Biggest Regret or Score in the last decade? 4 4

[ThothAmon]

33 minutes ago, namisgr said:

I've parted with near complete or complete slabbed runs of Silver Age Amazing Spiderman, Fantastic Four, Journey Into Mystery/Thor, Tales of Suspense, Strange Tales, Avengers, and X-Men, along with Hulk 1-6 and Amazing Fantasy 15.  While I sometimes miss this slabbed collection, and could get a lot more money now

  if you don’t mind sharing what was the motivation for selling? Do you still collect GA or other books, art?  

[namisgr]

28 minutes ago, ThothAmon said:

  if you don’t mind sharing what was the motivation for selling? Do you still collect GA or other books, art?  

The high grade SA collection was sold for a few reasons.  First, we were nearing retirement and the money made a difference in when we could retire.  Second, I'm not a fan, to put it mildly, of what rampant pressing has done to the hobby.  For my own collection I strongly preferred unpressed comics, and when it became increasingly difficult to find high grade Silver that hadn't been manipulated, collecting high grade Silver lost much of its appeal.  Finally, a large collection of slabs would be a burden to leave to my son, who's beginning his independent life and is likely to be moving one or more times.

I still own over 2,500 bronze and early copper age books bought off the rack back in the day, plus collections of unslabbed picture frame Marvels, a complete run of Master of Kung Fu that includes 60 issues from the Western Pennsylvania pedigree, early runs of the Marvel Tales and Marvel's Greatest Comics that reprint early SA greatness, and a collection of undergrounds begun in the '70s focused on Crumb, Shelton, social commentary and sci-fi/fantasy.  All of these will ultimately be sold.  I still collect actively, too, and am always looking to add to my slabbed collection of high grade picture frame Marvels, although I suppose even these will be sold some time in the future.

 

Edited February 17, 2018 by namisgr

[Gotham Kid]

1 hour ago, TheFifthHorseman said:

Biggest regret in last decade?

Not knowing about bitcoin

no sh*t !

[batman_fan]

2 hours ago, Bronty said:

nice!   20 years later that must be worth so much more than what you paid. 

I am guessing it has gone up. At the time I did a loan to buy it. 

[musicmeta]

On 2/14/2018 at 11:43 AM, Wolverinex said:

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. 

Biggest Regret! - A bunch of books I've sold over the past decade and the previous one.  I regret selling every D*** one of them.  

[Columbia Comics]

Biggest score and regret....buying and selling this:

[Robot Man]

On 2/16/2018 at 6:28 PM, kilowatt said:

Biggest Score...a guy on Craigslist posted some comic books for sale and I contacted him. We met at a coffee shop on a cold December day and he brought with him a tote filled with books. He was looking for $50 and told me his father said no less. The guy was around 20 or so.  I looked through the books (just about all 70's stuff) and on the bottom were some Creepy and Eerie magazines. We were told that we could not use the shop for business and we were asked to leave. I figured around 200 books and magazines, why not. Gave him the $50 and we left. The score was minimal, I could maybe double my money, a lot of common comics, but they were in great shape and they filled some holes. So I kept them. The next day I get a phone call from the same guy and he tells me his father wants to speak with me. I'm now thinking these were his Dad's books and wants them back. To my surprise he has more books and wants to meet. I meet him at a gas station near his house, and find out the guy's legit. He's around my age and after talking awhile we head over to his house. He begins to tell me his parents owned a small Mom & Pop store in the 60's and 70's and when the comic books and magazines were changed out weekly or monthly his father stacked them in egg boxes till they were filled and stored them away in his basement. He proceeded to take me downstairs and as I hit the last step I nearly fell to the ground. There were literally 50-60 boxes stacked neatly in a small room. I opened one of the boxes and there were multiple copies of 70`'s Amazing Spider-Man, X-men, Action Comics...you get the point. These copies were as fresh as the day they were printed. The guy wanted $50 a box. Sight unseen. I wouldn't be able to open any more boxes, and as long as I bought 4 boxes or more a month they were mine exclusively. I decided to buy 2 boxes to start. I picked two of the bottom boxes towards the back of the stack, handed him the money and walked out the door. I didn't want to seem too eager but once I left the house I parked in a shopping center parking lot and opened the first box. There were multiple copies of Tales of Suspense, Amazing Spider-Man, Batman, X-men, different titles all from the late 60's. I went back there every couple weeks and bought up every box he had. I later confirmed the books dated from the mid 60's till the mid 70's. Star Wars #3 was the latest book in the collection. In total I paid $2650 for 53 boxes with roughly 340-350 books in each box. That's around 18,250 books. The Magazines were amazing! Creepy 1-66, Eerie 2-56, Zombie, Mad, House of Dracula, the list goes on. Highlights were;  Hulk 102, Iron Man 1, Conan #1, 4 copies of ASM 129, Hulk 181, 6 copies of Submariner #1, 5 copies of Star Wars #1, multiple Batman, Detective, Flash...  there's no way I can tell you everything in this collection. In short it was a once in a lifetime score for a comic book collector. There was a risk in paying $50 for the unknown, but in the long run it was the best decision I ever made. Now many of you won't believe this story, and I don't blame you. It is far-fetched, but my nephew is on this site and he knows the truth. It really did happen.  

