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Amazing Spider-Man #33 - is this a known warehouse book?
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47 posts in this topic

On 8/13/2020 at 7:27 PM, KirbyJack said:

Isn't Fantastic Four #44 a warehouse book, too? I've heard it described as such.

I believe so.

For years he auctioned off multiple copies of the same issues and I think that was another book that was routinely being sold through the eBay seller I mentioned.

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3 hours ago, VintageComics said:

Yes.

There was a seller in NJ that would regularly auction those warehouse find books on eBay. Many of you old timers know what / who I'm talking about. ;)

Then the supply on eBay dried up and the consignee had no idea what happened to the books.

When the owner of the books died, I recognized the books from another estate seller and bought out the rest of the high grade books out of that collection. There were multiple copies of ASM #33 in that collection in high grade. I think I had 4 that graded CGC 9.8 from that run and several 9.6 copies among other books.

After me, another board member then purchased what was left of the collection.

I would add X-men #24, Daredevil #24 and Avengers #18 to that list.

There are likely others but I can't remember them right now.

Do you still have copies of ASM 33 left from those or copies you would consider moving?

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2 hours ago, Jginsberg79 said:

Do you still have copies of ASM 33 left from those or copies you would consider moving?

Sorry man, that was a decade ago. Maybe longer. The books are long gone.

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Just by keeping a bit of an eye on eBay seller all_things_comics, it's easy to deduce that there are warehouse quanties on the following.

These are his books sold in the last 3 months (back to June 2):

Amazing Spider-Man #50 = 11 copies
Amazing Spider-Man #129 = 12 copies
Amazing Spider-Man #238 = 17 copies
Amazing Spider-Man #300 = 22 copies

Batman #181 = 9 copies

FF #52 = 13 copies

HULK #181 = 24 copies (YES 24 COPIES)

Iron Man #1 = 11 copies

Marvel Spotlight #5 = 7 copies

Giant Size X-Men #1 = 5 copies

X-MEN #94 = 8 copies

Silver Surfer #1 = 16 copies
Silver Surfer #4 = 3 copies

He also has multiple active listings for most/all of these as well. Now, these are all supposed to be super-rare and expensive books, but this guy has been selling them in limitless quantity for quite a few years and continues to do so. He has others stocked in depth too, such as Avengers 4 and 57, though not quite as many of late. Does anybody study or collate these numbers?

Another thing is that most of these books are described as 'high grade' or 'near perfect' -- but also tend to have colour touches and trimming, which obviously contradicts the high-grade claims. I imagine the seller must have made these amateur "restorations" himself, maybe he has OCD.

 

 

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On 8/30/2020 at 5:32 AM, kustomizer said:

Just by keeping a bit of an eye on eBay seller all_things_comics, it's easy to deduce that there are warehouse quanties on the following.

These are his books sold in the last 3 months (back to June 2):

Amazing Spider-Man #50 = 11 copies
Amazing Spider-Man #129 = 12 copies
Amazing Spider-Man #238 = 17 copies
Amazing Spider-Man #300 = 22 copies

Batman #181 = 9 copies

FF #52 = 13 copies

HULK #181 = 24 copies (YES 24 COPIES)

Iron Man #1 = 11 copies

Marvel Spotlight #5 = 7 copies

Giant Size X-Men #1 = 5 copies

X-MEN #94 = 8 copies

Silver Surfer #1 = 16 copies
Silver Surfer #4 = 3 copies

He also has multiple active listings for most/all of these as well. Now, these are all supposed to be super-rare and expensive books, but this guy has been selling them in limitless quantity for quite a few years and continues to do so. He has others stocked in depth too, such as Avengers 4 and 57, though not quite as many of late. Does anybody study or collate these numbers?

Another thing is that most of these books are described as 'high grade' or 'near perfect' -- but also tend to have colour touches and trimming, which obviously contradicts the high-grade claims. I imagine the seller must have made these amateur "restorations" himself, maybe he has OCD.

 

 

I was about to check out this ebay seller until I saw the comment about minor restoration.

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On 8/30/2020 at 7:32 AM, kustomizer said:

He also has multiple active listings for most/all of these as well. Now, these are all supposed to be super-rare and expensive books, but this guy has been selling them in limitless quantity for quite a few years and continues to do so. He has others stocked in depth too, such as Avengers 4 and 57, though not quite as many of late. Does anybody study or collate these numbers?

Another thing is that most of these books are described as 'high grade' or 'near perfect' -- but also tend to have colour touches and trimming, which obviously contradicts the high-grade claims. I imagine the seller must have made these amateur "restorations" himself, maybe he has OCD.

Many of those are not warehouse books. They're just popular keys.

This sell all_things_comics has been discussed here on this chat forum MANY times and has been accused of using questionable practices.

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On 8/30/2020 at 6:32 AM, kustomizer said:

Now, these are all supposed to be super-rare

:roflmao: No, they definitely are not. Rarity is about supply, not demand or price or anything else. None of the books you listed are anywhere near rare; acquiring them is simply a matter of spending enough money.

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3 hours ago, VintageComics said:

Many of those are not warehouse books. They're just popular keys.

This sell all_things_comics has been discussed here on this chat forum MANY times and has been accused of using questionable practices.

