BRAND NEW SELLER HERE ON EBAY, BUT I HAVE BEEN AN A+ SELLER ON GUNBROKER FOR ANTIQUE AND VINTAGE GUNS FOR OVER 10 YEARS UNDER USERNAME "BELGIANTACTICAL," AND ALSO AM THE OWNER AND OPERATOR OF "THE BODHISATTVA COLLECTION" ON TROCADERO FOR NEARLY 20 YEARS, WHERE I DEAL IN SERIOUS SOTHEBYS AND CHRISTIES LEVEL ANTIQUES, AS WELL AS FINE ART
VINTAGE COMIC BOOKS FOR SALE: MOSTLY SILVER AND BRONZE AGE THOUGH SOME GOLDEN AGE, RANDOM ISSUES AND RANDOM LOTS:
This one is The Amazing Spiderman #87, circa 1970. I approximate condition as Very Fine, but please read further below on what I have to say about condition estimations
Ok folks, let's have some fun!!! I have a comic book collection from my childhood that I'm gonna start testing the waters with here.
A word about what I have: I am not a professional comic book collector nor dealer, though I don't doubt for a minute that my appreciation for the antique and vintage things I deal in today (antique and vintage guns, and fine art and antiques, see The Bodhisattva Collection on Trocadero) probably has it roots from this time in my childhood. Even as a young kid I somehow understood the importance of preserving the condition of things, and as such, most of the comics I collected were never actually read: They were placed in those old school cellophane / plastic wraps and just squirreled away. But I stopped collecting comics in my early teens, and my collection has sat dormant and untouched for over 40 years.
I am told that the grading culture is very different now in this CGC world that collectors go by these days, and that it might not square fully with how I used to understand the rudimentary but intuitive grading system that existed when I was a young child collector. I come from the "1970's world of Poor, Good, Very Good, Fine, Very Fine, Near Mint and Mint" ..... but apparently these days, there are fractional decimal point deductions for every single minor crease, every single slightly blunted corner, any slightly loose staple etc etc etc, to the point that the old categories (I'm used to from my childhood) might not mean what I think they mean anymore, I dunno. And the "best" most expensive comics these days are hermetically sealed away in those thermoplastic CGC enclosure slabs, where all you get to see is the front and back cover, under plastic......you can't even thumb the pages, smell that wonderfully musty nostalgic smell of the old comic book paper pages, and see those wonderfully cheesy ads of yesteryear for the "muscle powder that turns you from weakling to beach god"..... or those ads for those "toy rocket-ships you can build in your own yard .. " or those "super power binoculars you could buy"....etc etc etc. SO, in all candor, I don't have much appreciation for or connection to this new "sterile" but apparently high dollar world of slabbed hermetically sealed comic books.... NO DISRESPECT INTENDED to all those who travel in these circles, as I fully understand that's where the market is these days, and it's especially where the high end of the market is. I get it, no problem. So my stuff however is really best suited for, and most appreciated by, the Collectors of the next level or two down, or maybe even three down, who still want very collectible comics with respectable legit inherent value, but who also actually wanna touch and smell these things, flip pages, see the wonderfully cheesy ads of yesteryear, the goofy products they were selling back then, and experience an actual comic book in their hands as they were originally intended to be experienced, and not a piece of thermoplastic... Accordingly, I am not even trying to figure out what the modern, most precise numerical CGC grade would be, I am just going with what I know in terms of the old school grading / old school vernacular that I am personally familiar with, and doing my best to broadly approximate condition between the levels I think probably best apply. In many instances, understanding how picky the market apparently is about condition, I am pre-emptively underestimating condition, and probably inadvertently lowballing myself. Many of my books for instance --especially the #1's from the 1970's -- were bought right off the news stands, never read, just placed in plastic and put away. So but please just use my photos and approximations on condition simply as guides, to help inform your own assessment of condition based on the photos, and do not hold me to any precise declaration of condition or Official Numerical Grade. Because I am not trying to make any precise declarations of condition or Official Numerical Grade, so nor do I intend to make returns based on the fact that even my broadest approximations on condition coupled with representative photos, are sometimes potentially not good enough for some buyers. I am merely doing my honest best in an area that I am not an expert in, and have no desire or intention to try and mislead anybody about any of these books, as I have a public reputation in different but related areas that is important to me. At the end of the day, I'm just a guy trying to sell my old comics.
Consistent with that approach, I am also not shooting for the high end for any lot or individual book, but rather, am pricing towards the bottom middle of the range as my starting bids. In some cases, no matter what I think is the correct and reasonable price range, I still might be off.....feel free to let me know and why and I might indeed re-price an item. Frankly, I might even be vastly underestimating some comics as well, I just don't know for sure. Lastly, be advised I was using the most recent Overstreet Price Guide as my source of pricing info, yet have been told by some that not everyone even follows that anymore, despite the fact that when I was a kid, THAT was the pricing bible...... So again, a lot of uncertainty here, I'm just doing my best with it. NOW WITH ALL THAT SAID, LET'S GET INTO SOME COMICS: I WILL BE LISTING THESE OVER THE NEXT WEEK OR SO AS I HAVE TIME. Thanks for reading, Steve.