Thoughts on this Hulk 181? NM 0

[comicginger1789]

I mean, I wouldn't buy it but people are gaga over this book.

A restored 9.0 (had trimming) sold recently for $3500....so if this is somewhere near that with the resto, even if someone dropped $2500 on it, they could make a small profit after grading even with a purple label. 

Not something I would buy but there is obviously a market if reselling is the goal. However, I would not bank on a restored book growing in value if the goal is to sell in the far future. 

[Randall Ries]

4 hours ago, Keys_Collector said:

Thats a terrible miscut job.  As others have already said, i'd stay far away from that book.  I'd recommend to keep learning and doing your research BEFORE bidding on expensive books.

Sometimes I dive in not thinking until afterward and I have bid a lot. Get blinded by desirability or looking at too many other examples in  short period of time. Books like this I would buy one already graded.

[Keys_Collector]

18 hours ago, Randall Ries said:

Sometimes I dive in not thinking until afterward and I have bid a lot. Get blinded by desirability or looking at too many other examples in  short period of time. Books like this I would buy one already graded.

I'd highly suggest to not do that as I don't know how many times I've had people cancel bids and winning bids because they didn't take enough thought into if they actually wanted the item or didn't have the funds ready.

[Randall Ries]

2 hours ago, Keys_Collector said:

I'd highly suggest to not do that as I don't know how many times I've had people cancel bids and winning bids because they didn't take enough thought into if they actually wanted the item or didn't have the funds ready.

Who said I didn't follow through with the bid? If I whiff, I take my lumps if I am not outbid.

[DT0428]

As a potential buyer on Ebay you have every right to retract your bid as long as it is before 12 hour ending time.  Ebay just asks you to state a reason.  Clearly this book is not slightly restored as there is a major trim job.  That is enough justification.   No need to sit through and take lumps.  This is a large purchase and you should be satisfied with it.  Just my 2 cents

[J-KComics]

38 minutes ago, DT0428 said:

As a potential buyer on Ebay you have every right to retract your bid as long as it is before 12 hour ending time.  Ebay just asks you to state a reason.  Clearly this book is not slightly restored as there is a major trim job.  That is enough justification.   No need to sit through and take lumps.  This is a large purchase and you should be satisfied with it.  Just my 2 cents

Thank you everyone for all the information. As someone who is knew to collecting... It helps alot. I alost knew this book was to good to be true. Like if it was so good why didn't the owner of it get it graded? 

[HighVoltage]

5 minutes ago, J-KComics said:

Thank you everyone for all the information. As someone who is knew to collecting... It helps alot. I alost knew this book was to good to be true. Like if it was so good why didn't the owner of it get it graded? 

An age-old question.

Some folks just don't like or trust CGC and the graded 'game.'

Some folks already know what they are selling and don't want it verified.

When plopping down large dollar amounts, you have to ask yourself: Is it too good to be true?
In this day and age (internet and information) - it is harder to find 'ohmygoshcan'tbelieveit' discoveries.

 

[Randall Ries]

2 hours ago, DT0428 said:

As a potential buyer on Ebay you have every right to retract your bid as long as it is before 12 hour ending time.  Ebay just asks you to state a reason.  Clearly this book is not slightly restored as there is a major trim job.  That is enough justification.   No need to sit through and take lumps.  This is a large purchase and you should be satisfied with it.  Just my 2 cents

That is also accurate. I have such severe OCD I would have rejected the book long before the bidding process. The printing is wonky and the copy I want to buy has to have all of the "Hulk butt" included in frame. When I bought GL/GA 87, it had to have all of GL's foot included in frame.

I went cross eyed one time and made an offer on a copy of a book in that I thought I was bidding on another copy I had seen. He accepted the offer HE actually pointed out that it may not have been what I wanted. Very gracious. I withdrew my bid but was prepared to take it if he got upset. My bad. I will return to his ebay page someday and buy something for real.