I believe you!

[01TheDude]

Not sure I have a biggest score to share-- mostly small potatoes. But every time I visit the Silver forum, I see that FF 52 thread and regret selling my copy on Ebay when I first came along to these boards. At the time, I had no intention of collecting FF though I had a small sample in my collection. Then through collecting Strange  Tales and all the FF/Torch/Thing appearances found there, I started picking up some more silver FF. I also sold an ASM 31 so if I ever get the ASM bug, that sale will hurt more too. Wish I had held on to both books-- probably got a decent price at the time but the FF 52 book has gone crazy ever since I sold it.

Edited February 18, 2018 by 01TheDude

[spreads]

This is a friend of mine so I hope he doesn't mind me posting this, there's a lot more details but this is the summary:

"I've got a few stories, but the best was $150 for 23+ long boxes, sight unseen, all unbagged. Some highlights from that collection :
Avengers 1
Hulk 181 7.5
Iron Man 55
Invincible 1 9.8
ASM 129 7.5
Strange Tales 135
And so many more."

I've since started calling him Chuck.

 

Edited February 18, 2018 by spreads

[Boozad]

Selling my Batman #232 9.4 and #251 9.4 back in 2013. Really wish I hadn’t, I miss those books bad, especially the #232. 

[jsilverjanet]

On 2/15/2018 at 2:55 PM, The Resurrection said:

It's funny we say this, but the amount of money we steadily make from comics is a blessing.

100 percent! 

A lot of things I’ve sold I could have made more money if I’d kept them longer or held them a few more days/weeks. However I probably wouldn’t have brought the next haul if I didn’t have the money from that sale to spend. 

What always amazes me is not so much the big books as those I expect to sell and make money but the stuff that normally I didn’t think would sell or be worth as much as it is ($5-$20 books). Those have afforded us a nice life for us that I’m very thankful for

[jsilverjanet]

My biggest regrets have been buying some lots that I should have had zero interest in buying. A few times I’ve paid too much for a large amount of books and then struggled to get rid of them and the amount of work was to great for very little to no profit.

my biggest finds have been too many to pick just one, I’ve been very lucky and forunate in the past and hope it continues this year

[Spidey 62]

I am not a lucky person, so I don't have anything that would really be considered a score, and conversely I am a conservative buyer and don't have any real regrets.  Don't know if that is a gift or a curse. 

[D-Optimist]

My biggest regret is not buying Black Panther #1 in great condition when I saw it at NYCC a year or two ago...

[Kevin.J]

Longer ago than a decade but whatever.

In the 80s, I used to set up at a local show selling duplicates of books I bought from ads in the papers etc, used to get lots of peeps turning up trying to sell/trade stuff.

