0 and an X-men 1 in 8.0 for a fraction of GPA. Plus finding 2 Collections 1 all Golden age and 1 Gold-to modern filled with big books.

Biggest regret selling some of the GA books so fast, and some unfinished Golden Age deals. 

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Biggest Score of the Decade:

a forum member was kind enough to sell me a sweet NM copy of Detective Comics #486. It wasn’t a sales thread, he just happened to mention in passing in a discussion thread that he had been selling off those dollar comics. It’s not super rare or valuable, no “movie hype” or flip potential. It‘s just a beloved comic from my childhood, probably the first “real” solo Batman comic I bought off the rack (if you don’t count the Power Records comic I had). And it seems impossible to find those dollar comics in decent shape because of the format. That acquisition still brings a smile to my face. 

 

Biggest Regret of the Decade:

with the exception of the above, continuing to waste so much of my limited disposable income on high grade NM/NM+/NMMT copies when, with some patience and searching, I could have bought really nice looking VF- to VF/NM copies, paid a fraction of the price, and actually felt comfortable *gasp* reading them, not just salting them away in a Mylar/slab/boring white comic box. The kicker is if I dropped dead tomorrow and wife took all those “high grade” NM copies to a dealer she’d probably get the same pennies-on-the-dollar as for VF copies (I’m talking Bronze/Copper non-key)

A related regret is wasting so much time/money putting together a run of a character/titles that I thought were cool as a kid but have no interest in reading or, in some cases, even looking at the art. 

Edited by Number 6
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38 minutes ago, Number 6 said:

Biggest Score of the Decade:

a forum member was kind enough to sell me a sweet NM copy of Detective Comics #486. It wasn’t a sales thread, he just happened to mention in passing in a discussion thread that he had been selling off those dollar comics. It’s not super rare or valuable, no “movie hype” or flip potential. It‘s just a beloved comic from my childhood, probably the first “real” solo Batman comic I bought off the rack (if you don’t count the Power Records comic I had). And it seems impossible to find those dollar comics in decent shape because of the format. That acquisition still brings a smile to my face. 

 

Biggest Regret of the Decade:

with the exception of the above, continuing to waste so much of my limited disposable income on high grade NM/NM+/NMMT copies when, with some patience and searching, I could have bought really nice looking VF- to VF/NM copies, paid a fraction of the price, and actually felt comfortable *gasp* reading them, not just salting them away in a Mylar/slab/boring white comic box. The kicker is if I dropped dead tomorrow and wife took all those “high grade” NM copies to a dealer she’d probably get the same pennies-on-the-dollar as for VF copies (I’m talking Bronze/Copper non-key)

A related regret is wasting so much time/money putting together a run of a character/titles that I thought were cool as a kid but have no interest in reading or, in some cases, even looking at the art. 

I have the same sentiments sometimes about buying NM comics...  maybe I should just focus on reader copies that I can read and enjoy.... if I lose them  who cares....

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Biggest regret of the decade: Not buying mega keys a decade ago. Buying random books with no focus.

Biggest score: In 2016 I bought a raw ASM 50 (PGM here ranged from 7.0-8.5) in a lot with 47, 48 and 49 for $150. The pics were bad on the listing. I took a chance with the BIN and it paid off. But all in all, really good deals are far and few between these days.

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59 minutes ago, Wolverinex said:

I have the same sentiments sometimes about buying NM comics...  maybe I should just focus on reader copies that I can read and enjoy.... if I lose them  who cares....

It's tough man.  Ever since I seriously got into collecting comics when I was in my teens in the mid-80's, I've had the condition thing pounded into me.  It's hard to let it go.  Even now when I look at a VF copy of something I get that nagging voice in the back of my mind "but for just a few more bucks you get one just a bit nicer than that".  And it seems like every time I look at a non-NM book the defects are the first things that jump out at me like 3-D.... never mind that 90-95% of the comic looks great.  The OCD condition thing drives me nuts.

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5 hours ago, shadroch said:

Best Buy-Buying an AF 15 off these boards for $9500.

Biggest regret-Selling it a year later for $14,500 minus commission. Only bright side was I used some of the money for a TTA 27 I flipped for a 120% profit, and some for an Avengers 4 that I had signed by both Stan and Joe Simon.

If your biggest regret is a sale that netted you $5,000 in profit...well, your certainly doing a lot better than 99.9% of the other collectors out there, myself included. 

It's tough man.  Ever since I seriously got into collecting comics when I was in my teens in the mid-80's, I've had the condition thing pounded into me.  It's hard to let it go.  Even now when I look at a VF copy of something I get that nagging voice in the back of my mind "but for just a few more bucks you get one just a bit nicer than that".  And it seems like every time I look at a non-NM book the defects are the first things that jump out at me like 3-D.... never mind that 90-95% of the comic looks great.  The OCD condition thing drives me nuts.

I'm that same way with limited edition prints. If there is even a tiny ding on one of the corners, I just cant do it. The prints I buy have to be in mint condition with no visible flaws or defects.

Edited by OrangeCrush
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Best score buying an Iron Man #1 in VF for $10.00 at a flee market in the 70's. Regrets plenty. Someone had NM copies of Hulk 180,181,182 back in the 80's he wanted $60.00 bucks for 180 and 182 and $60.00 for 181. $60.00 is all I had at the time so I bought 180 and 182 thinking I would save my mowing money and go back the next week and get 181 needless to say I still don't have a 181 :facepalm: In 1992 or 93 could have bought Avengers #4 in NM for $850 an Iron Man #55 NM for $90.00 Action #252 in 8.5 for $500.00 do I need to continue :cry:

 

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