The fact that he's been selling multiples of these issues, week after week for at least ten years, reasonably implies he has warehouse level quantities of them. I guess nobody who's spent thousands of dollars on common books wants to know about this, however.

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Just now, kustomizer said:

The fact that he's been selling multiples of these issues, week after week for at least ten years, reasonably implies he has warehouse level quantities of them. I guess nobody who's spent thousands of dollars on common books wants to know about this, however.

None of the books he's selling are rare. They're all available to anyone with money to buy them. I think most collectors who have been collecting for more than just a few years realize this.

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1 minute ago, VintageComics said:

None of the books he's selling are rare. They're all available to anyone with money to buy them. I think most collectors who have been collecting for more than just a few years realize this.

Yeah, that's pretty much the point. These books are common and supply exceeds demand.

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10 minutes ago, kustomizer said:

Yeah, that's pretty much the point. These books are common and supply exceeds demand.

OK, I thought you were saying they must have been warehouse finds because they had multiple copies.

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25 minutes ago, kustomizer said:

The fact that he's been selling multiples of these issues, week after week for at least ten years, reasonably implies he has warehouse level quantities of them. I guess nobody who's spent thousands of dollars on common books wants to know about this, however.

It seemed like when I listed a raw copy of Spidy 238 or 300 that seller was buying my copies.  So they likely buy to resell directly from Ebay for at least a portion of there inventories.  

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16 hours ago, kustomizer said:

The fact that he's been selling multiples of these issues, week after week for at least ten years, reasonably implies he has warehouse level quantities of them.

Okay, so now we've established that you have no idea what "warehouse book" means.

16 hours ago, kustomizer said:

I guess nobody who's spent thousands of dollars on common books wants to know about this, however.

The only reason there may be anybody who doesn't understand how common the books you listed are is the relatively recent influx of insufficiently_thoughtful_persons into the hobby market.

16 hours ago, kustomizer said:

Yeah, that's pretty much the point. These books are common

I thought they were super-rare. (shrug)

16 hours ago, kustomizer said:

and supply exceeds demand.

:screwy: When supply exceeds demand, books sell slowly and for low prices.

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14 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

Okay, so now we've established that you have no idea what "warehouse book" means.

The only reason there may be anybody who doesn't understand how common the books you listed are is the relatively recent influx of insufficiently_thoughtful_persons into the hobby market.

I thought they were super-rare. (shrug)

:screwy: When supply exceeds demand, books sell slowly and for low prices.

KNOWN supply, obviously. And everyone knows what a warehouse book is, so shove your snide little insults. Is being a creepy passive-aggressive misanthrope like you acceptable on this board, is it? Nasty, nasty...

Edited by kustomizer
typo
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7 hours ago, kustomizer said:

And everyone knows what a warehouse book is

Then maybe "everyone" shouldn't post stupid things that suggest they have no idea what they're talking about (and no, not everybody knows). :eyeroll:

I just saw your posts in the Hulk 181 thread, which show that you actually do know what a warehouse book is, but I never would have guessed that from your posts in this thread. Your posts in this thread paint you as one of the clueless newbs who recently became involved with comics because they're hot.

Posting like you're an insufficiently_thoughtful_person will likely make people assume you're an insufficiently_thoughtful_person, whether it's true or not. If you're intelligent and knowledgeable, show it. Some people will dislike you for it, but it's worth it.

7 hours ago, kustomizer said:
21 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

When supply exceeds demand, books sell slowly and for low prices.

KNOWN supply, obviously.

What does "known supply" mean? We have rough estimates of how many copies of many issues were both printed and distributed. We know that while copies distributed is generally supposed to be the cap for extant copies, it actually isn't. But nobody can actually know the number of extant copies of the vast majority of issues.

The often-false perceptions that some people have do affect how they value things, but available, visible supply does matter if you want to buy something right now.

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Exactly.

And for the people in the back -- books like ASM 50, 129, 238 and 300, and Hulk 181 don't need to be warehouse books -- they're just ridiculously common anyway.

"Warehouse" is entirely irrelevant to the discussion of those books.

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I remember listing to a story from an old time comic dealer who did acquire warehouse copies back in the 1980's, although not quoting the exact year.  He remembers cutting bundle straps on copies of Fantastic Four 48, than sifting out the damaged copies on the top and bottom. Than pulling the pristine copies tucked away in the middle of the stack which avoiding the edge curls and creasing.  They set aside the perfect copies in the office, but it was only a matter of months before a collector hustled them out of the pristine copies.  The books trickled away as sales, as a dealer it was there job to sell the books at a price point where you could retail and wholesale copies.    The books just blew away in the wind, so to speak.  

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The story goes that around here, Northern Virginia to be exact, a prominent dealer walked into a show with an unopened bundle of Hulk 1 .... normally this would go in the "grain of salt" file... but the story came from someone who has never lied to me, and the dealer in question certainly had the means to unearth something like that. GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)(thumbsu

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It's a waste of time to track a sales trend on all-things-comics since they probably got returns and resold some of the books mentioned. 

I also think the supply/demand argument doesn't happen in a vaccuum...even if few people are interested in buying a "cooled off" key book...only desperate sellers are selling off into steep declines in demand/price. 

Edited by bababooey
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