With books like IH181, they have to be graded as well. I can't dump several thousand on a major key book without it being graded. There is someone on ebay who has a lot of beautiful, high grade raw books. Someone REALLY took care of their books. They have what has to be a 9.6 HOS 92 among others. I am sure they are untouched but not sure enough to spend $5k on a raw, ungraded book.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Randall Ries

[The Lions Den]

On 10/5/2020 at 6:07 PM, J-KComics said:

I really appreciate the feedback. You are right there are quite a few copies on the market right now. Ya... It would be dangerous to buy this book, I mean I am sure I could get the resale value back for it... but who knows... Personally when I see restored labels on a graded book it makes me cringe. 

Probably one of the most common keys in existence...

 

[joeypost]

So...what happened?

[William-James88]

On 10/5/2020 at 5:01 PM, J-KComics said:

Why? Just curious? 

Because you have not 1 but 2 major issues going against it in a market with tons of non restored copies. So this can be one of those books passed from owner to owner wishing it to be someone else's problem, never really going up in  value. Whatever you are thinking of soending on it, you'd be way better served depending that on a blue label book since the market for that is much more consistent with momentum and value increase/preservation.

[J-KComics]

19 hours ago, joeypost said:

So...what happened?

I didn't buy it. Thank you for all the info guys. Saved me a headache. 

[James J Johnson]

On 10/5/2020 at 3:07 PM, J-KComics said:

 well I am in too deep...  Maybe if someone comes along and bids higher...

The bid will go much higher. All_things_comics listed it as restored, although he did not disclose the obvious trim, IMO.  Even with the MVS page replaced (married), my guess is that the book will finish in the $2000-$2500 range; maybe more. 

A CGC 9.0 restored 181 recently sold for $3900 on ebay, so for a book as expensive as this would be unrestored, don't sell short the often surprising market value of a restored copy, even with a trim job, with of course full disclosure made of all alterations, in this listing one of them left unmentioned, IMO. 

• This book has been slightly restored. There is a small amount of color touch on the cover and page 10 has been married.

[Get Marwood & I]

10 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

The bid will go much higher. All_things_comics listed it as restored, although he did not disclose the obvious trim, IMO.  Even with the MVS page replaced (married), my guess is that the book will finish in the $2000-$2500 range; maybe more. 

A CGC 9.0 restored 181 recently sold for $3900 on ebay, so for a book as expensive as this would be unrestored, don't sell short the often surprising market value of a restored copy, even with a trim job, with of course full disclosure made of all alterations, in this listing one of them left unmentioned, IMO. 

• This book has been slightly restored. There is a small amount of color touch on the cover and page 10 has been married.

The listing that the OP was bidding on ended at $2575 on the 6th James. If you look at the sellers completed sales, they've tried 13 times since July to sell it so far. 

[James J Johnson]

21 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

The listing that the OP was bidding on ended at $2575 on the 6th James. If you look at the sellers completed sales, they've tried 13 times since July to sell it so far. 

OMG!! I didn't realize that. I just searched the listings that came up on that link! The books has come back from the dead almost as many times as Dracula, and is just as cursed. 

I know this seller does his own work, almost exclusively, because the resto and hallmark trimming is all butchered in the exact same way, the same level of botched butchery. Color touch slathered not just on the color breaks but sloppily slathered on the surrounding areas, the colors ranging from near missmatch to grossly mismatched, with the tendency towards to latter. 

Spine lines sloppily touched up, most of the time made too thick and with bulges along the way because the ink soaked into the creases. I'd be very surprised if they used any archival type materials with reversible potential, most of it is clearly inks that soak into surrounding areas. 

What they do is like if you tried to sculpt a fine art wooden statue with only an axe instead of wood sculpting tools. And since a lot of these are obtained as 2.0 to 4.0s, there's typically a lt of edge wear that necessitates trimming off far more than anyone with any sense at all would consider doing, because they don't have the skills nor know how to fix the issues any other way other tan trimming it off, some of them with 1/2 inch gone off multiple edges. 

They are disclosing that certain books, a good portion of them, are restored (if you can call it that), but IMO, it's pretty much at the bottom of the barrel with regards to their skill and final result. The best restoration looks like no restoration at all, and their end results occupy the area of the ladder's bottom rung. 

Edited October 10, 2020 by James J Johnson

[Get Marwood & I]

1 minute ago, James J Johnson said:

OMG!! I didn't realize that. I just searched the listings that came up on that link! The books has come back from the dead almost as many times as Dracula, and is just as cursed.