There were some strong responses to last week’s post, I’ve even received a few emails and had guys bring up the subject when chatting with me at the shop. Our eBay auction results this week only reinforce the growing demand for incomplete books, results on books perhaps one tier below the bigger books selling the past two weeks, an X-Men #3 and an Amazing Spider-Man #10, both missing ad pages, both got great results.
I was talking to the owner of these books, as he came in to deliver more boxes for future auctions, sadly there were no old incomplete Marvels with this load (I can’t believe I just wrote that) and we had a nice little chit chat on the subject.
It turns out he cut the pages out of these early 1963, 1964 Marvels to remind himself of the comics he was missing and still had to hunt down. He was cutting out the Marvel in-house ad pages showcasing other Marvel comics available for sale. Very often this page would be Page 12, just a few pages past the center spread. As he said this a little lightbulb went off in my head, often as I study GPA data on various books I will see Qualified results that sometimes have the comment “missing Page 12”. I never thought much of this comment until this moment where I was discussing our friends cutting out these Marvel ad pages.
The story gets much better as a day later my friend calls me and says he found all those ad pages! He cut them out and stashed them in a file of some sort and they are still there.
Now the fun begins, which ad pages belong to which books missing Page 12?
It gets even better, he is going to bring these pages in on his next visit as I told him I want to try to run them on our eBay auctions! Yes, I may get laughed out of the Bocce club for this but I have a feeling this is going to be a very fun and rewarding exercise. I can see the lineup for the Marriage licenses already starting to form.
Speaking of fine form, last night on our internationalcollectiblesexchange eBay auctions we set a new GPA record for our CGC 4.5 copy of Sgt. Fury #1, the book received 69 bids and closed at $2325 USD. Sgt. Fury #1 remains the cheapest of the original Marvel Keys (check out this post I wrote 11 years ago), a good real estate agent will always tell you that it is good to buy the cheapest house in the most expensive neighbourhood, Advantage Buyer.
The fact that issues missing pages have more and more value, suggests the comic market has went from a collecting and readers market ,to a speculative market. CGC everything. The CGC low grade stuff is now at ridiculous prices, prices once reserved for 8.0 or higher. Everything’s slabbed. Comics turned into hockey cards, except, the hockey card collector still enjoys the entirety of the card. How I hate CGC.
I followed your auctions Walt. You have great auctions. Nice to see your runs of issues, 7 to 12 copies, get interest and good prices. This supports my opinion, that people still want to fill runs, and that comic shops are sadly lacking silver and bronze age run books. Thankfully as conventions return, our ability to fill runs will also increase.
Nice Sgt Fury # 1 Walt. Lots of room to grow on that one. That 4.5 of yours would have graded a 5 or a 6 ten years ago. The grading continuity sucks. Look at any cgc 4 or 4.5 graded from 2001 to 2010 and you’ll see what I mean.
Guess this means we can all go thru our boxes and find the beaters and sell them page by page….
Speaking of cut-outs, missing MVS coupons/cutouts…what does that do?? Walt, what’s your experience: 50% off a CGC/slabbed book?
I had a really nice raw VF/NM Fantastic Four #147 with a great Namor and Thing battle cover, great looking book, worth around $50us…I listed it at $10 and didn’t get a single nibble due to a missing MVS!!! Not sure if the raw books get killed over missing cut outs or if it’s just the fact that Fantastic Four above the Kirby run is dead in my neck of the woods.
Walter: there’s an idea for a show: dead books – what will come back, what has come back, what ain’t never coming back:
Romance comics
Western comics
Horror comics – they are back – they have,um, risen from the dead!!!! (sorry, but I had to)
Super-man – can’t even get a bid on these at Insta/WhatNot auctions, it’s kind of embarrassing
FF that isn’t Kirby Galactus/SS/Black Panther
what’s coming back:
McFarlane – the start of the wave is approaching as these collector hit peak disposable income
X-Men Vol2: we used to laugh at 8 million copies of this #1 issue floating around, but we say that over so many books ‘there’s heaps of copies’…until it dries up…and these books have huge emotional value to the 30 somethings that grew up on this and the animated TV show
There is a Daredevil #1 CGC 8.5 (Qualified – Missing Page 12) that just closed on Comic Link tonight for $9,850, GPA on an 8.5 is over $26,000 – that is a really strong result for the incomplete in my view! Spider, I think it depends on the weight of the book, Hulk #181 with no MVS is good, FF #147 with no value stamp not so much at least for the time being but like I said in the post I think value will creep into more and more common books. You are a wee bit early on that one, wait til 2025 maybe.
Always appreciate ideas for the show!!!
I just don’t get it !- why would you throw good money on an incomplete book ??? That Daredevil sounds like a disaster ! It remains to be seen if this is the beginning of a trend, or something that will die as soon as Covid recedes & normal life returns. If comic prices continue to rise & we are relegated to buying scraps & fragments of books, I will be gone. I have other hobbies to enjoy and other things to collect for reasonable prices, rather than fight donkeys for the right to own a comic book that is missing pages !
Spider- I don’t think that there is a dead book left in the hobby. There are two camps-
1/- Books that are being sought after by speculators [ superhero & pre-code horror, for example ] that are rising in price due to rampant, mindless speculation
2/- Books that are sought after by readers and collectors [ westerns, funny animal such as Disney, Bugs Bunny etc ] & that sell for fair market value.
I am a reader and collector, NOT a speculator & am being forced to collect more & more outside of the vintage superhero genre. I have been relegated to ‘camp 2’. However, I am NOT seeing westerns, romances or funny animals NOT selling. They all have takers & many items are selling near guide, sometimes way above guide. I have not been so lucky as to win any of the western books that I want for anything less than guide and am frequently outbid in spades ! The books I want will NEVER challenge Hulk #181 for financial supremacy, but does that mean that they are ‘dead’???
I guess that the definition of ‘dead’ on this forum means that a book that does not rise in value by $1000.00 every month for the next 10 years is officially dead ! So be it, I will continue to collect, read & enjoy my westerns. You guys can go and buy a loose centrefold from a X-Men #94 for $500.00 !!! Make sure you get it graded !!! Enjoy !
Before I go- did any of you see how well the PROMISE COLLECTION Black Diamond Westerns performed at the recent Heritage Auction a couple days ago ??? They all sold for MULTIPLES of guide ! I guess someone should have told the winning bidders that these are not good investments ! Hoo-Hah !!!
Do you buy Archie books?