Yesterday, a fairly odd gentleman popped into my shop to sell some comics. He was completely over the top with the theatrics as he presented each item one by one. Usually I would just look as it would take me a mere moment to accomplish what took him about 15 minutes to do...but he was so animated & excited that I didn’t interrupt the presentation. He had a backstory for several of the books and he would hype it up, then pull it out of his book bag to show me...all one by one.
He started with a stack of raw books that were all signed. He was an autograph hound it seemed as most of the raw books were signed by one of the creators that worked on it. He even snapped some pics of the signings. I’ll show some of those here along with a handful of other randoms signed books.
Now signed stuff does literally nothing for me personally. If raw, it actually makes it fairly difficult to move in the shop as most folks want CGC certified Signature Series labels for their books. But I listened...
Then he showed a few more books which included the 1st appearance of Dolphin in Showcase Presents 79, the full mini series of Punisher, and weirdly the first 7 issues of Alf which he talked up for a minute as I tried not to laugh.
The only Alf issue I want in my shop (which I’ve never ever had weirdly enough) is issue #48 in which it looks like our favorite cat eating alien is raping a seal. 2 questions on this one...Who the fuck approved this cover?!? How the fuck did Alf make it #48 issues?!?
Sadly...he did NOT have this issue.
But he did have 3 Silver Surfer hardcovers all signed by Stan Lee, all with COA’s...which kinda mean jack shit nowadays.
Still unimpressed...he broke out the closers. Three slabs. First he broke out a Punisher #1 mini series CGC 9.8. It’s a nice book and seems to fetch between $350-$425 bucks. He overvalued it at around $500-$600 as he was going through his presentation. I just let him continue without interruption as I was waiting to rain on his parade.
The next book is a really cool one. I kinda wish it was on a better issue as this specific issue is just a regular silver age book with nothing crazy happening in it, but it’s the sigs on it that make this gem shine. It’s a CGC slab of Captain America #132. It’s a signature series which means CGC’s witnesses saw the sigs happen. That gets this bad boy a yellow label which is what is desired and is pretty much the standard as far as signed Comics go in this day and age.
It’s got 3 sigs on it...Stan Lee, Gene Colon, & Joe Simon. Simon co created Captain America and he does not have a ton of Signature Series books out there. I guess the same kinda goes for Colon. Both of those classic creators passed away I believe in 2011. Stan on the other hand passed last year and his scumbag handlers propped him up as a signature factory for the last few years of his life...so there are approximately...78 gazillion signed books by him.
The big book of the lot though was a CGC Silver Surfer #1 grading at an 8.5 and signed by Stan Lee...not once...but oddly twice. Not sure I’ve ever seen that before.
The story was that the dude got it signed and Stan did it in black ink. Right as he was finishing, the dude pulled out a silver marker and asked if he could do it in silver as it was the Silver Surfer. Stan obliged and hence...a double sig book was born.
He even had the paperwork from the meet. Look how much he paid just to have Stan sign his book!!! Madness!!!!
This book grading at an 8.5 without a sig, typically sells for around $2000 alone. No idea what it’ll fetch with the sigs.
So after his amazingly long and unnecessary presentation...we got down to business. His insane value he slapped on the collection was around $7500 dollars which is far over valued. He asked for half at $3750 to which I told him he was smoking rock. After bringing him back down to earth a bit...we got to negotiation.
I already had a number in my head. Between $1200-$1400 is where I wanted to be at. He uttered $2500 and I just shook my head no. Then he just kept talking himself down...$1800...$1600...$1500 and that was the lowest he would go. That’s when I blurted “I can offer $1200” knowing I’d go up a bit and hoping we would meet at $1300-$1400. He then went to $1400 and then I thought...I’m sticking at $1300. So I went into my cashbox, pulled out $1300, counted it and laid it in front of him. I said “final offer”...after he hemmed and hawed he accepted and was on his way.
I honestly don’t know what to expect on these books. I have to do some research. I have a $100 offer on one of the Silver Surfer hardcovers already from a friend Tim, and I’ll probably take that. If we can chip away several hundred right off the bat by moving the shit I don’t care about at all, that would be ideal.
Not unrealistic to think that the Silver Surfer could fetch $2500-$3000 alone. That Cap is tricky as it has 3 sigs but I’d guess $700-$100?!? Not really sure but I think when all is said and done, we should be able to turn that $1300 into $4000-$5000!!! Not too shabby!!!
Blewitt