One guy shows up and has AF 15 and Spidey 1, to my untrained eyes they were both NM and pretty much the only copies I had ever seen, he wanted 1k for them both, I had about 500 but he wouldn't take it as a deposit or split them, I really regret not working harder to raise the funds from pals etc, after that I carried a 1k float each show for about 3 years but never saw him again  

At the same time I regret selling some HG X-men and my Silver surfers at the same show when I was skint, long since replaced them all but nowhere near the grades.

Big score but regrets lol were picking up cheap SA books in the 70/80s when for not much more could have had GA books instead

Biggest scores were all the nice easy stuff I bought at the time which I would not have been able to afford if I needed them now.

Guess I have been more lucky than unlucky and have a nice collection, but we always remember the ones that got away

[porcupine48]

1 minute ago, Kevin.J said:

Longer ago than a decade but whatever.

In the 80s, I used to set up at a local show selling duplicates of books I bought from ads in the papers etc, used to get lots of peeps turning up trying to sell/trade stuff.

One guy shows up and has AF 15 and Spidey 1, to my untrained eyes they were both NM and pretty much the only copies I had ever seen, he wanted 1k for them both, I had about 500 but he wouldn't take it as a deposit or split them, I really regret not working harder to raise the funds from pals etc, after that I carried a 1k float each show for about 3 years but never saw him again  

At the same time I regret selling some HG X-men and my Silver surfers at the same show when I was skint, long since replaced them all but nowhere near the grades.

Big score but regrets lol were picking up cheap SA books in the 70/80s when for not much more could have had GA books instead

Biggest scores were all the nice easy stuff I bought at the time which I would not have been able to afford if I needed them now.

Guess I have been more lucky than unlucky and have a nice collection, but we always remember the ones that got away

What about that giant stack of  sweet ASM 129's you saw Kev?Did you forget that one? 

[Kevin.J]

4 minutes ago, porcupine48 said:

What about that giant stack of  sweet ASM 129's you saw Kev?Did you forget that one? 

Well they weren't worth that much at the time, it was only later that the prices went crazy, so I got 1 or maybe 2 from him

He sold those to Mile high comics for a few bucks each I think

[Gaard]

Biggest regret was not installing shut-off valves under the kitchen sink when I bought my house. Came home from work one day and the pipe under the sink had sprung a leak during the day ... the basement was flooded by the time I got home. I tossed a short box of comics, including 2 copies of TMNT #1 I had bought off the shelf.

[Batman1fan]

I've posted this before, but my biggest regret is not buying an Action Comics 242 in solid 4.0-4.5 condition from my LCS that they had priced at...$80.00!   This was only about 3 to 4 years ago.  The book had been on the wall for months, if not longer.  I'm primarily a Batman collector, so all I really knew about the book at the time was that it had a neat Curt Swan purple cover (I love purple covers) and it was an issue I needed for my Action Comics run.  I even asked the guy behind the counter if I could take a closer look at it, and he said "Sure!".  I paged through it and it was complete, with a firmly attached cover and centerfold.  Not knowing the significance of the book, I offered him $50.00 for it.  He said he would have to ask the manager, who would be in the next day.  I figured since the book had been there for as long as I could remember, it would surely be there the next day.  I went back the next day, and, you guessed it, it was gone.  It had sold earlier that day.  This one still stings everytime I think about it, but I learned a valuable lesson that has come in handy more than once since then, and that is, if I am looking at a comic book or a toy that I want and it's priced fairly, if I can afford it, I pay the price and buy it.  To try to save $30.00, that I had in my pocket no less, I missed out on a comic that would cost me $2,000.00 or so to buy today.  Lesson learned.  My biggest score would be one of two:  A Detective Comics 46 in about 4.0 condition that I bought at a small local show about 5 years ago for $60.00, and/or the Batman 121 in 4.0-4.5 condition that I got on ebay a few years back for $72.00.  I still have both of those, and they are not going anywhere.  At todays prices, I couldn't afford to replace either of them.

[Old Fashion PB and J]

18 hours ago, D-Optimist said:

My biggest regret is not buying Black Panther #1 in great condition when I saw it at NYCC a year or two ago...

Oh to be young again. I remember that being a $5.00 book, 5 years ago   Heck I think most of my FF52's I owned cost me between 50-200 bucks and they were at worst F-